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During his 40-year career Bass worked for some of Hollywood's greatest filmmakers, including [[Alfred Hitchcock]], [[Otto Preminger]], [[Billy Wilder]], [[Stanley Kubrick]] and [[Martin Scorsese]]. Amongst his most famous [[title sequence]]s are the animated paper cut-out of a heroin addict's arm for Preminger's ''[[The Man with the Golden Arm]]'', the text racing up and down that eventually becomes a high-angle shot of the United Nations building in [[Alfred Hitchcock]]'s ''[[North by Northwest]]'', and the disjointed text that races together and apart in ''[[Psycho (1960 film)|Psycho]]''.
During his 40-year career Bass worked for some of Hollywood's greatest filmmakers, including [[Alfred Hitchcock]], [[Otto Preminger]], [[Billy Wilder]], [[Stanley Kubrick]] and [[Martin Scorsese]]. Amongst his most famous [[title sequence]]s are the animated paper cut-out of a heroin addict's arm for Preminger's ''[[The Man with the Golden Arm]]'', the text racing up and down that eventually becomes a high-angle shot of the United Nations building in [[Alfred Hitchcock]]'s ''[[North by Northwest]]'', and the disjointed text that races together and apart in ''[[Psycho (1960 film)|Psycho]]''.


Bass designed some of the most iconic corporate logos in North America, including the [[American Telephone & Telegraph Company|AT&T]] "bell" logo in 1969, as well as [[American Telephone & Telegraph Company|AT&T]]'s "globe" logo in 1983 after the [[Bell System divestiture|breakup of the Bell System]]. He also designed [[Continental Airlines]]' 1968 "jetstream" logo and [[United Airlines]]' 1974 "tulip" logo which became some of the most recognized airline industry logos of the era.
Bass designed some of the most iconic corporate logos in North America, including the [[American Telephone & Telegraph Company|AT&T]] "bell" logo in 1969, as well as [[American Telephone & Telegraph Company|AT&T]]'s "globe" logo in 1983 after the [[Bell System divestiture|breakup of the Bell System]]. He also designed [[Continental Airlines]]' 1968 "jetstream" logo and the [[United Airlines]]' 1974 "tulip" logo, which became one of the most recognized airline industry logos.

==Early life==
==Early life==
Saul Bass was born on May 8, 1920, in the [[The Bronx|Bronx]], New York, to Eastern European Jewish immigrant parents. He graduated from [[James Monroe High School (New York)|James Monroe High School]] in the [[The Bronx|Bronx]] and studied part-time at the [[Art Students League of New York|Art Students League]] in Manhattan until attending classes with [[György Kepes]] at [[Brooklyn College]]<ref>{{cite journal|last=Kirkham|first=Pat|title=Reassessing the Saul Bass and Alfred Hitchcock Collaboration|date=10|year=2011|month=February|volume=18|url=http://www.west86th.bgc.bard.edu/articles/kirkham-bass-hitchcock.html|journal=West 86th}}</ref>. He began his time in Hollywood during the 1940s doing print work for film ads, until he collaborated with filmmaker Otto Preminger to design the [[film poster]] for his 1954 film ''[[Carmen Jones (film)|Carmen Jones]]''. Preminger was so impressed with Bass's work that he asked him to produce the title sequence as well. This was when Bass first saw the opportunity to create something more than a title sequence, but to create something which would ultimately enhance the experience of the audience and contribute to the mood and the theme of the movie within the opening moments. Bass was one of the first to realize the creative potential of the opening and closing credits of a movie.
Saul Bass was born on May 8, 1920, in the [[The Bronx|Bronx]], New York, to Eastern European Jewish immigrant parents. He graduated from [[James Monroe High School (New York)|James Monroe High School]] in the [[The Bronx|Bronx]] and studied part-time at the [[Art Students League of New York|Art Students League]] in Manhattan until attending classes with [[György Kepes]] at [[Brooklyn College]]<ref>{{cite journal|last=Kirkham|first=Pat|title=Reassessing the Saul Bass and Alfred Hitchcock Collaboration|date=10|year=2011|month=February|volume=18|url=http://www.west86th.bgc.bard.edu/articles/kirkham-bass-hitchcock.html|journal=West 86th}}</ref>. He began his time in Hollywood during the 1940s doing print work for film ads, until he collaborated with filmmaker Otto Preminger to design the [[film poster]] for his 1954 film ''[[Carmen Jones (film)|Carmen Jones]]''. Preminger was so impressed with Bass's work that he asked him to produce the title sequence as well. This was when Bass first saw the opportunity to create something more than a title sequence, but to create something which would ultimately enhance the experience of the audience and contribute to the mood and the theme of the movie within the opening moments. Bass was one of the first to realize the creative potential of the opening and closing credits of a movie.

