Whenever I used to watch films, my mind used to wander during the opening credits. If it were possible, I would skip through them. It seemed to me that their purpose was merely self-promotion: to show off the filmmakers’ and actors’ names to the accompaniment of uninteresting music and dull images. But now I think differently.
The images shown during the opening credits of films vary considerably. There are the iconic openings to James Bond films - after the exhilarating action sequence we are always confronted by ladies swimming alongside guns and bullets. The opening credits for the latest instalment, Casino Royale, goes back to basics but doesn’t cease to amaze, with the presence of spades, hearts, diamonds, and clubs for each animated on-screen death. However, most opening credits just set the scene, tone or atmosphere in their different ways. Kubrick’s The Shining sets the mood for the whole film by showing aerial shots of a car winding its way towards its destination. Don Siegel’s The Beguiled starts with still photographs of wounded and killed soldiers during the American Civil War, thereby not only setting the time and place of the action but also a deadly tone. And who could forget the opening of Carol Reed’s The Third Man with its close-up of zither strings playing the film’s signature music? Hitchcock’s Rear Window simply shows the slow opening of blinds in the main protagonist’s apartment during its opening titles. This conveys the characters’ nascent voyeurism in the story and also the viewer’s own voyeurism in watching, essentially the theme of the entire film.
However, there has been a recent trend to do away with opening credits altogether. Though most titles just simply states the film’s name- Citizen Kane and The Godfather saga, for example- it was Star Wars that was the ‘breakthrough’ in doing away with them entirely. George Lucas refused to include them in The Empire Strikes Back because he thought the opening would not be as effective. Oddly, the Directors’ Guild of America took offence and fined Lucas, who promptly resigned. Nowadays non-existent opening credits are commonplace, with films like Batman Begins and directors such as Clint Eastwood choosing to do away with them completely.
And what about ending credits? Nowadays, the credits for most films come at the end of the film, where the typical moviegoer will just leave the cinema. With the increase in scriptwriters, stunt-coordinators and coffee-getters, these lengthy credits feel like a whole other film. Contrast this with older films where the opening credits listed the important information, and the end credits simply amounted to ‘THE END.’ Those two words have much more impact in certain films, such as Howard Hawks’ classical film noir The Big Sleep.
Is there anything wrong with this trend? One obvious advantage with opening titles is the immediate attraction of the viewer’s attention. To do away with them is a great opportunity being missed. With a little bit of inventiveness something more than merely setting the scene can be shown in the opening credits. Speilberg’s Catch Me if You Can shows a summary of the whole film in a retro-style cartoon. Going back even further, Around the World in Eighty Days lengthily and imaginatively summarised this in its end credits. The opening of Tarantino’s Jackie Brown shows in miniature what the eponymous hero will do in the film. Some films go even further. The original Alfie has Michael Caine breaking the ‘fourth wall’ by turning to the camera and explaining that the opening titles will not be appearing as we would expect. Milos Forman’s Man on the Moon has Jim Carrey’s character initiating the end credits at the beginning to get rid of the undedicated viewers. Although I have to admit sometimes a lack of opening credits is effective, like when Kubrick’s Barry Lyndon dispenses with them to emphasise the literary roots of the film.
So just because there are credits in every film, it does not mean that the director cannot make some other use of them. So when the time comes, sit back, pay attention and keep that finger off the fast-forward button.