I've always admired really unique unusual movie posters, ones that avoid the cliches of, like, faces across the top, or the hero seen from the back or whatever. Not that can't look nice-- the latter is the obvious one for Adonis, for example --but I like it so much better when they're iconic, clever, or have specific meaning for the piece they represent. Had an idea for a poster for Mrs. Hawking that would be unique. Not sure if it would work, but it would certainly be interesting.
There's about eight million reasons why Mrs. Hawking should be filmed rather than staged. One of the reasons would be that we could show details and subtle things that simply
wouldn't be visible to the audience from the stage. I was musing at rehearsal the other night that one moment that I would love to be way more visually defined than the limitations of the stage allows is the moment when Mary treats Mrs. Hawking's wound right after she first discovers her activities. The idea is that Mrs. Hawking has suffered a grazing wound low on the left side of her abdomen, and when Mary looks to treat it, she is shocked by what she sees. In the script, she comments only on how many scars Mrs. Hawking has. But in my head, that's only part of it. If this were a film, with a camera that could give us a closeup on details, what we would see of her body would give us so much information. Yes, we would see all the scars left over from healed wounds. We would also see her defined abs, showing how strong and fit she was. And we would see the faded remains of stretch marks, hinting at the reveal to come. I love laying the groundwork beforehand so that the audience gets an "Of course!" moment when they finally make the connection, and that would be a great wordless way to do it.
I was thinking a shot of her abdomen, with all those unique indicators of her identity and history on display, would make for a unique poster. Maybe with some article of article of conservative Victorian clothing also visible to contrast, as if suggesting that this is what lies beneath that unlikely facade. Not sure how that would work, as any item of Victorian womenswear would be hard to wear in such as way as exposed the midriff, but I like the concept. I also like the concept of the juxtaposition of the scars of her non-traditional warrior's life with the more common scars of motherhood. Maybe the fresh wound from the scene would be there. Maybe one gloved hand is seen lifting the clothing to expose it. Maybe her blonde braid can be seen hanging low enough from her opposite shoulder.
I don't know if it would work. Maybe it's playing too much on tropes of sexualization to have a shot of a woman's toned, if also otherwise disfigured, abdomen. Maybe it only seems cool to me because I'm obsessed with abs, Frances's in particular. But I like the idea, especially since there's so much coded information in the visual that would not be immediately obvious. I wonder if I could manage to do makeup well enough to execute the look on Frances and take a picture of it. Couldn't hurt to test it, right?
