"You know how people are. You tell 'em somethin', they start talkin'." - Linda
Firing a mix of critical thought and mesmerizing immersion, Dan Perri's title design for Terrence Malick's Days of Heaven combines street level photojournalism and credit-to-character inferences drawing the curious eye at will, the ears aswoon with "Carnival of the Animals - The Aquarium" by Camille Saint-Saens. You are nowhere if not here, with these people, in the Gilded Age of American history.
And then the last shot of the [opening title sequence] subtlety shifts us from photos [and] into the world of the film. In a masterful move, the [last] shot perfectly replicates the same look of the previous images, but...it is one of the actors, Linda Manz (in a photograph taken by Edie Baskin.) It’s through her perspective that we will take this journey so it is fitting that she is the one who bridges the gap from the [opening] credits into the first shot of the film.
Commentary excerpts from the 2007 Criterion Collection DVD:
Dianne Crittenden, Casting Director: "Terry...has a vision that I'm not sure everyone else who is working with him sees [but] he sees it and he gets it."
Billy Weber, Editor: "We used to get complaints...that the music at the opening of the picture, which is by Camille Saint-Saens, was not by Ennio Morricone who composed the music for the movie."
Patricia Norris, Costume Design: "I've never seen the pictures used at the front of the movie. They are different periods though, if you really want to be analytical about it [however this is more about] a feeling you want to capture; right or wrong it's [about] this feeling of poverty and hard life."
UPDATE: The lecture has been made available again, but only on the BUniverse site.
Boston University recently hosted Kyle Cooper as a part of their “College of Fine Arts Contemporary Perspectives Lecture Series.” Presented on the BUniverse site is the full 90 minute lecture, including audience Q&A.
Kyle Cooper is one of the most sought-after men in Hollywood, but he isn’t an actor or a director. He designs the title sequences and credits that open and close movies.
Cooper garnered critical acclaim for the title sequence of the 1995 film Se7en, whose jittery editing and scrawled typography sent viewers into the mind of a serial killer. Other film credits include the Spider-Man series, Iron Man and Iron Man 2, Superman Returns, The Incredible Hulk, and Dawn of the Dead.
A native of Salem, Mass., Cooper spoke as part of the College of Fine Arts Contemporary Perspectives Lecture Series.
Hosted by the College of Fine Arts on November 19, 2010.
"We are Sex Bob-omb and we are here to make you think about death and get sad and stuff!" - Scott Pilgrim
The reductionist 8-bit rendering of the Universal logo is the amuse-bouche to Edgar Wright's Scott Pilgrim Vs. the World based on the graphic novel series by Bryan Lee O'Malley.
The manga/mumblecore modulation of the film first seethes here on pseudo strips of scratched celluloid scored to Beck's/Sex Bob-omb's artful cheetah-like strains of something akin to Black Flag ("Wasted") locking horns with Iggy Pop ("Search and Destroy").
The visual napalm, conjured by Shynola, is traced and painted upon rather than a result of exposure to light.
Director Edgar Wright, concept designer and head storyboard artist Oscar Wright, and main title designer Richard Kenworthy from Shynola discuss the creation of the opening sequence with us.
"People who write usually don't know the facts, and people who know the facts usually can't write. Authenticity has very little to do with it. If people who read our magazines knew the facts of life, they wouldn't be reading our magazines." - Adrienne Fromsett
A stream of mellifluous holiday cheer is subverted to open Director/Actor Robert Montgomery's one of a kind film noir "Lady in the Lake."
Commentary excerpt by film historians James Ursini and Alain Silver (from the 2006 DVD):
Ursini “We're here to talk about one of the most unusual film noirs and maybe one of the most unusual films in mainstream Hollywood history called "Lady in the Lake." When I first saw this movie years ago I remember seeing the credits and thinking I was in the wrong movie. This cannot be "Lady in the Lake." This is a Christmas movie. Is this is a Capra movie, or a Leo McCary movie? ...[This] is a very sarcastic, ironic, even nasty movie. It's an anti-Christmas movie disguised as a Christmas movie. These titles set the tone, along with the Christmas carols which carry over through the movie and use of the chorus which [also] carries over; there is no instrumental music at all."
Silver “[The titles] are unusual and are immediately ironic as we go from these Christmas graphics with the holly, the ivy, the candles, the deer and the Christmas star to a gun [which is] not very Christmasy...the first indication of film noir."
"You don't make up for your sins in church. You do it in the streets. You do it at home. The rest is bullshit and you know it." - Martin Scorsese
With the edge of the truth in the words and Martin Scorsese's use of 8mm home movies (1.37:1 aspect ratio) nestled inside the 35mm (1.85:1 "Academy Flat" aspect ratio) of the film proper we open on a haunted and tormented bull that is Harvey Keitel passing a crucifix on the way to facing himself. We inch inward as he lays his head to the sounds of Phil Spector-produced "Be My Baby" by The Ronettes, and trip the lens-lit rabbit hole with film formats that coddle the credits.
Consider the following:
Martin Scorsese (from 2004 Warner Home Video DVD):
“It's kind of difficult to talk about how and why [Mean Streets] was made. When I think about the film and think about the time in my life having made the film and having been, in a sense, a part of the way of life that is depicted in the film it seems to, in my mind, be the final culmination of everything of what I was to do and who I am. In my mind it's not really a film. It's a declaration or a statement of who I am and how I was living; those thoughts and dilemmas and conflicts were very much a part of my life up to that point in time. They couldn't be expressed in any other way [other than] resulting in this movie."
“There is no message. It's something that came out of me organically. The only way to express it was camera and dialog and actors and color and music. In my mind it was a representation of who I was, my friends, and where I came from. The genesis was my life."
Scorsese's cathectic rationale with his 8mm footage carry the whip and whisper of an era so rich with detail, so crackingly vibrant the memories are real enough to call your own.
"Day of the Dead" by Charles and Ray Eames
The title panel for the film was designed by Deborah Sussman with type and typographic ornaments found in Mexico.
