Letters of Introduction: Film Credits and Cityscapes

ABSTRACT This essay is about the textuality of film credit sequences and their relationship to the expressivity of urban life. It traces the development of credit sequences away from models based on the book and the theatrical stage, towards an engagement with the material objects and expressive forms of cities. Using a wide variety of examples, from the 1920s through the 1960s, the essay traces the shifting status of words, images, and forms of public textuality in the credit sequence.