Poster, Das verflixte 7. Jahr,

1960

Billy Wilder’s 1955 film was a global hit thanks essentially to one shot: Marilyn Monroe in a white dress, laughing innocently as her skirt blows up above an air vent and reveals her legs. The image is etched in collective memory and enshrined Monroe as a figure onto whom male fantasies were projected. Graphic artist Dorothea Fischer-Nosbisch’s Monroe appears to cite the famous film still although her legs remain concealed but for a glimpse of thigh. Fischer-Nosbisch supplemented a portrait photograph of Monroe from the film Niagara with two-dimensional, graphic forms. Monroe looks out at viewers with a lascivious yet self-confident gaze. Although the role is literally written on her body, in Fischer-Nosbisch’s interpretation she nonetheless seems to assert her physical self-determination.
After the Second World War, Fischer-Nosbisch and her husband founded a studio collective and developed a new aesthetic of the film poster together with contemporary designers, as exemplified here. (Bettina Richter)