And behind door number 22... a guide to some music of the more traditional kind
Catherine Munn and Jacob Martin list their Top 5 programmes to watch over the festive period.
And behind door number nine... some dazzling musical delights
The complete arts guide, for week 9
This ground-breaking adaptation of the Dickens classic was broadcast in fifteen episodes, and so its opening credits mattered more than is typical for a period drama. Thankfully, they’re spot on: the visuals blend pictures of the main characters with objects that are significant to the story, while the music is somehow simultaneously sweet and creepy, and yet entirely apt.
Composed by sinister musical genius Danny Elfman, the Desperate Housewives opening theme combines suggestiveness with assertiveness. Using some of the most famous portrayals of traditional women in art and giving them a modern twist, they proved to be apt symbols for the strong and resilient housewives who in seven seasons have weathered tornadoes, plane crashes and shootings.
Dexter’s opening credits wonderfully blend the most everyday of images (Dex’s morning routine) with a chillingly creepy tone. It’s shot with a very shallow depth of field, reflecting the titular character’s eye for detail in his work as a blood-spatter analyst, his meticulous approach to serial killing and how, just below the surface, Dexter is far from an ordinary guy. The music, which is simultaneously playful and unnerving, is by Rolfe Kent and visually, this sequence perfectly sums up the character of Dexter Morgan.
Perhaps not the greatest example either visually or musically, but the Life of Mars opening credits have that rarest of things: a main character voice-over that isn’t annoying. Thanks to simple writing and John Simm being wonderful, Sam’s succinct version of his story perfectly encapsulates the heart of this programme and swiftly draws the viewer.
The inarguably stylish credits of Mad Men perfectly reflect the programme itself: beautiful to look at and full of hidden meaning. A silhouetted man freefalls past skyscrapers and retro advertising images and slogans, all over-scored by a languid, seductive and strings-heavy theme tune. It’s the perfect way to get into the heady, on-the-edge world of Don Draper.
A mesmerising oboe melody and a simple yet mischievous strings backing suit the morbidly funny nature of this funeral home based drama perfectly. Coupled with symbolic images of death and decay on a cold, barren landscape (the raven, the tree losing its leaves), the opening credits reflect the character and charm of the show in an effortlessly minimal way. A classic.
While The Pacific was a series that you had to grow to love, you didn't need any time to appreciate its opening titles: pencil and charcoal line drawings blend seamlessly into images of the main scenes and characters of the series, punctuated by running red watercolour, and sounded to an orchestral arrangement which is both soaring and melancholic.
David Chase first heard Alabama 3's 'Woke Up This Morning' on his car radio during the creation of his Sopranos pilot, accidentally spawning an iconic title sequence that simply follows James Gandolfini driving to New Jersey. The theme is a blues song and The Sopranos is a mafia drama - but it's the blues and the mafia as never heard or seen before.
Backed up by the delicious gospel-blues track ‘Way Down in the Hole’ (performed by a different artist each season), the phenomenal series’ opening credits condense the tone of the next hour into one and a half minutes; close-ups of drug production and wiretapping are interspersed impeccably with footage of each season’s focal theme – including shipping yards, print media and school kids.
Riddled with flashing images from the deep South, the True Blood credits are typical of the idea of the attraction of repulsion. Pictures of decomposing animals, prostitutes, choir rituals and exorcism follow in quick succession; all equally disturbing, but intriguing all the same. Add to this a song filled with guitar riffs, whose main refrain is a repetition of “I wanna do real bad things with you,” and you get a sense of the gothic but seductive elements of the show: this sequence alone is chilling.
Always prefered band of brothers intro to the pacific one. Nice list though.
Carnivale is the only thing that springs to mind as having lost out to this list. Good variety and reasoning though.
You must log in to submit a comment.
Report