Rhetorical Analysis of a Movie PDF

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Movie Poster: “Saving Private Ryan”...

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Surname 1 Name Tutor Course Date Movie Poster: “Saving Private Ryan”

Source: (Timmons)

Surname 2 “Saving Private Ryan” is a film that has undergone a fantastic advertisement through the above poster. This poster is often displayed in actual movie theaters and even resized to fit billboards. The posters tend to show people what the title of the movie is and the main casts (Ivasic-Kos, Miran and Luka 2). It is through this poster that many people have been drawn to the movie theaters to watch “Saving Ryan” or even buying the movie through various platforms, such as Netflix, to watch at home. The appealing presentation of the poster has made the movie to hit the right demographic. This movie poster is surrounded by several visual and rhetoric appeals. “Saving Private Ryan” poster brings out the aspect of ethos, pathos and various visual appeals that make the film receive a great viewership. Ethos Similar to most movie posters, the first noticeable feature of this selected poster is the display of cast, which promotes the advert’s aspect of ethos. Many people watch movies solely because of the actors or actresses present in them. For example, many people would say, “When my favorite actor is featured in a movie, I will definitely watch it.” Also, for some, when their favorite producers take part in the movie production, they will ensure they watch it. Many individuals are therefore likely to watch the film, “Saving Private Ryan” due to the presence of names such as Matt Damon, Steven Spielberg, Tom Hanks, and Tom Sizemore. These names give the movie a sense of credibility and legitimacy. It is the responsibility of every advertiser to ensure that each person notices the faces or names on the poster they create just as demonstrated in “Saving Private Ryan’s” poster. All in all, probably the most significant ethos aspect is presence of casts with respectable names. Pathos

Surname 3 The poster is also made up of a reasonable amount of emotional appeal- pathos. This follows then fact that the film’s context falls within WW2. The movie was released in 1998 as demonstrated in the poster. In 1998, veterans, parents, and even grandparents who participated in the Second World War still had the war fresh in their minds. During this time, people were still connected to the events of the war, and some had serious emotional ties to it. There exists a great possibility of people getting intrigued by the film due to the era it was produced in. Additionally, because WW2 was a large scale war, it has a global emotional ties. This makes people worldwide be appealed by the movie, no wonder “Saving Private Ryan” has gotten a reception from great deal of viewers. Logos This poster however, does not display the aspect of logos clearly. Through logos, viewers can have an appeal to logic or reason (Sallis 11). In this case, there is little or no reason presented on the poster that may make a person go and watch it. The creators of the poster do not provide any reasonable argument that convinces people to watch the film at all. Others could argue that the title of the film provides the logos because someone who is interested in saving a pet or someone can watch it to get ideas. Anyway, film titles do not always have to give a direct explanation of what the content is about. As such, this paper argues that there is no clear logical argument for the poster’s viewers to watch the movie. The only exception is that the film may contain a piece of information that may act as a lesson to some. Visual appeals One of the best feature of the poster is that the creator applied various visual methods. Several studies explain that creations requiring visual interpretations are always viewed from the

Surname 4 top first (Benoit 5; Kim, Kim and Hyeon-Jeong 21). In this poster, the viewer first meets the faces of protagonists on the top. Tom Hanks, who is the popular cast in the movie is the most visible and the biggest. This feature draws many viewers attention, and promotes a greater reception of the movie since Tom Hanks is a respectable actor in the film industry, with many fans. The other three actors behind Hanks are not so popular, but known well enough, and as such are eligible of making appearance on the poster of the film. They are capable of drawing viewers’ attention as well. Below the four casts, a lone soldier is shown walking on a hill that is dimly lit. His face cannot be clearly seen, however, his outline is well shown to the audience. The shadow surrounding the character gives the viewers a sense of mystery surrounding the soldier. As such, it is possible for the viewers to grow curious and want to know more about the man by watching the movie. Below the soldier’s picture is a line written, “A Steven Spielberg Film.” This part tells the viewers who the producer is. Since Steven Spielberg is well known for production of great films, many people would be curious to watch and experience his remarkable work. After that is the main title of the movie. The title is presented in a fairly simple font type, which shows that it appeals to mature audiences and is a bit sophisticated. Conclusion To sum up, this paper argues that the poster is fairly done. As much as it does not provide logos, it fulfills all the other rhetoric appeals and even demonstrates a good use of visual appeals. It works well to grab the attention of the viewers and make the viewers get to a point where they would want to watch the film and know exactly what its contents are.

Surname 5 Works Cited Benoit, William L. "A functional analysis of visual and verbal symbols in presidential campaign posters, 1828–2012." Presidential Studies Quarterly 49.1 (2019): 4-22. Ivasic-Kos, Marina, Miran Pobar, and Luka Mikec. "Movie posters classification into genres based on low-level features." 2014 37th international convention on information and communication technology, electronics and microelectronics (MIPRO). IEEE, 2014. Kim, Juheea, Juyeona Kim, and Hyeon-Jeong Suk. "Layout Preference for Korean Movie Posters: Contextual Background or Character Dominance." (2019). Sallis, John. Being and logos: Reading the Platonic dialogues. Indiana University Press, 2019. Timmons, Greg. Saving Private Ryan: The Real-Life D-Day Back Story. 6 Jun, 2018....