Movie End Credits May Not Be a Waste of Time After All
by John Aquino on 07/12/12
Movie closing credits are really, really long.
I know because as an attorney and a writer about fact-based films, I, and my very patient and lovely wife, sit through them, if only to read the disclaimer that appears at the very end—“Although based on fact, some of the characters and events have been fictionalized….” The end credits for the Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King, for instance, run over nine minutes. I promise you, by the time the credits end my wife and I, the two people cleaning up for the next show, and a few other lawyers who are usually looking for their names in the credits are the only ones there.
The reason people leave as soon as the credits start is that they think the endless list of names is boring. And it often is. But there’s a recent trend to give you reasons to stay and watch the end credits, and in the hands of some filmmakers the closing credits have actually become an integral part of the film.
In movies made before 1965 or so, a film’s closing credits, if there were any, were usually limited to the cast of characters. Opening credits were typically brief—under three minutes. Almost everyone connected with the movie was a studio employee, and so only the “major” participants received a credit. But the breakup of the studio system in the 1950s resulted in a great number of independent contractors working on movies, with separate contracts and demands. This growing power of key film participants along with union requirements caused opening credits to run longer, and soon the bulk of the credits were pushed to the movie’s end. Today, not only the key grip and gaffer but everyone connected with special effects, stunt people, caterers, and the stars’ and director’s drivers and hair stylists receive a credit.
However, some filmmakers have actually used the end credits to, for example, either continue or restate the movie’s story. The 1955 film Marty, which won the best picture Oscar that year, ends promisingly but inclusively, just as the Paddy Chayefsky teleplay that he used as the basis for his screenplay had: Marty is in a phone booth calling Clara, whom he met at the dance, to ask her out. But then over the closing credits, in which the actors are identified and shown without dialogue in brief moments from the film, a song with Italianate music by Harry Warren and lyrics by Chayefsky is sung by male voices representing Angie and Marty’s other friends lamenting his absence: “What happened, what happened/Hey, Marty!/ Hey, whatever happened to you,” ending with the conclusion that Marty must be in love. The song continues the story, telling the audience that Marty has indeed happily stayed with Clara.
More recently, after Jimmy (George Clooney) and Lexie (Renee Zellweger) drive off on his motorcycle in the 2008 Leatherheads , the end credits are interspersed with photos that include their wedding picture and a portrait of crooked agent C.C. Frazier (Jonathan Pryce) sitting with Babe Ruth, showing that, having been banned from football, he did end up in baseball just as he promised. The credits at the end of X-Files: I Want to Believe (2008) suggest what ultimately happens to Mulder and Scully, and the beginning of the end credits for Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps (2010) shows a birthday party that suggests redemption for the major characters.
The closing credits to the three-hour-long, all-star extravaganza Around the World in Eighty Days, the 1956 Oscar winner, liven up the process, giving the credits the title “Who Was Seen in What Scene” and Who Did What” and then showing an animated, seven-minute recap of the entire movie, identifying the actors in the order in which they appeared and the crew by functions. Another movie that recaps the entire film at the end is the 1941 Citizen Kane directed by Orson Welles, one of the greatest U.S. movies, and one in which the closing credits become an extension and a characterization of the film.
Kane ends with the camera tracking back through the fence with the “No Trespassing” sign, showing us the billowing smoke from the chimney at newspaper magnate’s estate Xanadu, and affirming our realization that this man who appeared to have everything died having nothing that mattered to him. After this gloomy end, the music by Bernard Hermann switches from funereal tones to a sprightly melody based on Kane’s campaign song in the film and, since there were no opening credits, identifies the cast and crew. The cast is shown in brief scenes from the movie, and so again the entire film is re-enacted in a few minutes. But these are not clips but restagings of the scenes. Racing through the entire movie in this manner has a comic undertone.
In the final restaging, George Coulouris playing the banker Thatcher does the scene in which Thatcher reads the letter from the young Kane. But while in the movie proper the line “I think it would be fun to own a newspaper” is read with a growl of disgust, in the credits Coulouris reads the line, repeats it, rolls his eyes to the heavens, and sighs comically
In ancient Greek theatre, the actors who performed tragic trilogies such as the Orestia followed it with a “satyr play” that satirized the themes of the tragedies. The closing credits of Kane become a satyr play for the film. It’s the reverse of the Stephen Sondheim song from A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum: “Tragedy today, comedy tomorrow.”
All of this is supported by Hermann’s music which has a vaudeville panache—a steady, foot-tapping beat with the brass going higher and higher. It’s as if he, Welles, the actors, and crew are telling us, “Yes, it’s a serious film. But it’s only a movie!” Welles was in a way telling William Randolph Hearst, on whose life the film was seemingly based, not to be upset by it. But it didn’t work?-Hearst attempted to have the film destroyed, literally and figuratively, probably because he didn’t stay for the closing credits and get the message.
End credits like those of Kane can characterize a film. Burt Reynolds’ comedic films like Hooper (1978) and Cannonball Run (1981) ran bloopers or outtakes during the credits. But end credits can also mischaracterize. The late Peter Sellers insisted that he did not receive an Oscar nomination for his performance in Being There (1979) because during the credits the filmmakers ran outtakes of him laughing uncontrollably. Sellers said this made Being There appear it to be a different film than it was, with another crazy, over-the-top Peter Sellers performance rather than the quieter, subdued portrayal he gave.
The last minutes of Airplane (1980) continue its wackiness with “crazy credits” sprinkled among the real ones like “Generally in charge of a lot of things—Mike Finnell;” “Author of Tale of Two Cities—Charles Dickens;” “Forseez—A Jolly Good Fellow;” “In case of tornado—Southwest corner of basement.” Mama Mia ‘s (2008) closing credits run while the principals reprise ABBA songs from the movie in 1970s getups.
Additional scenes have been sometimes added during the credits. After the credits of Young Sherlock Holmes (1985) the mystery continues as villainous schoolmaster Rathe is revealed to have survived his drowning and taken as his name that of Holmes’ future nemesis Professor Moriarty , and the villain Bullseye in shown at the end of Daredevil (2003) to be still alive although in a full body cast. X-Men Origins: Wolverine (2009) shot two post-credit sequences to be released to different theatres.
Ferris Bueller’s Day Off (1978) perpetuates its irreverence when after the credits Bueller (Matthew Broderick) comes out of the bathroom and says, “Are you still here? It’s over. Go home.” The musical version of Mel Brooks The Producers’ (2005) has a voiceover during the credits of Will Ferrell playing the comic Nazi Franz Liebkind telling the audience they can buy Mein Kamp on amazon.com; it follows the end credits with a musical number “Goodbye” that concludes with Brooks telling the audience to “Get out!”
An ulterior motive of the use of bloopers, additional scenes, and “crazy credits,” at the end of movies is that by keeping you in your seats there is a chance to sell you something. If nothing else, you get implicit advertising when you read about all the companies who provided products for the film during the movie. Iron Man (2008) and Iron Man 2 (2010) both end with a scene introducing a new character for a spin-off film.
Just like a film’s beginning usually tells you the type of film it’s going to be, a movie’s end credits can reaffirm the type of film you’ve just seen. I’m not saying this just because it’s lonely in the theatre during closing credits, but you might find something interesting if you stay.
Copyright 2012 by John T. Aquino
