They've opened the film and now they've got to close it.
And more than just a simple scroll,
ambitious filmmakers keep the experience going even after the end.
These are our picks for the top five end credits of all time.
(Music)
In the beginning credits were an upfront affair until sometime in the 1970s films
started with the cast and crew and often finished only with an abrupt The End.
But between then and now, with a little help from Saul Bass,
the emphasis has flipped.
Movies spare the weight and jump right in, only making good on the long list of
attribution as everyone's throwing out their popcorn and leaving the theater with
a long boring list of names, white on black slowly scrolling through the frame.
But not always.
And while some filmmakers pretty it up a bit or
entice impatient waiting with a rumored promise of a post-credit scene,
today we want to look at those films that squeeze a little more out of their
end credits then with a phone book, those with a relationship to the story.
And to do that, we have to ask how do end credits function?
How can they function?
And most importantly, how can they help end a story?
(Sound) There's a saying there are two parts of
any movie.
The ending, and everything else.
And while it might be a tad reductive,
there's an interesting truth in there somewhere.
The shape of the narratives movies tend to tell lend themselves to an emotional
climax that hits right as the screen fades to black for the last time.
Be it triumphant, tragic,
bittersweet, or thoughtful, the most important feeling is often the last.
So wisely, one of the most common functions of the creative end
title sequence is what we're going to call the coda credits.
They grab on to the final emotional note and let it ring out in a long sustain,
letting the audience hold on to the final feeling and
carry the echoes of it out with them as the credits roll,
instead of just axing the experience with a credit-shaped guillotine.
Think Good Will Hunting, or Michael Clayton, or The Long Ranger, or
Rachel Getting Married, or Mary Poppins.
They all position us in a last moment with a last feeling and let it roll.
Its unchangingness encouraging us to wake up from our suspended disbelief slowly and
at our own pace.
Cued by the quiet lack of any further plot.
The pianist does this with a final concert.
THX 1138 with the setting sun.
Apocalypse Now with an exploding compound and
cache with an incredibly subtle shot of school steps.
However, if there's a coda that leaves us with the most interesting taste in our
mouth it's gotta be Inland Empire.
>> Sweet.
>> Of course, don't ask us to actually explain that coda or
even try to describe the taste it's leaving.
That sort of sense making is beyond the realm of Lynchian film making.
But with a one-legged woman, a spider-monkey, a lumberjack, and
a Nina Simone dance party,
it certainly manages to extend the surreal beyond the boundaries of the story itself.
(Noise) Beyond the coda, some credits sequences take the opportunity to offer
an answer to the question now what?
This is the classic epilogue.
The story proper is over, but
if you're still interested in the characters and the world,
here's a little something to fuel your imagination as you leave the theater.
There are a few variations of this.
There's the happy ending where we don't want to say goodbye.
Think School of Rock and Ratatouille.
The goosebumps ending of the horror film.
Think Jennifer's Body and Dawn of the Dead.
And the sequel twist.
Think Young Sherlock and sent up brilliantly in 22 Jump Street.
In our favorite version of this, it's gotta be from Wall-E.
For combining beauty with humor with incredible storytelling in
humanity's second act.
With an animation style that mirrors civilizations in a rapid fire art
history spark notes, this sequence almost makes you forget you're watching
a contractually mandated appendix.
Perfectly transitioning us from the tale of one little trash compactor into a hint
of the world to come in a way that gets us out the door grinning.
(Sound) Similar to the epilogue, some credit sequences take up the mantle of
a secondary character or plot line or aside.
One that may have gotten lost amidst the A story shuffle, and
return to the story in some kind of tangential manner.
Airplane's post-credit scene is the classic here, but
don't forget Tropic Thunder's less Grossman.
This is spinal tap's extra interview super h short film.
Diner's audio only continued conversation, Toy Story 3's Ken and
Barbie, Supertrooper's Farva tape, and the Hangover's Night of Photo Reel.
They tell us an extra part of the story that might not have
exactly been essential but it's a fun dessert.
And this sort of peripheral focus has a really interesting effect.
It widens the scope of the necessarily myopic story to the world outside of
the main plot.
