NYTimes interviewed Hammett about his new book:http://artsbeat.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/11/27/movies-memorabilia-and-metallica/Here's a portion of the interview:
Q. A big section of the book is devoted to the movie posters in your collection. What do you find appealing about the horror poster?
A. The movie posters are the items that I love the most. I think they are super beautiful. I love what they represent. A lot of the stuff from the ’20s had a very expressionistic look to it. I’m really into German Expressionism. I love “Nosferatu” and “The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari” and “Faust.”
A lot of the posters from the ’30s are also beautiful. At the time horror movies were a relatively new genre, and when the big studios designed posters for them, there was no formula. They used the same approach for a horror movie poster as they would a western or romance. They used lush colors. It was very vibrant. There’s a romantic quality to the approach to these posters that you don’t get nowadays. The technique they used is a lost art.
Q. Do you remember the first poster you got?
A. “The Day of the Triffids.” It’s a film about giant man-eating plants from space that come in on meteorites. What happens is there’s this explosion and it blinds everyone on the face of the earth. Then these man-eating plants stalk humans. I was sequestered inside the house and saw it on TV. I saw it when I was 5. I don’t know if I’d show my 5-year-old this movie.
Q. Is your collection on display in your home or do you keep it in storage?
A. I really am not the kind of person to store it. I have to display it and have it seen. I also have a shortage of wall space, so what I do is rotate stuff. I’ll put something up on the wall and after three months I’ll take it down and put something else in its place.
