"There is trouble until the robins come..."
Thursday, June 2, 2016 at 12:00PM After catching a restored, 30th anniversary rerelease of David Lynch’s psycho-suburban nightmare on the big screen last night, Blue Velvet has once again invaded my waking life with huffing menace, casting sinister shadows and nasty neon onto the innocuous surfaces of everyday existence. And it starts from the opening credits. Every time I see this curtain shimmer, I can feel my vision start to go soft as it flickers me into a dream state. The image hypnotically blurs the line between its politely decorative titles and the mysteriously unnerving surface breathing behind them. The strings of the score shimmy with sharp elegance and ironic doom. I’m already huddling inside the closet, unsettled and voyeuristic. Seeing candles dance in the dark. Coiling myself against the danger hiding in plain sight. Soaked in curdling Pabst Blue Ribbon.
Which of your favorite opening credits sequences instantly place you inside the mind and mood of the movie?
Reader Comments (28)
Doctor Strangelove's opening credits do an excellent job at that. The gentle music, the font and the two planes in phallic refuelling? Yep, that'll do it.
Edward Scissorhands!! Snow. Inventions. Ghostly chorus.
Schwarzenegger in the 90's: Total Recall and Terminator 2: Judgment Day.
North by Northwest. The chase music and falling skyscraper lines are brilliant tease of what's to come.
Se7en. The opening credits definitely set the tone. Chilling.
Enter the Void
JAWS!
Cries and Whispers. Names over red.
Nashville!
Chinatown
Psycho, with the violins immediately catching you off guard and driving you into the movie.
Also, Vertigo. It's so bizarre, beautiful and dreamlike, like the film.
I just REALLY love Bernard Herrmann.
P A N I C R O O M
Rosemary's Baby
Kill Bill volume 1, with Nancy Sinatra singing Bang Bang while you see Uma Thurman's profile in the hospital, is awesome.
Moulin Rouge!
but also agree on some of these other suggestions particularly Edward Scissorhands & Panic Room
My Best Friend's Wedding and Clue
I gotta rep for Double Indemnity - the haunting silhouette of a man on crutches lurching closer and closer to the camera - and the cemetery sweeping tracking shot from Volver. And love these mentions of Cries and Whispers and Nashville!
Travis - I'll have the theme to Clue stuck in my head the rest of the day...
The opening of Mulholland Drive and the opening credits in The Royal Tenenbaums are the first things that came to mind, but I love Marsha Mason's answer of North by Northwest - spot on.
Travis -- my best friend's wedding! yes. a hundred times, yes.
Scorsese's Cape Fear. Sets up the incredibly tense, slightly ridiculous tone and style incredibly well with those strange visuals and its intense score.
Maybe his credits are never that stylistic or expressive, but I think Todd Haynes' movies always start off on a fantastic note (pun slightly intended) and just run with it every time.
Nathaniel: I'm not sure I'd count Moulin Rouge! It's a great opening, but is it an opening credits sequence?
A few that set the scene for me: Chinatown, Psycho, any James Bond film, Where Eagles Dare (the red lettering as the aeroplane flies over the snowy mountains to Ron Goodwin's music), The Pink Panther movies (an animated Clouseau bumbling along after the panther), and of course the first Superman film - majestic!
Howards End, because Vanessa Redgrave is the best reason there is.
The Naked Kiss! I've loved Connie Towers (and Sam Fuller) ever since.
Clue with its jarring 80s music is awesome. Attention: this isn't the board game!
Amélie, with every credited profession matching a child's game.
Batman (1989), with the ominous music slowly leading up to the Bat logo. Batman Returns, with the baby penguin on his way to the sewers that raise him, is good, too.
Basic Instinct....the wonderfully distorted sex scene and that hypnotic score by Jerry Goldsmith (one of the most memorable ever). It sets us up for the erotic mystery to come.