In my end is my beginning
Ok so I’ve been thinking about beginnings in movies. Not too much, but I have. Here’s what I’ve thought about.
The opening music changes everything. A good score can even get people into the credits. An example might be The Good the Bad and the Ugly” (thanks Craig). In that film, we see monocolor stills from the movie, and cheesy animations of people getting blown up by cannons. But the score is so intense, I thought it was awesome. Star Wars is the same way. Imagine the explication in A New Hope scrolling off into space to Beth playing harpsichord. The beginning to Star Wars is especially interesting. The old movies had that epic in media res opening, where the story starts in the middle and ends before the end. I suppose Return of the Jedi gives us plenty of closure, even down to glowing Yoda. But it was cool while it lasted.
There’s a big difference between a movie that starts with a long credit reel and one that saves all the credits for the end. Too much or too little opening credit can be disturbing. Usually, I like to settle in to my surroundings during a brief but informative opening credit sequence. If I have to wait forever to see the movie, I’ll admit getting a little bit grumpy. But when it starts right up, like they do sometimes with those pre-credit bits, I am almost always caught off guard.
Gonna go finish getting ready to present today, see you all later
February 28th, 2007 at 10:10 pm
Good points Tyler. I love how the cannon demolishes everything in The Good The Bad & The Ugly opening, including the credit for Sergio Leone himself (a funny and self-deprecating thing to do). I have an appreciation for films where there is a good amount of narrative before we see the credits. Raising Arizona has that wonderful ten minute exposition before rocketing into the opening credits. The Departed was also a fascinating case, twenty minutes of the film went by before a simple black screen with the title displayed, nothing more, it worked almost as a simple footnote to a story where we were already deeply involved.