OFF-CENTERPIECE : MOVIES : Archeology Alert: Movie Posters From the Stone Age

“Thelma & Louise” was one of the most widely discussed films of last year, won a Golden Globe and an Oscar for its screenwriter, Callie Khouri, and has become a top video rental.

And now the feminist heroines are quite literally etched in stone.

In late June, the Venice-based Angeles Press will release a “Thelma & Louise” lithograph created in the style and technical tradition of the early movie posters. The limited edition of 200 prints will be autographed by Khouri, the film’s stars Geena Davis and Susan Sarandon, director Ridley Scott and producer Mimi Polk. The price for the poster is $2,500.

The stone lithograph, which features the images of Davis and Sarandon as they appear in the beginning and conclusion of the film, is the brainchild of Angeles Press owner Toby Michel, a printer, and artist Michael Elins.

“We are the first people in 70 years to actually create a fine-art movie poster drawn by hand and printed from stone,” Michel said. “We did it out of sheer love.”

Invented in 1798 by Aloys Senefelder, stone lithography is a long, laborious process. It died out in North America for several reasons. The quarries, located in France and Germany, Michel said, were bombed during World War I and World War II “so the easy access to grain them wasn’t there anymore,” Michel said. “Then the technology of offset lithography and photolithography came along and it was much easier to do.

“The idea of the (stone lithography) movie poster had died out by the end of the ‘20s as far as drawing it on the stones because of expense and time. It was very slow and you can’t make any changes.”

Elins, an illustrator who has created the movie posters for such films as the Chevy Chase comedy “Funny Farm,” had long wanted to attempt a stone lithograph in the style of Toulouse-Lautrec. A fan of the lush, vivid vintage movie posters, Elins realized “that’s what I have been trying to do in my own way for years. I talked to Toby and said, ‘Let’s try one. Let’s do a current movie poster in the style of the old movie posters.’ ”

Michel and Elins utilized eight stones for the “Thelma & Louise” lithograph. “They are big,” Michel said. “They weigh . . . 400 to 600 pounds.” Each stone accepts a different color of ink specified by the illustration. In this case, Michel used yellow, blue, red, purple, black and flesh and a lettering stone.

The process, Michel said, is a “very complicated” collaboration between the artist and the printer. Elins drew detailed images in black on the stones. Because stone lithography is direct contact print, Elins had to draw his images and lettering backward. “When the piece of paper goes against it in the press, it is a mirror image,” Michel said. “It has to fit perfectly. If they don’t blend together, it looks terrible. It’s very slow but the color and the richness of the drawing far surpasses anything that could be accomplished with current technology.”

Elins and Michel have been working on the “Thelma & Louise” poster since October and will be spending another month printing the 200 copies on handmade paper.

Both were fans of “Thelma & Louise.” And it just so happens that Khouri is Michel’s neighbor.

“We talked to her about it first just to see what somebody’s reaction would be and she flipped,” Michel said. “She came over and saw the process and gave us her full support and introduced us to the proper people at at MGM.” The studio threw in its support. “It has been absolutely green lights all the way. Everyone has absolutely rolled over.”

Michel and Elins are planning to create more stone lithograph movie posters, but don’t want to prematurely discuss their future plans. “We have the luxury of time,” Michel said. “We have the luxury of looking back and saying, ‘What was the thing that attracted the buying public to this movie? Why was this popular?’ Then we can make our image that responds to (the reasons).”

Movie poster collectors, Michel said, who have paid such whopping sums as $57,000 for an original “King Kong,” have gone “ga-ga” over the “Thelma & Louise.” “One guy bought five and another bought three sight unseen, just on the concept alone,” Michel said.

“It’s the kind of thing I could see hanging in my house,” Khouri said. “Right now, I don’t have (the “Thelma & Louise” movie poster) framed. I never did, because I always thought it was pretentious. I don’t want to feel that I am bragging or something. This I will hang in my house without a second thought.”