How to Watch Old Movies: The Opening Credits

Yeah, okay, so opening credits in old movies can be kinda boring, just a few title cards, a minute and a half of text and no cinema exactly, just flat, static cards with a bunch of names, like the movie equivalent of the theater playbill, accompanied by the bombastic orchestral score of the movie's theme. Not like today's movies that start right in with the action -- with the movie -- not even worrying about telling us who is in the thing, just get us right to the story, BAM!

Well, I get it. The way movies start nowadays, it's more cinematic. More organic. Not as stilted and artificial as the old title cards in the old movies.

But.

But there's something oddly comforting about the way old movies do their opening credits. It's like the movie is inviting us in, welcoming us, easing us into the experience of the movie. Preparing our brains for the wonders to come, but only hinting at those wonders, only giving a few fleeting glimpses of what we can hope to expect.

How to Watch Old Movies, Part 2

There's a movie star for every occasion. Like patron saints.

Feeling like it's you against the world? Then queue up Joan Crawford. Maybe a screening of Mildred Pierce will make you realize you ain't got it half as bad as old Joanie. Sick of looking to our politicians for answers only to find that they're all just a part of one great, big, useless ball of dangerous Stupid? Embrace your inner anarchist and turn on the Marx Brothers in Duck Soup. Stuck in a funk and feeling like a miserable, uncouth slob? Turn on a Cary Grant movie and try to catch just a sprinkle of his effortless grace.

See, old movies are more like religion than new movies are, and it's hard for new movie types to quite understand the fervor of the old movie devotee. At least, it's hard at first, because they're not used to the old movie fan's culture of movie star devotion (which is quite different from today's "celebrity culture"; devotion to old movie stars is based on love and enjoyment, whereas celebrity culture is based on curiosity and shock value). But these newbies can be brought around. You see, all they need is a little old time religion. Movie religion, that is.

How to Watch Old Movies, Part 1

First, you shouldn't expect too much. It's the fundamental problem of recommendation: Expectations. Read this book; watch this film; listen to this song. The instant someone recommends something to you is the instant you start raising your expectations too high. Hey, it happens to me too. So the first rule of watching old movies is: Don't expect too much.

"Then why bother?" you ask. "If I'm not supposed to expect too much, why should I even care, why should I even try if it's probably not going to be all that great?" Valid. But stupid. Any idiot knows that the unexpected gem is the rarest of them all. Confucius say.

In other words, old movies are worth watching precisely because they're nothing special. They're as ordinary as your grandmother. They're as unremarkable as a pleasant day in May. Too many movies today are the big thrill, the shock and awe of cgi and spectacle. I like spectacle, but today's brand is so big and loud and flashy, that it's nice to just relax on the couch with a quiet vision, a simple black and white world. So when you sit down to watch some B-movie from 1945 or a strange, crackling talky from the early 30s, don't think you're sitting down to One of the Greatest Movies Ever Made. It may, in fact, turn out to be the greatest thing you've ever seen, but don't force it, don't expect it. Don't expect anything. Just let the silvery alchemy of an old movie work its own magic; watch it like you would any other television distraction. If you sit down to see a magic show, chances are you'll be looking too hard and see the strings attached. Watch with a distracted eye, and if the magic really is there, you'll fall under its spell, no fear.