Plotting by Poster, Part II

Copyright 2019 by Gary L. Pullman

In case you missed the initial post concerning this topic, I suggested how movie posters can help to suggest plots and identified these guidelines for anyone who might like to try this approach to plotting stories:

1. If the poster you select promotes a movie you have seen, pretend it does not, and don't reference the film, even in your thoughts, as you analyze the poster. The poster should speak for itself, as it were.
2. We are taught to read from left to right and from top to bottom. Graphic designers know this and use our training to their benefit in creating designs and art and in communicating to us.
3. A poster is likely to have a central image, and this central image will be emphasized in some way—through its position, just off center; through color or intensity; by being of bigger than other images. It is obvious that the artist wants the viewer to focus attention on this central image. Text and other images, if any, will relate to this central image and help to develop its figurative aspects.
4. Most art employs various “visual” figures of speech—metaphors, similes, allusions, personifications, exaggerations, understatements, symbols, puns or other plays on words, synecdoches.
5. See all there is to see—not just size, but color, intensity, depth, balance, negative and positive space, shape, texture, size, density, position, arrangement, patterns. facial expressions, hairstyles, costumes (i. e., the models' clothing), age, sex, gender, class, income level. Also consider whatever props might be displayed.
6. Analyze visual evidence of behavior: care, neglect, attendance, abandonment, support, and so forth.
7. Consider the other four senses, too: what sounds, tastes, smells, and tactile sensations does the poster suggest?
8. The text is the key that unlocks the visual imagery's figurative meaning.

With these guidelines in mind, start by describing the poster. Start at the top and work your way down. Include quotations of any text you encounter. Be detailed, but don't be flowery. At this point, be a camera operator, not a sketch artist, an objective viewer, not an interpreter.

After describing the poster, use the elements you identified to complete this table. In doing so, stick to the poster itself.

WHO?
WHAT?
WHEN?
WHERE?
HOW?
WHY?

Next, question yourself about each of the six phrases you entered into the table. In doing so, make observations; draw inferences from what you see and read in the poster. Look for potential relationships among the poster's elements. Look, also, for possible connections between your own thoughts, between your own feelings, and between your own thoughts and feelings. Ask yourself how the answers you listed in the table could be “flipped,” or reinterpreted.

As a result of this process, you may develop an idea for a story or even a synopsis of a plot for a story. At the same time, you will have a sequence of elements that are logically related and which, together, form a narrative thread upon which, by the questioning process and the use of your own imagination, you can embroider, or develop further. Statues of saints stand on pedestals connected to the same walls, farther along.

THE OFFERING

Text above the image reads, in blood-red letters: “The chosen will be sacrificed.”

Hanging, apparently from the ceiling of the cathedral in which their suspended bodies hang, visible from the knee down, are three corpses. They wear slips, skirts, or dresses, which suggest that the bodies of those of women. Blood trails along the wall on either side of the bodies.

The title of the film, The Offering, appears across the middle of the image, diving it into an upper and a lower half. The bodies of the women and the cathedral's ceiling and walls occupy the upper half of the poster. Below the title, the statues, blood-smeared pews, and a bloody cross appear. The blood trailing down the walls link the upper and the lower halves of the poster. The aisle between the ranks of pews is saturated with blood.

Observations

The women's legs seem to be lacerated; they have bled. They also appear to be scarred. Although they may wear skirts or dresses, it's also possible that they wear only slips. Although their legs have bled, they have not done so profusely, but the volume of blood in the cathedral—on its walls, pews, and aisle—indicate extreme blood loss. Even if the women bear wounds in their abdomens, it is unlikely that three of them could have shed as much blood as stains the cathedral.

The cross is neither the Latin cross of Protestant denominations nor the Catholic crucifix, but a Levithan cross (also known as the brimstone symbol, Satan's cross, the cross of Lorraine, and the Patriarchal cross). In some cases, the crossbeams (arms) of the cross are of different lengths, with the top arm shown as being shorter than the lower arm, but the crossbeams are also shown as being of equal lengths. The cross has various mystical meanings and associations.

WHO? The corpses of three bloody, scarred women
WHAT? hang
WHEN? during the day
WHERE? from a cathedral ceiling
HOW? by unknown means
WHY? sacrifices of a diabolical cult.

