What makes a good title?

September 12th, 2008 at 12:26pm Will Pfeifer

There’s a very interesting article over at David Bordwell’s Website on Cinema blog examing movie titles — why they’re chosen, why they work and why they don’t. They’re such an obvious, constant presence that they’re rarely considered, but Bordwell and co-author Kristin Thompson make some fascinating observations.

The title of NORTH BY NORTHWEST, Hitchcock’s classic suspense film, has puzzled critics for years, but Bordwell and Thompson might have finally nailed the reason for the unusual phrase, and it has nothing to do with Shakespeare…

Take North by Northwest. Many critics believe that it refers to Hamlet’s confession that “I am but mad North-northwest: When the wind is southerly, I know a hawk from a handsaw.” Roger Thornhill, caught off balance by the espionage game he’s plunged into, could be said to have lost his bearings. But I’ve always thought that the compass-point title logo and the cross-hatched latitude/ longitude array that launch the movie prepare us for travel, in a roughly westerly, then northwesterly direction (New York-Chicago-South Dakota). And when Roger is sent from Chicago to Rapid City, he travels by airliner: He flies north, by Northwest. A Hitchcock joke?

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