suspicious characters

 

It's fantastic! -- we can experience the music written by Bernard Herrmann (1911 - 1975) for three great films, by going on You Tube and typing in the name of the film, followed by the words "opening credits."

        Then you get just the two minutes or so of music that introduces the movie and sets a mood for it.

North By Northwest, opening credits

Psycho, opening credits

Taxi Driver, opening credits.

        Sometimes they say "opening titles" instead of credits -- it's OK, the videos will come up.

--------------------------------------------

If you watch these in the order suggested above, you're seeing them in chronological order, according to the year each film came out:

1959

1960

1976.

2 Hitchcock films, followed by a Martin Scorsese film.

The two Hitchcock ones, North By Northwest, and Psycho, have similar music, promising suspense and action -- (Watch out!)

Herrmann's music for Taxi Driver is different -- more like the beguiling invitation of nightclub jazz -- meandering and ambivalent, curling like a cat's tail.  (It reminds me of the music for Body Heat, which was done by British composer John Barry.)

______________________________

Besides sound, the visuals are interesting to study here, too.

Again, we would probably separate Taxi Driver from the other two.  Taxi Driver's opening-credits visuals are streets of New York City in the '70s, cars driving at night, steam, smoke, rain.  It's strictly a mood.  Film footage, no graphics.

Psycho and North By Northwest both have insistent, riveting graphics behind the opening credits -- racing, working in tandem with the music, establishing the atmosphere before the story has even started.

        The graphic designer responsible for both of these title sequences is Saul Bass (1920 - 1996).

_______________________________

_______________________

~~ on Google, type in

how to help Ukraine

...they list organizations to which we can donate ~~

-30-