Revision as of 11:09, 24 December 2011

Saul Bass
File:Saul Bass.jpg
Born(1920-05-08)May 8, 1920
New York City, New York, United States
DiedApril 25, 1996(1996-04-25) (aged 75)
Los Angeles, California
Occupation(s)Graphic designer, title designer

Saul Bass (May 8, 1920 – April 25, 1996) was a graphic designer and filmmaker, best known for his design of motion picture title sequences.

During his 40-year career Bass worked for some of Hollywood's greatest filmmakers, including Alfred Hitchcock, Otto Preminger, Billy Wilder, Stanley Kubrick and Martin Scorsese. Amongst his most famous title sequences are the animated paper cut-out of a heroin addict's arm for Preminger's The Man with the Golden Arm, the text racing up and down that eventually becomes a high-angle shot of the United Nations building in Alfred Hitchcock's North by Northwest, and the disjointed text that races together and apart in Psycho.

Bass designed some of the most iconic corporate logos in North America, including the AT&T "bell" logo in 1969, as well as AT&T's "globe" logo in 1983 after the breakup of the Bell System. He also designed Continental Airlines' 1968 "jetstream" logo and the United Airlines' 1974 "tulip" logo, which became one of the most recognized airline industry logos.

Early life

Saul Bass was born on May 8, 1920, in the Bronx, New York, to Eastern European Jewish immigrant parents. He graduated from James Monroe High School in the Bronx and studied part-time at the Art Students League in Manhattan until attending classes with György Kepes at Brooklyn College[1]. He began his time in Hollywood during the 1940s doing print work for film ads, until he collaborated with filmmaker Otto Preminger to design the film poster for his 1954 film Carmen Jones. Preminger was so impressed with Bass's work that he asked him to produce the title sequence as well. This was when Bass first saw the opportunity to create something more than a title sequence, but to create something which would ultimately enhance the experience of the audience and contribute to the mood and the theme of the movie within the opening moments. Bass was one of the first to realize the creative potential of the opening and closing credits of a movie.

Film title sequences

Bass became widely known in the film industry after creating the title sequence for Otto Preminger's The Man with the Golden Arm (1955). The subject of the film was a jazz musician's struggle to overcome his heroin addiction, a taboo subject in the mid-'50s. Bass decided to create a controversial title sequence to match the film's controversial subject. He chose the arm as the central image, as the arm is a strong image relating to drug addiction. The titles featured an animated, white on black paper cut-out arm of a heroin addict. As he expected, it caused quite a sensation.

For Alfred Hitchcock, Bass provided effective, memorable title sequences, inventing a new type of kinetic typography, for North by Northwest (1959), Vertigo (1958), working with John Whitney, and Psycho (1960). It was this kind of innovative, revolutionary work that made Bass a revered graphic designer. Before the advent of Bass’s title sequences in the 1950s, titles were generally static, separate from the movie, and it was common for them to be projected onto the cinema curtains, the curtains only being raised right before the first scene of the movie. [2]

Bass once described his main goal for his title sequences as being to ‘’try to reach for a simple, visual phrase that tells you what the picture is all about and evokes the essence of the story” [3]. Another philosophy that Bass described as influencing his title sequences was the goal of getting the audience to see familiar parts of their world in an unfamiliar way. Examples of this or what he described as “making the ordinary extraordinary” can be seen in Walk on the Wild Side (1962) where an ordinary cat becomes a mysterious prowling predator, and in Nine Hours to Rama (1963) where the interior workings of a clock become an expansive new landscape [4].

He designed title sequences for more than 40 years, and employed diverse film making techniques, from cut-out animation for Anatomy of a Murder (1958), to fully animated mini-movies such as the epilogue for Around the World in 80 Days (1956), and live action sequences. His live action opening title sequences often served as prologues to their films and transitioned seamlessly into their opening scenes. These “time before” title sequences either compress or expand time with startling results. The title sequence to Grand Prix (1966) portrays the moments before the opening race in Monte Carlo, the title sequence to The Big Country (1958) depicts the days it takes a stage coach to travel to a remote Western town, and the opening montage title sequence to The Victors (1963) chronicles the twenty seven years between WWI and the middle of WWII, where the film begins.

