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Tuesday, September 2, 2008
In a world without the “In a World Voice”
My colleague Laura Dempsey has already written a nice piece on the Celebrity Worship blog about the passing of Don LaFontaine, the man whose deep, sonorous timbres graced many a movie trailer over the years, but I had to add my 2 cents.
LaFontaine had been voicing movie trailers for as long as I can remember. I felt like he would be around forever. It makes me sad to think we’ll never hear him heralding a new movie ever again.
Besides his remarkable voice, one of LaFontaine’s greatest gifts was his ability to laugh at himself. One of his best moments was in the YouTube favorite “FIve Men in a Limo,” in which he appeared with other voice over artists, including Mark Elliott, whose vocals have announced the arrival of Disney animated films for decades.
Note to the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences: LaFontaine may not have made many movies in and of themselves, but he deserves a spot in your In Memoriam Reel next year - WITH his voice.
He will be missed.
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What are the great movie beginnings?
Now that the summer movie season has ended, I thought it would be fun to flip the coin and look at beginnings - great movie beginnings.
I’ve seen a number of other movie sites list the great movie endings, and that’s easy enough to do, but I haven’t seen a list of great movie beginnings nearly as often. We had two standouts this summer: WALL-E and The Dark Knight.
Pixar is particularly good at knocking the viewer off-balance with the openings of its movies, from the first scene of Monsters, Inc. to the “Is Buzz Lightyear really dead?” moment in Toy Story 2. As for WALL-E, I certainly didn’t expect a sci-fi story to open with Michael Crawford singing “Out there, there’s a world outside of Yonkers,” from Hello Dolly’s “Put on Your Sunday Clothes.”
Then, the opening bank heist scene of The Dark Knight was so effective, it was used as the IMAX trailer for the movie in its entirety, even though Batman is never even mentioned in it.
Here are some of my favorite movie openings. This isn’t meant to be a comprehensive list, but just a few off the top of my head to get you thinking.
Beauty and the Beast: The opening of the best film of the Disney renaissance put a neat spin on it’s “Once Upon a Time” openings, with its beautifully rendered stained glass drawings that set up the story. It made the movie feel new and classical all at once.
The Godfather: A voice breaks through the total darkness of the screen: “I believe in America.” There’s irony for you.
Goodfellas: “As far back as I can remember I always wanted to be a gangster.” Cue Tony Bennett.
Rear Window: It’s actually something of a quiet opening, but it’s one of Hitchcock’s best examples of pure cinema, relying only on the camera. By the time the first scene fades out, we know that it’s a hot day, we know the layout of the neighborhood, we find out what Jimmy Stewart does for a living, we see that he’s been in an accident, and we even know how he had his accident - all without a single word being said.
Touch of Evil: Opening shot. ‘Nuff said.
So what, in your opinion are the great movie openings? Mind you, I’m not talking about the title sequences over the opening credits that usually aren’t filmed by the director, but the actual openings that make you think “I’m in for a ride here.”
Go!
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