Don't Miss This vol. 3

It's all coming full circle, pun soon-to-be-not intended. This week, Eye stole my thunder and discussed movie title sequences — Dr. No and Vertigo to be precise. As you might have guessed, I love title sequences when they're done well. In the blog post, Eye's author analyzes how the titles forecast the content of the movie and tone of the movie. Dr. No, being a Bond (based on the tone and content of Hitchcock's North by Northwest), is light and dynamic. Vertigo is much more complicated (than just about every movie in just about every way, but that's another discussion altogether). The titles are superimposed over a woman's face, which lays the groundwork for the movie's discussion of voyeurism/scopophilia and what Hitchcock didn't know at the time would be called The Male Gaze. For those who haven't seen Vertigo, first of all, borrow it from me. You might not (probably won't) like it, but I do. A lot. Secondly, one of the major points of the film is that Scottie (James Stewart) is obsessed with a woman (Kim Novak) and follows and watches her; he falls in love with the image of her. Later in the film, after SPOILER ALERT she dies, he searches for her replacement and ultimately reshapes that woman to fit the exact visual mold of the first. This is all relevant because the design of the titles informs the learned audience member (film scholar, even) that these themes are of utmost significance to the movie. Furthermore, the Vertigo titles are significant because, despite their seemingly cheesy spirograph effect, they employ an early form of the psychedelic aesthetic that is echoed (cheesily, again) later in a dream sequence. Although it might seem poorly done, keep in mind that Vertigo was released in 1958, about a decade before the psychedelic look took hold.


This discussion segues nicely into my love of Saul Bass. He and Hitchcock are probably the two visual storytellers I admire most (although Stanley Kubrick has certainly moved up the ladder). The two men collaborated on the visuals of several of Hitchcock's films, including the aforementioned Vertigo and North by Northwest as well as Psycho. He is probably most famous for his Anatomy of a Murder poster, for which he also designed the opening titles.

I love the flat graphic style that he uses in this and many of his other title sequences and movie posters. It is singularly his and a beautiful example of pop art that (in my opinion) clearly draws at least a little bit from other highbrow artists such as Matisse and Rothko.














I also love the titles to Charade, which Saul Bass designed:


And the Catch Me If You Can titles, which draw upon a similar style to Bass':