Movie Award Preview:  Best Opening Credits

In this era of single-card opening credits, the art of the creative opening credits sequence is an all-but-lost art.  Gone are the glory days of Richard Williams (The Pink Panther Strikes Back, Casino Royale) and the great Saul Bass:  Who can forget the bold graphics that turned into Manhattan skyscrapers at the beginning of North By Northwest and West Side Story, or the sauntering cat that introduced us to Walk on the Wild Side?  And the graffiti and street-sign credits at the end of West Side Story?  Forget about it.  In those movies, the opening sequences were delicious little miniature movies unto themselves.

Happily, there are a few filmmakers who still commission such delightful confections to open movies.  There are three notable examples of this lost art this year:

In Moon, the words in the sly opening titles slid in front of and behind objects in the picture, setting up that film’s themes of claustrophobia and deceit.  Clint Mansell’s haunting score added to this intriguing opening.

In An Education, Nic Benns’ snappy graphics accompanied a jazzy soundtrack, giving us an irresistible invitation to travel back in time half a century.

And Up in the Air put us up in the air, showing us a cornucopia of idealized birds-eye views of this great land we fly over.

I hope the creative opening sequence will continue to shine, even if rarely.  I would miss it if it were gone forever.