The original Superman movie (1978) was the most expensive film ever made to that point in time and had a five minute-long main title sequence. Five minutes is a long time. At least it is now.
I mean who has the time? Heck, some TV series don’t even have a title sequence and music, they're so afraid people will switch away. The most popular movie ever just shows you the title, a short crawl, and then on to spaceships and explosions. No more titles is the way things are going. No more, “It’s a story about a man named Brady….”
Like Fred Allen says to the audience as the titles in his picture “It’s In the Bag" roll, — “Who ARE these people? Who CARES?!”
The Superman movie, when it was released, was a big deal. But would today's audiences really stay in their seats for THIS?
It's the five minute opening title sequence. FIVE MINUTES. Sure, sure, it won a Clio Award just for the Robert Greenberg-designed slitscan motion control process.
Give it a whirl. Click the play button and force yourself to watch every name on there. Sure, these laser titles were a cool thing back then and were specially developed for the feature, but FIVE FRIKKIN' MINUTES of John Williams music telling you "this is exciting" while looking at name after name. "No, John, this isn't exciting. Get to the damn plot already." Try to force yourself to be in the 1978 mall multiplex movie theatre and watch. Pretend you are captive to them. It's a long time. And I bet today's moviegoers would walk out.
But to me it's still pretty and pretty exciting.
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2 comments:
I can remember (or think I can) the credits and seeing the movie for the second time ("upstairs" at Loew's Orpheum on NYC's 86th Street).
Those credits amazed me by repurposing the effects of a rock concert light show as well as sparklers for effects behind the titles. So effective yet so much something that could only be executed in those years.
Note how it starts: A curtain and a B&W film, a romanticized vision of the old Saturday matinee plus a show of affection for Superman's origins. THEN the nifty segue into the booming music and effects. The message is that this is going to be straight but playful, on an epic scale. Beyond that it works like an entr'acte, not just building anticipation but distancing you from the outside world. One can argue this was essential for a movie with so much buzz, in a genre heretofore confined to kiddie fare and camp comedy.
"The Pink Panther" opens with what is essentially a cartoon short set to a catchy, jazzy theme. It's amusing in its own right, but also telegraphs what kind of comedy is forthcoming. We're not alarmed when the slapstick kicks in.
In a way a good title sequence serves as an overture. On a musical, stage or screen, the overture gets the audience settled in and establishes a mood. One can argue that it takes over the function a movie theater lobby now only sporadically performs, giving a sense of occasion and event to the act of looking at a screen.
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