127 Hours Poster Analysis

This poster doesn't actually reveal much or any of the storyline or what the film is about. A person looking at the poster would, at first be clueless as to what the film is about. In this way I think that the poster more serves as a way of pointing the viewer to the trailer or to find out more, as the poster certainly makes the viewer want to find out what it is about. It makes them want to know this because of the headline at the top that says 'A Triumphant True Story' which naturally would make anyone curious as to what story it is telling. The film is made much more exciting when the audience knows that it's a true story, as it makes everything seem more dramatic that it actually happened. However the viewer of the poster isn't watching the film, so they have to be blown away that something actually happened from what they can see on the poster. This is surely done by the picture of the man balancing between two rocks which are dramatically separated at the bottom. The audience will be amazed by the incredible feat that the man is trying to accomplish and their amazement is heightened by the fact that it is a true story. Of course the poster is exaggerating reality, and the chasm doesn't look that dramatic in the film or real life,  but the reality is that the chasm wouldn't look nearly as impressive if the viewer were to see the actual one. Posters depend heavily upon one picture to sell the entire film, so the exaggeration is vital. It also adds to what the director wants the feel of the film to be; he could have decided to evoke the feel as a claustrophobic bottle drama which could have worked and appealed to a large audience, but instead he choses this exaggeration in order to present it as a 'Triumphant' human achievement. It is quite hard to sell a man cutting his arm off in this way, so it leaves out that part and instead focusses on an almost 'feel-good' type of film, which seems odd, but feel-good films tend to sell a lot better than bottle dramas.