Toward the end of his career, he was rediscovered by James L. Brooks and Martin Scorsese who had grown up admiring his film work [5]. For Scorsese, Saul Bass (in collaboration with his wife Elaine Bass) created title sequences for Goodfellas (1990), Cape Fear (1991), The Age of Innocence (1993), and Casino (1995), his last title sequence. His later work with Martin Scorsese saw him move away from the optical techniques that he had pioneered and move into the use of computerized effects. Bass’s title sequences featured new and innovative methods of production and startling graphic design.

In some sense, all modern opening title sequences that introduce the mood or theme of a film can be seen as a legacy of Saul Bass's innovative work. In particular, though, title sequences for some recent movies and television series, especially those whose setting is during the 1960s, have purposely emulated the graphic style of his animated sequences from that era. Some recent examples of title sequences that are considered to pay homage to Bass’s animated title sequences are Catch Me If You Can (2002)[6], X-Men: First Class (2011)[7], and the opening to the AMC series Mad Men[8].

Selected film title sequences and respective dates

Logos and other designs

File:SaulBassLogos.jpg
Logos designed by Saul Bass. From top left: Bell System, AT&T, General Foods, United Airlines, Avery International, Continental Airlines, Celanese, United Way, Rockwell International, Minolta, Girl Scouts of the USA, Lawry's Foods, Quaker Oats, Kleenex, Frontier Airlines, Dixie, Warner Books and Warner Communications, Fuller Paints

Bass was responsible for some of the best-remembered, most iconic logos in North America, including both the Bell Telephone logo (1969) and successor AT&T globe (1983). Other well-known designs were Continental Airlines (1968), Dixie (1969) and United Airlines (1974). Later, he would produce logos for a number of Japanese companies as well. He also designed the Student Academy Award for the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.[9]

Selected logos by Saul Bass and respective dates (note that links shown point to articles on the entities themselves, and not necessarily to the logos):

An analysis of a sample of Bass’s corporate logos in 2011 found them to have an unusual longevity. The most common cause of the demise of a Bass corporate logo (in the selection analyzed) was the demise of the company, rather than a corporate logo redesign. The average lifespan of a Bass logo is more than 34 years, and counting. [12]

Movie posters

Saul Bass designed emblematic movie posters that revolutionized the visuals of film advertising. Before Bass’s seminal poster for The Man with the Golden Arm (1955), movie posters were dominated by depictions of key scenes or characters from the film, often both juxtaposed with each other. Bass’s posters, however, typically developed simplified, symbolic designs that visually communicated key essential elements of the film. For example, his poster for a Man with a Golden Arm, with a jagged arm and off-kilter typography, starkly communicates the protagonist's struggle with heroin addition. Bass's iconic Vertigo (1958) poster, with its stylized figures sucked down into the nucleus of a spiral vortex, captures the anxiety and disorientation central to the film. His poster for Anatomy of a Murder (1959), featuring the silhouette of a corpse jarringly dissected into seven pieces, makes both a pun on the film’s title and captures the moral ambiguities within which this court room drama is immersed.

He created some of his best known posters for films directed by Otto Preminger, Alfred Hitchcock, Billy Wilder, and Stanley Kubrick among others. His last commissioned film poster was created for Steven Spielberg's Schindler's List, but was never distributed. [13] His poster work spanned five decades and inspired numerous other poster and graphic designers. Bass's film posters are characterized by a distinctive typography and minimalistic style.

Selected posters by Saul Bass, and their respective dates.

1950s

Love in the Afternoon poster designed by Bass.

1960s

The Fireman's Ball

1970s

File:Shining-kubrik.jpg
The Shining poster designed by Bass.

1980s and 1990s


He received an unintentionally backhanded tribute in 1995, when Spike Lee's film Clockers was promoted by a poster that was strikingly similar to Bass's 1959 work for Preminger's film Anatomy of a Murder. Designer Art Sims claimed that it was made as an homage, but Bass regarded it as theft.[14] Many film posters have been considered to be homages to Saul Bass’s posters. Some recent examples include, the theatrical release poster for Burn After Reading (2008) which incorporates Bass’s typography and style of figurative minimalism [15], and a poster for Precious (2009) which includes elements from several of Bass’s posters, including Anatomy of a Murder. [16] The cover art for the White Stripes' single The Hardest Button to Button is clearly inspired by the Bass poster for The Man with the Golden Arm.

