Caught By the Tides (风流一代) is a 2024 film by director and documentarian Jia Zhangke tells the parallel stories of two lovers' tumultuous relationship during China's rapid industrialization throughout the 21st century. Its use of unseen and reused footage from the director's old projects dating as far back as the turn of the century are harshly juxtaposed with footage from the COVID-era lockdowns of the 2020's.
In wanting to convey the film's tone through posters, I opted to challenge myself with a composition that was unlike in tone from my previous pieces. Looking at a lot of Douglas Sirk, John Ford, and other films of the Hollywood Golden Age that were more human-level swirling drama/romance stories, I found a repeated motif of colorful graphic containers and two prominent figures, oftentimes man and woman (highlighting the core romance of the film).
Additionally, I researched the medium with which the posters were commonly painted on, opting to paint this piece in acrylic gouache rather than digitally painting, further setting it apart from my previous pieces. The composition, borrowing from Samuel Goldwyn's "The Best Years of Our Lives" poster, took a week to paint. As opposed to putting the two stars beside each other, I wanted to have them on separate planes, separate times, to illustrate the gap in their relationship and their tragic lack of synchronicity.
