2001 does both: The wordless first 25 minutes of Kubrick’s 1968 masterpiece serve as both narrative prologue and as emissary from director to audience. the process of its own coming into being.” Others maintain that the device is strictly reserved for the razzmatazz of Broadway musicals, not the storytelling of highbrow drama-yet these preludes have historically been used to great effect in non-musicals.įrom the old French une ouverture, meaning an opening, the film overture frequently signifies an introduction to something more substantial, but it can also mean an approach that establishes a relationship. Some critics argue that overtures allow the story to take shape, that they’re a sequence of images and sounds in which “the film reflects on. The title sequence of a movie is often called an overture when it combines visual and musical elements, but the term is sometimes deployed loosely. “Opening sequences guide us into the dynamic and meaningful unfolding of an on-screen narrative,” writes Annette Insdorf, in one of the most comprehensive guides on the subject, Cinematic Overtures: How to Read Opening Scenes. In some cases, the movie’s overture has become a showpiece itself. Aside from their cultural significance, each of these films makes deliberate use of a graphic or instrumental prelude that sets the mood or establishes relevant themes-the lush musical score that precedes Civil War romance in Gone With the Wind, for example, or the Latin rhythms and pop-jukebox compilations set to bold color palettes in West Side Story. It’s been half a century since Funny Girl and 2001: A Space Odyssey hit theaters Ben Hur and North by Northwest premiered 60 years ago, Gone With the Wind nearly 80. In some ways, 2018 marks a noteworthy anniversary for the overture in cinema (though, to date, not a single wide release this year has featured one). For moviegoers, the overture is a bridge between real life and the story they’re about to enter filmmakers should consider bringing it back. These opening sequences offer the chance to rediscover music as a kind of cinematic storytelling, to think about the ways form dictates content, or to simply reflect. But the film overture is in fact a respite from distraction, even as it’s an occasion for distractibility. Given no option but to sit and wait, audiences quickly grow restless. In a culture that seems intent on eradicating boredom in all its forms, the overture’s virtual obsolescence might have as much to do with box-office economics as with a fear of open-endedness. With curtains drawn and house lights dimmed, overtures drew moviegoers in, and inward, toward a space of anticipation. But these musical pastiches also served an important cinematic function: They allowed audiences a chance to put aside their thoughts of the outside world.
Once a Hollywood mainstay, overtures evolved naturally from their use in opera and road shows, giving moviegoers time to find their seats and settle in before the main feature.
The movie overture-music set against a blank screen or still images before the drama unfolds-all but disappeared from film sometime in the 1970s.