Zoom-in Online

I had the pleasure recently of seeing a few possible Oscar contenders (they've already received Golden Globe nods) on the big screen: Sweeney Todd, Juno, and There Will by Blood. And while they were all enjoyable and well-crafted, the one thing that stuck out for me as a comparison were their graphic choices regarding their title sequences; they were all diametrically opposed to one another.

Cinematic title sequences have been a noble endeavor of graphic designers for quite some time; Saul Bass pioneered the style with the godfathers of celluloid: Hitchcock, Preminger, Scorcese. Prior to Bass, movie-goers were condemned to a title credit format that had held since the Chaplin era—still cards with lists and lists and lists of names. These sequences were far more dense than our current title credits, simply because there were no end credits, other than a definitive "The End" (ugh). The viewer was suckered into seeing the names of all of the project's employees on the front-end. When motion graphics were born, and animation became affordable, designers like Bass created stunning graphics that abstractly captured the spirit of the movie. Even literal stylings, like North by Northwest's lines moving in a north by northwest direction were so bold and optical that they created an entire new niche for designers. That torch has been carried well over the years, most notably to Kyle Cooper, who reinvented the industry with his titles for Seven. He incorporated advertising, print, and music industry techniques into the mix and the result was pure poetry.

Sweeney Todd lives up to the legacy of foreshadowing for which title credits have been known. London raining blood, pictures oozing blood, The Machine greased by blood, the sewers flooded with blood. Despite its painfully plastic computer graphics, the title sequence is a little morsel of poetry that keenly captures the decadence of the tale.

Juno didn't fare as well. The pencil sketchy, Urban Outfitter-esque, hipster nonsense that Juno walked through for what seemed to be 42 minutes, seemed all fluff and no substance. Even the brilliant soundtrack that accompanied the movie felt grating in the context of the title sequence. I missed the wisdom of Judd Apatow's Freaks and Geeks title credits, which had so much more high school angst and chutzpah.

But as I sat there watching There Will Be Blood, I was struck by its efficiency and lack of design. There simply were no credits. A gritty blackletter font on a stark black background, the shrill of an off-key soundtrack, and the start of an equally shrill movie. No names, no dissolves, no filters, no Hollywood. There was a story to be told, and the director served it to you. Before The Devil Knows Your Dead took it one step further and didn't even have a title, just a quote from an old Irish drinking toast. Brilliant.

There's something modern and striking about not having credits. Credits break the fourth wall (the invisible barrier between the viewer and the art), slow down the suspension of disbelief, and take an entire ADD generation of movie-goers and slowly piss them off. Seinfeld realized that almost a decade ago- take a diddy and a logo and just start the dang thing already. No theme song!

Milton Glazer once inarguably quipped that "Just Right is More," in stark contrast to the fascist "less is more" of modernity and "more is more" of nouveau. Sitting in the theater, I couldn't agree, well, more. For the moral fable of Todd, it was apropos to take some time and sprinkle blood around the rotting city. And for Blood, it was proper to document-ify the film and cut the Hollywood credits. But for this cinephile, I am personally sick of titles and the 10 minutes they add to my film. Even if they are good, at this point in our evolution, I say lose 'em. Even if it means the death of a once noble design industry.