Are film titles running out of imagination?

Consider some of these recent titles: ‘The Town’, ‘The Tourist’, ‘The Road’, ‘The Ghost’, ‘The American’… it’s only a matter of time before a studio exec suggests “How about ‘The Film’?”

 

All five of those aforementioned films are geared towards a mature, intelligent cinemagoing crowd – perhaps even people who may remember such glorious billboard ads for ‘Dr Strangelove: Or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb’, ‘Apocalypse Now’, ‘Sweet Sweetback’s Baadasssss Song’ or ‘The Good, The Bad and The Ugly’ (which today could easily pad out three separate films). When did it all become so focussed?

It may be that we are constantly forging ahead, cutting through the competition with simplicity with a lean product. The marketing department will insist that you must be able to easily repeat the title to your friends when they ask what you’re doing. It needs to squeeze itself into an already overloaded 30 second TV spot somewhere between the sound of a gravel-voiced narrator croaking “Academy Award winner George Clooney” and a gunshot.

It’s this direct, no-nonsense approach that ushered in the wave of true blockbusters in the early 1970s with pictures like ‘Jaws’ and ‘The Godfather’ exploding away from the cheap, carefree independence of the 60s – an era in which the aptly named ‘Easy Rider’ reigned free.

The idea behind advertising for the studio’s heavy hitters is that you’re bombarded with hype and then the crescendo is completely pure. But somewhat boring. It’s too easy, and furthermore it undermines the complexity of the films in question. A title should sway you into a certain mindset. It’s the starter; not the main course.

The great Swedish vampire thriller ‘Let the Right One In’ (brilliant name) had an element of mystery. It concerned a loss of identity and faith. Someone wants to enter but can you trust them? Can you make the right decision? There’s an element of chance, danger, uncertainly. Just two years later, the Americans have remade it as ‘Let Me In’. Everyone’s welcome. At least it wasn’t as shocking as Clouzot’s classic French thriller from 1953 ‘The Wages of Fear’ being remade by William Friedkin in the 70s as simply ‘Sorcerer’ – bear in mind this is a film about four guys transporting unstable nitro-glycerine in a truck across a harsh mountain, not about some magic spells.

Of course, there are exceptions. If Brad Pitt hadn’t threatened to nix his contract if the studio meddled, ‘The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford’ would almost have certainly been trimmed. That’s a title that does the film justice, although by today’s standards it seems almost satirical of a time which has since past. But on closer inspection, this moniker doesn’t just concern an assassination, it’s about a man so famous he doesn’t need a prefix (Jesse James) and the nobody ‘coward’ who shot him in the back but gained notoriety (and subsequent fame) for his deed. Seeing the words ‘The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford’ is a journey in itself. But even then, as bold as it is, it’s hardly a mystical title.

A name isn’t important to the film itself. Once you’re in the darkened room immersed in fantasy and highly tuned construction, the movie leaves such baggage behind, but it’s hard not to appreciate a title like Stanley Kubrick’s ‘Eyes Wide Shut’ which mystifies you going in and keeps you pondering while you’re on your way out of the theatre walking past an array of seemingly identical marketing ploys.

Please register with us to add your comments.

View the full archive