Sure the adventure's over, but the landscape isn't going anywhere.
It invites us in to stay and play for a while,
in order to avoid the narrative hangover that,
as any Harry Potter completionist knows, can set in as soon as a story ends.
And for our number three pick, we think that Ferris Bueller's Day Off,
trudging principal Rooney is a meer perfect execution of this.
(Music)
>> Hey Mr. Roony, what's going on?
(Music)
Did you get in a fight?
(Music)
Want a lift?
>> It is perhaps only an accident stemming from the need to span the entire length
of the credits that this scene is allowed to move as slowly as it does.
But its awkward brilliance is in its deadpan slow pace with an almost shot and
froidy in length that allows us to revel in Roony's own personal hell as
long as possible.
And boy is it brilliant.
Of course as an added bonus we also get a fourth wallbreaking sendoff at the very
end inviting the audience not to spend too much time loitering in Ferris' world.
They've got their own to get living in.
>> You're still here?
It's over.
Go home.
(Sound) >> On the opposite end of the spectrum,
some credits invite you behind the scenes, fracturing the narrative illusion,
inviting you to consider the story as just that, a story,
thereby ushering you back into the world outside of the movie screen where what you
just saw was all an illusion.
No need to get hung up on it, some are a curtain call, Slumdog Millionaire with
a dance, Something About Mary with a song, Jersey Boys with both.
The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 9th Dimension with a hilariously
bizarre march, and The Magnificent Ambersons,
with a narrated look at the major creative players.
Yet others cut the curtain entirely,
laying bare the artifice of the filmmaking with behind the scenes footage.
Most often in the form of a blooper reel.
This blooper tradition originated in Hooper with director
Hal Needham offering viewers a look behind the scenes at how real and
really wild some of his stunts were.
Since then, gag reels have taken over the credit sequences of improvisational
comedies, been remade in CGI and maybe even lost Peter Sellers in Oscar.
However, if there's one gag real artist we like best it's got to be Jackie Chan and
if it's got to be Jackie Chan we gotta go at this very best Legend
of the Drunken Master.
(Music)
Jackie Chan's gag reels are often the best part of his films,
which isn't a slight to his work.
On the contrary, it's a testament to the insanity he puts himself through to
create it and the joy we get to share in while watching him practice his craft.
And more than that,
there are opportunities to participate in a spectator relationship, not just with
his character who goes away when the lights come up but with Jackie Chan as
an actor who comes back next year to apply his acrobatic Kung Fu madness once more.
It's an ending to the story but
not his entire saga which makes it easier to move on.
(Sound) As we move through this list, it seems more and
more like the real function of the end credit, what it's really there for
and how it's so often used, is to show the audience how to say goodbye to the story.
In a lingering music chord, trialing off in encode, or a final bonus chapter.
With an invitation to imagine a bigger world that's still there
even after we leave.
Or the removal of the masks to reveal real people who'll stick around.
Even filmmakers who choose to go with a traditional credit scroll still
make the effort to select a suitable music cue that
often performs some of the exact same functions.
For our number one the last way we see credits saying goodbye goes to the movie
in review sequence.
The tribute album to the tale just told that offers a look back,
a memoir, a point of reflection on the story that came before with new hindsight.
Think Around The World In 80 Days, or Sherlock Holmes, or A Series of
Unfortunate Events, or The Conjuring, or Jungle Book, or the Kill Bills.
However for our number one pick we think the film that does this most brilliantly,
most subversively, and most my god so beautifully has to be Blue Valentine.
And its brilliance is not so much in what it includes in its movie but
in what it doesn't.
Without giving too much away, it looks back only on those happy,
fiery early days of the relationship with a selected memory.
As if in a daydream.
As if reminiscing about old times.
And it's all the more effective after the films conclusion.
Extending its timeline concede to a most magnificent climax for
what is our pick for the best end credit sequence of all time.
(Music)
So what do you think?
Do you disagree with any of our picks?
Did we leave out any of your favorite end credits?
Let us know in the comments below and be sure to subscribe for
more Cinefix Movie Lists.