Result: The corpses of three bloody, scarred women hang, during the day, from a cathedral ceiling by unknown means, sacrifices of a diabolical cult.

Questions

Why and by whom were these three women in particular “chosen”? Did they “sin” against the tenets of their “faith”? Are their deaths meant to appease an angry deity or spirit? If so, how and why? If not, what is the purpose of their sacrifices? Who benefits from their sacrifices and how? Have they been left hanging so the blood would drain from their bodies or as a warning to other congregants? Were the women sexually assaulted before they were killed? Were they beaten or tortured? What caused their deaths? Why are the women's upper bodies not shown? How did blood get on the walls, pews, aisle, and Leviathan cross? How did blood from the Leviathan cross form two other crosses (or did this blood form the capital letter “H”)? Is the cathedral, a center and a symbol of Christian faith—and a house of God—being mocked? If so, by whom and for what reason? How can the story line be “flipped”?

SLITHER

Centered at the top of the poster, against a shadow in the form of a cross (the frame of a window), the shaved, bent right leg of a young woman appears above the side of a white porcelain bathtub located next to a tile wall; the bathtub is half filled with soapy water.

The scene is framed by the left jamb of a doorway and by the open door to the bathroom. On the edge of the bathtub, a red creature resembling a cross between a snail and a gigantic sperm cell perches, as a second creature follows it, through its trail of slime, leaving a trail of slime behind itself as well.

Below the second creature, a third lifts its body and appears to attach its head to the side of the tub, preparing to follow the other two creatures up the side of the tub. At least eighteen more of the creatures gather on the floor, near the tub.

Observations

The shadow could suggest that the story has religious significance or religious undertones. The cross formed by the shadow is Latin in design, suggesting a Protestant denomination. The fact that it is merely the a shadow could imply that the young woman's faith is insubstantial.

The door is open, although one would expect it to be closed, since the woman is bathing.

The creatures resemble gigantic sperm cells in shape, but they are meaty, red, and “raw” looking, both meat (phalli, perhaps) and sperm. Their appearance is disgusting, and it, like the number of the creatures, seems menacing. They seem intent upon attacking the young woman, as if they are parasites in search of a host. They are large, too, if they are intended to represent phalli. Long and thick, they might cause pain. Despite their sperm-like appearance, none of the creatures exhibits testicles, which makes them perverse as well as disgusting. The slime they rail behind them resembles semen, but, considering that the slime is behind them, it wouldn't be fecundating fluid, unless the creatures exude more of it during their assault. (The number of the creatures suggests gang rape.)

The film's title, Slither, emphasizes the method of locomotion the creatures employ, which is one shared by snakes, a smooth movement “over a surface with a twisting or oscillating motion.” The verb's synonyms suggest additional associations, “squirm,” “wriggle,” “snake,” and “worm,” which, in turn, suggest such qualities as furtiveness and evil (like “dragon,” “worm” and “snake” were associated with the devil).

In religious ritual, bathing is a means of cleansing one's soul, of washing away sins. The young woman's nudity suggests there may be a relationship between it and the devil, that her body has been an instrument of fornication, a sin against God, and that she now seeks to cleanse herself spiritually, albeit in vain, since the slug-like creatures resembling sperm cells have invaded her home, her bathroom, and appear to be about to invade her body as well.

The open door reveals a private act—the cleansing of the soul—making a personal and spiritual action a public spectacle. Despite the woman's attempt to gain absolution, the poster seems to suggest that her sins will be revealed and she must suffer for her indiscretion.

WHO: A naked young woman

WHAT: is about to be assaulted by bizarre creatures

WHEN: as she bathes

WHERE: in a bathtub in her bathroom

HOW: with soap and water

WHY: to cleanse herself and her soul after having had sex.

Questions

Is the young woman devoted in her religious faith? Why is only her leg shown? Why is the door to the bathroom open instead of closed while she bathes? Who opened the door? She? Someone else? The creatures? (Was the door locked or only closed?) What are the strange creatures? What are their abilities? Why are there so many of them? What led to their bizarre appearance? Why are they attracted to the young woman? Are they a menace to her? How could the story line be “flipped”?

Like to try the approach yourself? Here's a poster to get you started: