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January 03, 2006
Times Classic Takes New Films at Face Value
Speaking of The Times, the paper's Movies section entered a particularly successful holiday weekend with a range of stories I really could not get enough of. Sure, there was the week's default "Christians and movies" piece (the latest in an unofficial series, this one evidently counters the "scientists and movies" piece from a few months back), and Larry David was too cute by half in tweaking the homo-hype around Brokeback Mountain. But when it comes to pointing out wayward typefaces in contemporary cinema, nobody--and I mean nobody--gets over on the Gray Lady.
Or at least nobody gets over on reporter Peter Edidin:
Mark Simonson, a type designer in St. Paul, Minn., maintains a Web site (www.ms-studio.com/typecasting.html) that exposes cinematic typographical inaccuracies to the withering light of day. Take the 2000 film Chocolat. Though the film takes place in 1950's France, in a close-up shot of a public notice, the headline is set in ITC Benguiat, which he said made its debut in 1978 and was popular mainly in the 80's. "I almost laughed," Mr. Simonson writes.
Then there is L.A. Confidential, set in 1950's Los Angeles. It was "tightly written, well acted, beautifully filmed," Mr. Simonson writes, "but pretty mediocre in its use of type."
Worse than any of these, to (designer Michael) Bierut, is Titanic. The dials on the pressure gauges, he said, are in Helvetica, though the ship went down in 1912. "To me, that's like taking out a Palm Pilot on the deck of the Titanic," he said.
Fascinating. There is nothing quite like setting the story bar so impassably high on New Year's Day. Caryn James must be preparing her resignation as we speak.
Posted by stvanairsdale at January 3, 2006 08:40 AM
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