In addition to movie posters, Bass designed numerous posters for film festivals, and several magazine, book, and album covers. In 1962 he illustrated his only children’s book, Henri’s Walk to Paris, written by Lenore Klein. [17]

Filmmaker

During the 1960s, Bass was asked by directors and producers not only to produce title sequences for their films, but also to visualize and storyboard key scenes and sequences within them. Bass has the unusual credit of “visual consultant” or “pictorial consultant” on five films. For Spartacus (1960), Bass as “visual consultant” designed key elements of the gladiator school and storyboarded the final battle between slaves and Romans. John Frankenheimer asked Bass to storyboard, direct, and edit all but one of the racing sequences in Grand Prix (1966). For West Side Story (1961) he filmed the prologue, storyboarded the opening dance sequence, and created the ending title sequence. [18]

It is Bass’s credited role as “pictorial consultant” for Alfred Hitchcock on Psycho (1960), however, that has caused some controversy. Bass claimed that he participated in directing the highlight scene of Psycho, the tightly edited shower-murder sequence, though many on set at the time (including star Janet Leigh) disputed his contention of "direction". However, it can be argued that said dispute was simply semantic in nature with Bass's use of the term "directing" reflecting his own perspective on the "directorial" value of his influential graphic contribution to the scene, while the position of Leigh and the others on set was based on the scene being literally directed by Hitchcock as the film director ultimately in charge of all artistic decisions.

Bill Krohn's recent work of scholarship on Hitchcock's production of Psycho (Hitchcock At Work, Phaidon Press), validates that Bass in his capacity as a graphic artist did indeed have a significant influence on the visual design of that famous scene. Hitchcock had asked Bass to produce storyboards for the shower-murder scene and a later murder scene (which was truncated).[19] For this, Bass received a credit as Pictorial Consultant as well as Title Designer.[20]

Krohn noted that Bass's 48 drawings introduced key aspects of the final shower-murder scene, namely the fact that the attacker would be seen as a silhouette, the shower curtain torn down, a high angle shot of the murder scene with the curtain rod used as a barrier and also the famous shot of the transition from the drainage hole of the bathtub to Marion Crane's dead eye which as Krohn notes is reminiscent of Bass's iris titles for Vertigo. Krohn also concludes that Bass did not literally direct the shower-murder scene, proving Hitchcock's presence on the set throughout the shooting of that scene conclusively. Also, as Janet Leigh points out in Stephen Rebello's book Alfred Hitchcock and the Making of Psycho, Hitchcock met with Bass and gave him detailed instructions concerning the scene, from which Bass then developed storyboard pictorial ideas — therefore the authorship of the fundamental sequence is clearly Hitchcock's.[21] The shower scene was shot with two cameras at least part of the time and Hitchcock working from the paradigms set up by Bass's storyboards would trim the shot footage into a proper montage that he believed would produce the right emotions on the audience. Hitchcock showed a rough cut of the scene during production to his editor George Tomasini and even brought a Moviola on the set to gauge the exact sequence of scenes which ultimately was shaped according to his decision and approval.[20] Additionally, in an interview with François Truffaut regarding "Psycho", Hitchcock confirms that Bass also storyboarded the scene where Arbogast proceeds up the staircase to his doom, a scene that Hitch also let Bass film while the director was at home with a temperature. However, Hitchcock states that once he saw the sequence he did not use it because it "wasn't right".[22]

In 1964, Bass directed a short film titled The Searching Eye shown during the 1964 New York World's Fair, coproduced with Sy Wexler. He also directed a short documentary film called Why Man Creates which won an Academy Award Oscar in 1968. An abbreviated version of that film was broadcast on the first episode of the television newsmagazine 60 Minutes, on September 24 of that year. In 2002, this film was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant". [23] Saul Bass co-directed with his wife Elaine Bass several other short films, two of which were nominated for Academy Award Oscars; Notes on the Popular Arts in 1977, and The Solar Film in 1979, the latter for which Robert Redford was the executive producer.

In 1974, he made his only feature length film as a director, the visually splendid though little-known science fiction film Phase IV, a "Quiet, haunting, beautiful, [...] and largely overlooked, science-fiction masterwork".[24]

Quotes

"My initial thoughts about what a title can do was to set mood and the prime underlying core of the film's story, to express the story in some metaphorical way. I saw the title as a way of conditioning the audience, so that when the film actually began, viewers would already have an emotional resonance with it."[25]
"Design is thinking made visual."
"There is nothing glamorous in what I do. I'm a working man. Perhaps I'm luckier than most in that I receive considerable satisfaction from doing useful work which I, and sometimes others, think is good."[26]

See also

References

  1. ^ Kirkham, Pat (10). "Reassessing the Saul Bass and Alfred Hitchcock Collaboration". West 86th. 18. {{cite journal}}: Check date values in: |date= and |year= / |date= mismatch (help); Unknown parameter |month= ignored (help)
  2. ^ http://blog.granneman.com/2011/04/05/saul-bass-changed-how-audiences-view-movie-credits/
  3. ^ Kael, Pauline. “One, Two, Three.” Film Quarterly. Vol. 15, No. 3. (Spring, 1962): 62-65
  4. ^ Bass, Saul (1977) Bass on Titles. Pyramid Films. Santa Monica, CA
  5. ^ http://www.bfi.org.uk/filmtvinfo/library/eventsexh/past/saulbass/biography.html
  6. ^ http://www.artofthetitle.com/2011/08/22/catch-me-if-you-can/
  7. ^ http://www.watchthetitles.com/articles/00223-X_Men_First_Class
  8. ^ http://blogs.amctv.com/mad-men/2008/03/qa-title-design.php
  9. ^ "History of the Student Academy Awards". Oscars.org. Retrieved 2011-04-02.
  10. ^ Serling, Robert J. (1974). Maverick: The story of Robert Six and Continental Airlines. Doubleday & Company. ISBN 0-385-04057-1.
  11. ^ "A postage stamp by Saul Bass". Retrieved 2011-04-02.
  12. ^ Annyas, Christian (2011) Saul Bass Logo Design: Then and Now – The average lifespan of a Saul Bass logo is 34 years. Retrieved 2011-11-23
  13. ^ Kirkham, Pat & Jennifer Bass (2011) Saul Bass: A Life in Film & Design. (pp. 406 and 420)
  14. ^ Schaefer, Stephen (September 08, 1995). "Poster Imposter". Entertainment Weekly. 2011-04-02.
  15. ^ "Burn After Reading Poster Inspired by Saul Bass". /Film.
  16. ^ http://dieselation.com/?tag=saul-bass
  17. ^ http://grainedit.com/2007/12/03/henris-walk-to-paris-designed-by-saul-bass
  18. ^ Kirkham, Pat (10). "Reassessing the Saul Bass and Alfred Hitchcock Collaboration". West 86th. 18. {{cite journal}}: Check date values in: |date= and |year= / |date= mismatch (help); Unknown parameter |month= ignored (help)
  19. ^ "Saul Bass storyboards for Psycho shower scene". Retrieved 2011-04-01.
  20. ^ a b Krohn, Bill (2003). Hitchcock at Work. London: Phaidon Press.
  21. ^ Rebello, Stephen (1990). Alfred Hitchcock and the Making of Psycho. New York: St. Martin's Griffin. pp. 109. ISBN 0-312-20785-9.
  22. ^ Truffaut, François. (1985)[1967] Hitchcock By Truffaut. The Definitive Study of Alfred Hitchcock. New York: Simon and Schuster - Touchstone Books. p. 273. ISBN 978-0-671-60429-5
  23. ^ Library of Congress - Press Release - December 12, 2002
  24. ^ Scalzo, Thomas (August 8, 2005). "Phase IV (review)". Not coming to a theater near you (notcoming.com). Retrieved 2008-10-16.
  25. ^ Haskins, Pamela (Autumn 1996). "Saul, Can You Make Me a Title? Interview with Saul Bass". Film Quarterly. pp. 12-13.
  26. ^ "Art Directors Club biography & images of work". adcglobal.org. Retrieved 2011-04-02.

Further reading

  • Kirkham, Pat and Jennifer Bass (2011). Saul Bass: A Life in Film & Design. London: Laurence King. ISBN 978-1-85669-752-1.
  • Tomislav Terek (2001). Saul Bass on Titles: Film Titles Revealed. Defunkt Century. ISBN 1-903792-00-2.

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