From the Life of the Marionettes / B1 / Poland

20.04.16

PosterPosterPoster
Title
From the Life of the Marionettes
AKA
Aus dem Leben der Marionetten (West Germany - original title)
Year of Film
1980
Director
Ingmar Bergman
Starring
Robert Atzorn, Christine Buchegger, Martin Benrath, Rita Russek, Lola Müthel, Walter Schmidinger, Heinz Bennent, Ruth Olafs, Karl-Heinz Pelser, Gaby Dohm
Origin of Film
West Germany | Sweden
Genre(s) of Film
Drama
Type of Poster
B1
Style of Poster
--
Origin of Poster
Poland
Year of Poster
1983
Designer
Wieslaw Walkuski
Artist
Wieslaw Walkuski
Size (inches)
26 6/16" x 37 11/16"
SS or DS
SS
Tagline
--

Wieslaw Walkuski artwork features on this Polish poster for the release (in 1983) of Swedish director Ingmar Bergman‘s From the Life of the Marionettes. The film was developed and shot by Bergman whilst he was living as a tax exile in West Germany and had a screenplay and soundtrack in German. It was originally developed as a TV movie and was shown on a German public-service channel in November 1980, but was later released at several film festivals and granted wider cinema releases in the following years.

The film depicts the degeneration of the relationship between the arguing couple seen briefly in Bergman’s earlier film, Scenes From a Marriage, Katarina and Peter Egermann (played by Christine Buchegger and Robert Atzorn). The Wikipedia plot description makes it sound like a pretty grim watch:

‘As Katarina seeks other lovers, the emotionally repressed and despondent Peter descends into neuroses, eventually leading him to tearfully murder a prostitute (played by Rita Russek), with the same name as his wife, at a Munich peep show before sodomising her dead body. In the closing sequence he is incarcerated in a mental asylum’

Wieslaw Walkuski was born in 1956 and studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw. Since 1981 Walkuski has worked as a graphic designer and artist for publishing houses and theaters, as well as for the Polish film organisations Polfilm and Film Polski. He’s worked freelance since 1987 and has painted over 200 film posters. He continues to live and work in Warsaw. Walkuski’s official website features galleries of many of his designs and images of his other work.

He’s responsible for some incredible designs and two of my favourites include those he painted for Lars Von Trier’s Breaking the Waves and the Dustin Hoffman comedy Tootsie.

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