Twenty-five Years Today
In honor of the summer-movie spectacle that debuted 25 years ago today, the Tony Scott-directed, Don Simpson/Jerry Bruckheimer-produced, Tom Cruise action film, I contributed a retrospective piece today to my friend’s blog, Edward Copeland on Film… and More, for the one and only Top Gun. You can find the post here. And I thought I’d briefly reflect upon what might be the film’s best sequence, Top Gun‘s spectacular movie titles:
Some of the things I love about this excerpt:
- the slow build-up using Harold Faltermeyer’s music preamble is simply done, but it effectively mounts tension throughout to the director title crescendo
- DP Jeffrey Kimball’s beautifully executed camera work, in one of the most dangerous and deafening work environs (the flight deck of an U.S. aircraft carrier), along with Chris Lebenzon and Billy Weber’s deft editing, is pretty damn impressive and breathtaking
- as Tony Scott’s director title appears (against the striking backdrop of the F-14 blasting its engines in prep of its catapult launch at the 2:37 mark) you have one of the best music transitions in film (to the now famous Kenny Logins’ track Danger Zone), ever (IMO)
Forty Years Today
In honor of director Mike Hodges‘ gem of a crime film, that debuted 40 years ago today (and for which Ed Copeland offers an appreciation of in a blog post), a look at Get Carter‘s superb movie titles is fitting:
Some of the things I love about this film sequence:
- the first shot (after the main title) offers a wonderful literary reference as we see the character of Jack Carter (Michael Caine) reading Raymond Chandler’s Farewell My Lovely
- DP Wolfgang Suschitzky’s beautifully executed camera work, along with the slick placement of the white titles against the dark train tunnel sections, is elegant and inspired
- Roy Budd’s rhythmic jazz track, which accompanies the scene, is one of the great and neglected movie theme instrumentals around — it bookends well with Lalo Schifrin’s main title score for Bullitt, I think
- even after all these years, the surprise foreshadowing of the ‘J’ character as just another passenger on the same train car remains one of the cleverest bits by the director in the film
A Brief But Gorgeous Bit of Titles
The clever folks over at The Art of the Title Sequence have put together a short film for tonight’s opening of the SXSW “Title Design Finalists Screening”. It’s a good one:
