Rhetorical Analysis of The Poster to The Movie Inception

Inception is a 2010 psychological science fiction action film written, co-produced, and directed by Christopher Nolan. The film features an international ensemble cast starring Leonardo DiCaprio, Tom Hardy, Ellen Page, and many more A-list actors (Zeitchik). It stars DiCaprio as Dom Cobb who’s a thief with the rare ability to enter people’s dreams and steal their secrets from their subconscious. Wanted for his crimes and unable to visit his children, Cobb was offered a chance to regain his old life back as payment for doing an impossible job, which is planting an idea in the subconscious of a targeted person, and the process is called “Inception.” Inception was officially budgeted at $160 million, a cost that was split between both Warner Bros. and Legendary Pictures (Fritz). Inception’s premiere was held in London on July 8, 2010; and was eventually released in theaters the next week. The film grossed over US$828 million worldwide, making it the fourth highest-grossing film of 2010. The film was incredibly successful, winning four Academy Awards and considered one of the best films of the 2010s, receiving critical praise for its screenplay, visual effects, score, and its ensemble cast. A film’s success relies on many key factors, obviously, a well-written script, cast and crew are important, but most importantly is the marketing, and what techniques and strategies they use. This film particularly relied on its poster as a marketing strategy to grab people’s attention and they successfully constructed a poster with the right ingredients and successful rhetorical strategies that sparked a lot of interest around the film. While using pathos appeal, the Inception movie poster conveys a lot of hidden massages that attract specific audiences to go and watch this movie.

The first thing the person looking at the poster sees is the very unusual picture of the road the main characters are standing on as what is seen in this photograph is virtually impossible. The long city road is bent upwards, as if it’s folding, letting the audience take a second look to understand what exactly is happening in the image. This hints that the movie is dramatic and mysterious. This image is also dark involving blues and blacks, this type of lighting is usually for thriller and sci-fi movies, so this attracts these types of audiences. The main image consists of six people in an unrealistic place, and though the names of the characters are not revealed, three of them appear to be armed, which hints that the film is an action film with aspects of a thriller as guns are usually a sign that the movie contains action. Also, the characters are dressed differently, looking in different directions, and have a facial expression, which lets the audience question if they are working together or against each other. There is one clear tagline on top of the poster which reads: “YOUR MIND IS THE SCENE OF THE CRIME.” This tagline is very catchy and gives the poster the element of curiosity and adds to the overall image of the poster that something dark is going to happen. Also, this tagline uses the direct address to draw the viewer in and make the poster seem more personal to the target audience, persuading them further to watch the film.

Although pathos appeals are present, ethos appeals are the primary form of rhetorical appeal used throughout the poster. The star billing is at the top of the poster to catch the audiences’ attention. There are several famous film stars on the poster such as Leonardo DiCaprio, Cillian Murphy, Tom Hardy and more, but because of his reputation DiCaprio has been given a larger name title than the other actors solely based on the fact that he is the protagonist and arguably the most iconic actor in the film, also his name being at the top sets the expectations of the quality of the film to be high as A-list stars tend to go for the more extravagant well-funded movie roles, not to mention that his name alone will attract more people especially his huge fan base. Again, all the actors’ names are capitalized to make them pop out more and this is to get the target audience even more interested in watching the movie to find out what their favorite or preferred actor role in the movie is no matter the genre of the film. The director’s name on the poster is written in a very small font, however, the layout of the text “From the director of The Dark Night” is important as it lets the audience know that the director who was also responsible for The Dark Night, which was a success due to its creativity and high box-office sales, and was considered one of the best films of its decade and one of the best superhero films of all time. And lets Nolan fans go and watch the movie.

At the bottom of the poster, there is a billing block containing the film’s credits. Within this are iconic, recognizable company logos to make the movie seem more credible. The logos appeal is present in the making of the film’s poster. A great example is the color palette of the poster is predominantly dark, implying that the film has dark themes, and we instantly notice the contrast in color of the title of the film “INCEPTION’ written in a very clear and standing out capitalized font with the color red which has a connotation with violence, danger, anger, and adventure. Another thing we notice is the bright light behind the characters. The positioning of the light at the end of the road is effective against the darker foreground which creates suspense. The viewer’s eye immediately goes to the light due to the contrast of the poster making them notice the deserted road which is visually eye-catching. Also, the thriller genre is instantly recognizable from the dark costumes of the six people on the foreground posing ready as if something is about to happen, this also creates suspense and fits with the audience’s thriller expectations.

The poster is pretty mysterious, dark and enticing grabbing the audience’s attention, and instead of relying on many words, it focused more on visual effects to catch the audience’s attention. In conclusion, the Inception movie poster used a lot of strategies to grab the viewer’s attention and persuade them to watch the movie, it especially relied on rhetorical appeals and made a well-composed poster that attracted many viewers’ eyes. The main thing that attracts the viewer is the color schemes; the dark colors create a thriller feel for the film and the bright red gives it a danger feel which is common for the viewer to instantly know the genre. Another focus of the poster is the film’s credibility, and the poster viewed a lot of things that made it credible such as Leonardo DiCaprio’s name in big font to attract his fans. This poster successfully attracted a lot of viewer’s attention and persuaded them to watch the movie which led to the film’s incredible success.

Works Cited

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