Semiotics and Title Sequences

Figures

Frontis A selection of metamorphic illusion postcards, c. 1890–1910

1.1 Metamorphic illusion of woman at vanity/skull

LEFT: stills from The House on Skull Mountain (1974)

RIGHT: All is Vanity by C. Allen Gilbert (House of Art, 1892)

1.2 “Art Title Cards” by Ferdinand Pinney Earle from the first five minutes of Daddy Long Legs (First National, 1919); there is no clear demarcation between title cards used in the opening sequence design and later narrative intertitles

1.3 All the title cards in The Man with the Golden Arm (1955), showing Saul Bass’s Modernist design of the sequence

1.4 Composite panorama, My Man Godfrey (Universal, 1936)

2.1 Title cards showing the figure–ground mode in Rumba (Paramount, 1935)

2.2 A calligram stating ...