The Coen Brother’s A Serious Man wasn’t just my favorite film of 2009, it also arrived with my favorite poster from the year as well. The poster features a beautiful color palette—a faded away blue sky and Larry Gopnick’s washed out skins tones—that makes the photograph appear as though it were a forty-year old document held on to from the time in which the film takes place. The image shows Larry staring off the poster’s edge—looking for God or maybe looking for the Coens; for Larry, they might just be one and the same. Unfortunately for Larry, the photo he calls home has been encased by a thick, yellowed matting that holds him as a prisoner in the Coen’s constructed world. This poster is a phenomenal achievement in design that replicates the film’s era by way of the nostalgic photographs that often define it. At the same time, the image conveys the film’s theme of looking for answers where there are none to be found. Fantastic.

Inspired by Matt Zoller Seitz’s article in Salon, "The Most Extraordinary Movie Fan Art", I have developed my own fan art for A Serious Man. I could never compete with the film’s brilliant poster, so I went in a different direction all together and designed the first page of a monthly newsletter from Larry’s synagogue, B’nai Abraham. Click the thumbnail to enlarge to a readable size.

More on A Serious Man:
A Serious Man: On Sex, Manhood, and Not Thinking
The Search for Answers in A Serious Man