In the mid-1950s, when cinema films were trying to fight off the threat of television by becoming bigger, wider, more colourful and more spectacular, artists such as Saul Bass took full advantage, crafting spectacular, jazz-inflected animations for Alfred Hitchcock and others which spawned hundreds of imitations.
But that particular vogue for elaborate openings only lasted for a decade or so, and by the 1970s the preference among the Easy Riders, Raging Bulls generation was either for austere classicism (unadorned lettering on a black background), or realist authenticity (minimal credits superimposed over the action).
There the matter rested for some time, although certain corners of the movie business (hello James Bond!) remained attached to more elaborate opening styles. The arrival of digital animation in the 1990s made a revival of the standalone credit sequence more cost-effective and therefore more popular. These days, the technology is advanced enough for you to rustle up an opening sequence for your next monthly PowerPoint presentation, should you be so inclined. But please don’t.
For TV, the opening sequence was always more important than it was for films; strong theme music and familiar visuals reinforced emotional attachment to a particular show and, more prosaically, functioned as a call to attention for the slumped domestic viewer. And of course theme tunes for everything from sports programmes to soap operas both TV and radio have always been highly important tools for creating a sense of occasion and anticipation.
In the post-linear TV world, the same calculations shouldn’t necessarily apply, since the viewer has already made the decision to press “play”. Yet it has become de rigueur for prestige TV dramas to feature striking opening sequences, complete with earworm theme music: Succession’s home movies from hell accompanied by that doom-laden descending piano riff; The Morning Show’s candy-coloured polka dots jostling for advantage and position while Benjamin Clementine croons ironically.
The Queen’s Gambit and Lovecraft Country were part of a strong field beaten to the 2021 Emmy for Outstanding Main Title Design last month by Showtime mini-series The Good Lord Bird, starring Ethan Hawke as abolitionist John Brown, with a 60-second woodcut-style animation set to a Mahalia Jackson gospel song.
“Prestige” may be the key word here. Just as film studios in the 1950s used elaborate credits to signal their superiority to the cheap rubbish available on television, 1990s TV producers deployed increasingly “cinematic” openings to flag that you weren’t just watching another episode of The Rockford Files. This was the good stuff. Then, as subscription-financed American cable services drove demand for a new sort of television with adult themes, complex, long-running storylines and sophisticated sensibilities, that change needed to be announced to the world. Look no further than 1999 and a two-minute montage of Tony Soprano driving around New Jersey to the sounds of Alabama 3. Other milestones followed: The Wire, with Tom Waits howling at the moon over a devastated inner-city Baltimore; Game of Thrones’ almost comically portentous orchestral score combined with a – to these eyes – ponderous mechanical metaphor for the blood-soaked goings-on in Westeros. Mad Men’s silhouetted figure falling forever to his existential doom.
Now that streaming has largely supplanted appointment television, the big dramas have invested even more in their opening sequences. This seems a little odd, given that on-demand makes it easier than ever before to skip the opening credits (as well as the catch-up montages which usually precede them, superfluously if you’re on episode four of a five-episode binge). But, as well as being pleasurable in themselves, these miniature pieces of art also bring a much-needed sense of structure and punctuation to a narrative that might otherwise seem oppressively incoherent. With one leg in the conventions of the two-hour cinema feature and the other in the old-style TV serial (itself descended from a radio predecessor), contemporary long-form drama faces structural challenges. Comparisons with another medium only go so far, but, like the chapter headings of a novel, the musical and visual flourish of a good opening can establish that we are embarking on a new chapter within the overarching story. And it’s no accident that the best sequences take care to ram home a reminder of the show’s central theme.
It would be interesting to know how many people skip the credits, but unfortunately on this, as on so much else, the digital platforms are not particularly forthcoming. As a viewer, though, I increasingly find that if I don’t sit through that familiar 60-or-90-second sequence, I’m not set up properly for what is to follow. And even with repetition, it still ends up often being the best part of the show.
