Has It Started Yet?

I do love the cinema because of its giant screens and sometimes breath taking soundscapes, but I wish cinemas weren’t full of other people. They walk in late, they talk, they look at their phones, they eat noisy food and what is it with people who come in after or during the opening credits have begun and leave the moment the end credits begin? If this is you, tut! tut! I know cinemas need an audience or they would not exist, and I mourn the closing of so many wonderful cinemas such as The Scala in Kings Cross, but I wish there would be a little more respect for other audience members. It is NOT your front room!

 The reason I wrote this article is because I watched two newly released movies recently that had memorable opening credits (The Brutalist and Longlegs) and a TV show over Christmas that had the worst opening credits I think I’ve ever seen (the Famous Five BBC 2023). ‘Longlegs’ by Osgood Perkins has wonderfully evocative 1970s (esque) horror movie opening credits, which reminded me instantly of early David Cronenberg movies such as ‘Rabid’ (1977) and ‘Shivers’ (1975) and Romero’s classic zombie movie ‘Dawn of the Dead’ (1978).

Like any other piece of packaging, or book cover or essay introduction or ‘pull-quote’, film credits must invite you to savour what is within and they must manage your expectations. I used to go to a film night at the Odeon cinema in Norwich called ‘TBC’ and it was an unusual experience because not only were you not made aware of what the film was before you saw it, you also had no idea of its genre, or cast. The purpose of TBC was to help marketing firms know how to advertise the movie, so they were new films that the public were yet to see and afterward you had to fill out a survey card. Because you had no expectations, you had to work out what the film was about from the opening credits and opening soundtrack. Was it going to be a comedy, a crime thriller, a western, a sci-fi movie? Good opening title design can help you with all of these things at least to some extent (of course there are some movies which subvert genre expectations, e.g. David Fincher’s ‘Fight Club’ (1999), or Robert Rodriguez’ ‘From Dusk ‘Till Dawn’(1996), or Edgar Wright’s 2013 end to the Cornetto trilogy ‘The World’s End’).

Film credits can quite easily be categorised into three historical periods, 1. pre-Saul Bass, 2. Saul Bass and 3. post-Saul Bass.  Why this is will become clear.

The first film credits were created by Thomas Edison to avoid piracy and in the early days of cinema opening films credits offered simple static information such as the film title and the film maker, e.g. George Melies’ 1902 ‘Trip to The Moon’. Back then the actors were not added to credits as there was a fear from film makers that they would gain too much popularity, but as audiences began to recognise faces it became evident that an actor’s name could be used as a draw and by 1912 names began to appear in credits and publicity posters. 

 Most opening film credits were very similar prior to the 1950s and were often static credits painted on Matte glass over opening scenery. There were a few that employed the motif of turning pages in a book and there were one or two who used more imaginative ideas. A particularly good example of this was the opening credits to the 1936 comedy ‘My Man Godfrey’

However, it wasn’t really until graphic designer and typographer Saul Bass came along that everything changed in the world of film credit design.  He was born in New York in 1920 and went to art school in Manhattan before moving to Hollywood and working on print publicity for movies. It was in Hollywood that his talent was spotted by film director Otto Preminger and after designing the poster for Preminger’s 1954 film ‘Carmen Jones’ he was asked to design the opening credit sequence. Apart from the typeface, the sequence was not much different from earlier titles sequences, and it wasn’t until he designed the opening credits for Preminger’s next movie ‘The Man With The Golden Arm’ (1955) that the industry began to sit up and notice. The Swiss modernist and mid-century modernist influenced animated titles with wonderful Jazz score by Elmer Bernstein that introduced a movie about heroin addiction, used ideas that became the ‘Saul Bass Look’ that has been such a strong influence on graphic design and designers since. The movie titles mirrored much of what was going on in 2-dimentional graphic design and abstract expressionism in fine art.

 Bass probably became most famous for his iconic work with Alfred Hitchcock, but he only deigned titles for ‘Vertigo’ 1958, ‘North by Northwest’ 1959 and ‘Psycho’ in 1960, (there are even claims that Bass directed the shower scene in Psycho although Hitchcock strongly refuted this and said that Bass had just worked on the storyboards). 

Bass went on to design opening credits and film posters for 30 more movies after Psycho and made his last opening credit sequences for Martin  Scorsese movies Goodfellas (1990), Cape Fear (1991), Age of innocence (1993) and Casino (1995). Although it is the Hitchcock sequences that have become the most iconic, my favourite has always been the opening montage he created for John Frankenheimer’s 1966 movie ‘Grand Prix’. I really love splint screen.

Many people don’t notice the influence Bass has had on credit sequence and movie poster design, but it is there. Firstly,  the Bond Movie opening credits are strongly influenced by Bass. Walt Jabsco ,the Two-Tone Logo designed by Jerry Dammers and John Simms Bass is a Bass influenced, black suited silhouette character and the opening of the TV show ‘Mad Men’ follows a similar character falling from a building.

The opening credits for the wonderful 2002 movie ‘Catch Me if You Can’ designed by Florence Deygas  and Oliver Kuntzel or the similar credits for the 2005 ‘Kiss Kiss Bang Bang’ designed by Danny Yount could are also homages to the work of Bass.

Today streaming sites often allow you to skip opening credits and advertise upcoming shows over the closing credits which suggest they have little or no respect for this area of design or the people whose names appear on those credits. However, the Star Wars spin-offs on Disney+ make you watch the credits before seeing the next episode, so well done to them.

Next time you go to the cinema, get there on time to be comfortably seated, with your phones off and conversations finished before the opening credits begin and when the movie ends, sit, and contemplate what you have just seen whilst watching the closing credits as quietly as the opening credits.