Focusing directly on the world of commercial images, Sut Jhally asks some basic questions about the cultural messages emanating from this market-based view of the world: Do our present arrangements deliver what they claim -- happiness and satisfaction? Can we think about our collective as well as our private interests? And, can we think long-term as well as short-term?
1998-01-01
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Every year, thousands of commercials are made that never reach our TV screens, deemed too shocking to see. In order to make it onto the screen, they must clear all manner of obstacles, from fussy clients to obsessive regulators and restrictive rights issues. X-Rated takes a look at these outlawed pieces of advertising, revealing the most explicit, controversial and shocking ads never seen. These are ads that break all manner of taboos, from sex, violence, blasphemy, homosexuality, animal cruelty, rapping pensioners, swearing children, suicidal toys and naked athletes to Kylie in her undies on a bucking bronco. Amongst the contributors are advertising executives, producers and censors. The programme also takes a look at the embarrassing world of western celebrities in Japanese ads.
0.0Featuring interviews with Sir John Hegarty, Lord Tim Bell and Robert E. Jacoby, The Real Saatchis: Masters of Illusion chronicles the rise and fall of Britain's largest advertising agency,
5.0A documentary about the legendary Japanese filmmaker.
7.6Since the late 18th century American legal decision that the business corporation organizational model is legally a person, it has become a dominant economic, political and social force around the globe. This film takes an in-depth psychological examination of the organization model through various case studies. What the study illustrates is that in the its behaviour, this type of "person" typically acts like a dangerously destructive psychopath without conscience. Furthermore, we see the profound threat this psychopath has for our world and our future, but also how the people with courage, intelligence and determination can do to stop it.
7.3A disturbing collection of 1940s and 1950s United States government-issued propaganda films designed to reassure Americans that the atomic bomb was not a threat to their safety.
7.2Helvetica is a feature-length independent film about typography, graphic design and global visual culture. It looks at the proliferation of one typeface (which will celebrate its 50th birthday in 2007) as part of a larger conversation about the way type affects our lives. The film is an exploration of urban spaces in major cities and the type that inhabits them, and a fluid discussion with renowned designers about their work, the creative process, and the choices and aesthetics behind their use of type.
0.0Advertising: Colorful and projected on a large scale. The new era begins at the beginning of the 20th century in Berlin, Munich and Vienna. Lucian Bernhard, Ludwig Hohlwein and Julius Klinger put the products of industrialization in a new light: cars and cigarettes, fashion and cosmetics. The story of the three exceptional graphic artists and how their poster art revolutionized advertising.
10.0The art of the "pitch" and its role in society, as told by many of the pitch industry's greatest salesmen, including Arnold Morris, Sandy Mason, Lester Morris, Wally Nash and Ed McMahon as well as a look at the Popeil family.
7.0The personal odysseys of some of the most influential advertising visionaries of all time and the stories behind their campaigns.
0.0A travelogue through the diverse neighborhoods of Madrid, its picturesque streets and its history; and an approach, with a sense of humor, to the lighted signs and advertising slogans of the shops: an unusual portrait of the city and its people.
7.6Once upon a time... consumer goods were built to last. Then, in the 1920’s, a group of businessmen realized that the longer their product lasted, the less money they made, thus Planned Obsolescence was born, and manufacturers have been engineering products to fail ever since. Combining investigative research and rare archive footage with analysis by those working on ways to save both the economy and the environment, this documentary charts the creation of ‘engineering to fail’, its rise to prominence and its recent fall from grace.
7.2A documentary on the marketing of pop culture to Teenagers.
6.2Programming the Nation? takes an encompassing look at the history of subliminal messaging in America. According to many authorities, since the late 1950s subliminal content has been tested and delivered through all forms of mass-media including Hollywood filmmakers Alfred Hitchcock and William Friedkin. Even our modern military has been accused of these practices in the "war on terror" against soldiers and civilians both abroad and at home. With eye-opening footage, revealing interviews, humorous anecdotes, and an array of visual effects, the film categorically explores the alleged usage of subliminals in advertising, music, film, television, anti-theft devices, political propaganda, military psychological operations, and advanced weapons development. Director Jeff Warrick makes it his personal mission to determine if these manipulative tactics have succeeded in "programming the nation?" Or, if subliminal messaging belongs in the category of what many consider urban legend.
3.0The story of pioneering women making iconic TV ads that changed the world: from Shake n' Vac and Levi's, to the Flake girl in the bath and the Lynx effect
Part of a triptych of fashion films edited from Erwin Blumenfeld's original footage by filmmaker Adam Mufti and sound designer Olivier Alary. This film examines the concept of 'Abstraction & Distortion' in Blumenfeld's motion image work.
Part of a triptych of fashion films edited from Erwin Blumenfeld's original footage by filmmaker Adam Mufti and sound designer Olivier Alary. This film examines the concept of 'Process & Surrealism' in Blumenfeld's motion image work.
6.4A documentary about branding, advertising and product placement that is financed and made possible by brands, advertising and product placement.
0.0Film collage with documentary material from the time of the German economic miracle. The "Golden" 50s run in a serene potpourri of weekly clips, old cinema, and party advertising, demonstrate the attempts of the revived industry to change consumer habits. In between, pictures of the politicians of the first hour. All this in the nostalgia touch of a time when nylons triumphed.
8.0A porn-loving, Charles Manson-befriending, Mississippi Republican runs to become the next sheriff.
6.0Nobody captured the atmosphere of 1990s Berlin better than German photographer Daniel Josefsohn, who died in 2016 at the age of 54, leaving his mark in advertising with his irreverent aesthetic and punk sensibility. It was his spontaneous, imperfect images shot for an MTV campaign in 1994 that first made him famous.