All hail, thee, CineFix, master of the movie list! Today’s list examines a little-appreciated, but critical part of the film-going experience: the opening credits. We’re all used to ho-hum opening credits, but every once in awhile (and not as often now as we’d like), we get a credits sequence that baptizes you into the tone, the plot, the style, or even the backstory (think Watchmen’s brilliant credits) of the film. Of course, the most famous of opening credits and most psychedelic are those from the Bond franchise, two of which ended up on Cinefix’s list, but I think Skyfall’s were every bit as good as the two chosen, combining Adele’s masterful song with the Bondian trip down the rabbit hole of images that would soon be significant to 007’s adventures. All told though, another masterful lesson in cinema history and fun view from the list forgers at CineFix.
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I love the opening credits for Catch Me If You Can, but the fact that it edged out The Pink Panther, which really needed to be on this list, is a crime. The guy who animated the PP credits actually lost work, because some critics said that the credit sequence was better than the film itself. Come on, CineFix… it’s the credit sequence to the Pink Panther. Some respect.
If we’re going to talk about David Fincher, the credits for Girl With the Dragon Tattoo are better than Fight Club’s. They tell the story of the entire trilogy of novels, and if you saw the film in the theater, they blew you out of your seat. They were really hallucinatory and alarming.
MASH belonged on this list. The visuals captured the horrors of war… “Suicide is Painless” was funny and ironic as hell. Voila! Instantly, you know the weird tone of the movie.
Also, given Danny Elfman’s power to elevate the work of Tim Burton (not that it needs elevating) I would have chosen one of those classic credit sequences, maybe Edward Scissorhands. And I am about to be really pompous, here. Edward Scissorhands is a film about Asperger’s Syndrome. I am so certain about this, I would bet my life on it. The film is full of crystal-clear symbolism, and in addition Edward simply relates to the world like a person with the disorder. It’s almost like Burton went through a checklist. I think that Burton and his screenwriter chose to make the film about a person with Asperger’s to give their allegory about otherness a clear structure and cohesiveness, though one of them might have firsthand experience, because the disorder had not yet been widely publicized when the film was made. Anyway, the opening credit sequence shows us a bewildering array of images from the film, and if you have seen the film before, it’s obvious how they fit in. If not, the images are mystifying, devoid of context. I believe we are being prepared for what is to come, we are being prepped to see the world like Edward does.
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Monty Python and the Holy Grail.
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For uniqueness, it’s really hard to top. I love these lists they do because they really do cover ALL of cinema not just modern or old, but a fair mix of both and even if they don’t give it the nod, they manage to sneak about 10 in per slot so you really get a feel for the whole breadth of the subject. I don’t subscribe to a whole lot of YouTube channels, but I definitely watch everything they do.
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My favourite is from Ex Drummer, a pretty harsh Flemish film. That is just… mind-devastating.
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