the devil pedlar woman

A while ago I posted some roughly assembled images of the way I intended the sequence to look in which the Devil comes to Joseph disguised as a Pedlar Woman. Here’s how it looks in the finished version, with Peter’s photographs a great improvement on my own.

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Now, look, sir! Look at these lovely things-

Watches! Necklaces! And rings!

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Soldier shakes his head.)

Some lace, sir? No?

Don’t be afraid, sir, to say so-

It’s true, of course, you haven’t a wife…

Each has his little job in life…

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A lucky medallion, engraved on the back?

(Soldier shakes his head.)

No? No, every time. Now what do you lack-

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 A mirror perhaps? No? Oh dear, what a shame,

A beautiful picture, complete with frame?

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Ah! That seems to arouse your interest,

Is it no? Still no? The same as the rest…

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Or would a little fiddle be best?

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title sequence for l’histoire du soldat

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There are eighteen images in the sequence, and so I’ve posted an edited version here.

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I grew up enjoying the credit sequences of films, the great Saul Bass being the designer I admire the most.  (He did Spartacus, The Man with the Golden Arm and Psycho among many others.)  This project is probably the closest I’m ever going to get to designing a sequence of film credits, and it’s afforded me a wonderful opportunity to play. My thanks to Peter who gallantly gave up his weekend to take the photographs. He made some good suggestions that improved the sequence, and it’s down to him that the images are at last looking as good as I’d hoped they would. (My own photography is lamentably poor.) My thanks too to David Montgomery, who when he asked me couldn’t have known how much I was going to enjoy this.

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