In praise of...Creative Film Credits
Watching Lost in Translation (again) last night got me to thinking about how film credits are essentially a functional phenomenon. They are there to announce the movie title, big up the overpaid cast, and schmooze the influential backers. Quite often they're a drag - up to 5 minutes of unnecessary preamble - before the action starts.
Other times, when creatively designed, they're a positive delight.
On rare occasions they're somehow even better then the films themselves. But they're best of all when they use themselves to deliberately set out the tone for the film - such as in Lost in Translation where Bill Murray's character is ferried by taxi, to his hotel in the dead of night, past a whirlwind of obscure Japanese neon. Other notable examples, for me, would be the chilling and vicious credits for Se7en, and my favourite of all, Napoleon Dynamite, above, featuring a stream of nauseous 1970s-style food options from middle America. Any other examples you can think of?
Other times, when creatively designed, they're a positive delight.
On rare occasions they're somehow even better then the films themselves. But they're best of all when they use themselves to deliberately set out the tone for the film - such as in Lost in Translation where Bill Murray's character is ferried by taxi, to his hotel in the dead of night, past a whirlwind of obscure Japanese neon. Other notable examples, for me, would be the chilling and vicious credits for Se7en, and my favourite of all, Napoleon Dynamite, above, featuring a stream of nauseous 1970s-style food options from middle America. Any other examples you can think of?
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