We
watched Beetlejuice Beetlejuice, the
sequel, the other night, and it’s got its share of entertaining moments. (We watched the original the night after, and
it’s better, but of course it has the virtue of originality.) One of the coolest
things about the sequel, BB, is the
title sequence, a long overhead tracking shot of the picturesque little town,
swooping down below the trees and among the houses, which you immediately
realize is a model – and if you know
the first movie, you know it’s the model of the town hidden in the attic of the
haunted house.
Seeing as it’s a Tim Burton movie, you know it’s going to be self-referential, and mischievous. (In all honesty, you’d think the same thing if it were a Tarantino, or a Wes Anderson.) That title sequence, unhappily, promises more mischief than the picture delivers. Tim Burton is clearly having fun, right at the beginning, but the movie gets a little labored, later on. The light-heartedness of the opening sequence is an homage to Hitchcock’s title sequence for The Lady Vanishes. This, also, a model, the camera panning from a matte drawing of the mountains, and over the train tracks buried by avalanche, with a dolly shot across the snow, closing on the hotel window, and a lap dissolve into the lobby, crowded and chattering. (In the dolly shot, a car goes by in the background, between the buildings, and you know it’s a toy: you can almost see the string pulling it.) I think you’re meant to know the snowbound exterior is a trompe l’oeil, it’s an inside joke. Hitchcock enjoyed that stuff a lot, and liked to share.
For example, he tells a story about how he did the plane crash in Foreign Correspondent. Near the end, they crash in the ocean, and he shows it from the cockpit POV. The plane goes into a dive, and you see the water coming up at them, and when they hit, seawater smashes through the windscreen and soaks the pilots. Real water, mind, they didn’t have CGI. Here’s the trick. The inside of the cockpit is a mock-up, instrument panel and windshield, with a rear-screen projection set-up to show the ocean rushing up at them. Behind the rear-screen, he has a huge tank of water, up on scaffolding, and two big pipes, aimed at the cockpit. When the film loop being projected shows the plane about to hit the surface of the water, they pull the plug, like flushing a toilet, and this enormous volume of water bursts through the screen and into the cockpit and soaks the stunt guys. Cut. You just know was Hitch like a kid in a candy store.
A little of this goes a long way. You can show your audience, or the reader, what’s behind the curtain, but you have to be careful not to break the spell. They’re going to trust you, that you’re playing by the conventions. A country house, some brittle conversation over cocktails, a little below-stairs intrigue, these are simple pleasures. You don’t spoil it. The same is true of camera artifice or FX. The fourth wall is there for a reason.
Here’s the opening model shot of The Lady Vanishes.
Most of Hitchcock's trompe l'oeil worked, except (let's face facts) the AWFUL Mount Rushmore in "North by Northwest." I love "The Lady Vanishes".
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