Saul Bass (; May 8, 1920 – April 25, 1996) was an American graphic designer and filmmaker, best known for his design of motion-picture title sequences, film posters, and corporate logos.
During his 40-year career, Bass worked for some of Hollywood's most prominent filmmakers, including Alfred Hitchcock, Otto Preminger, Billy Wilder, Stanley Kubrick, and Martin Scorsese. Among his best known title sequences are the animated paper cut-out of a heroin addict's arm for Preminger's The Man with the Golden Arm, the credits racing up and down what eventually becomes a high-angle shot of a skyscraper in Hitchcock's North by Northwest, and the disjointed text that races together and apart in Psycho.
Bass' firm designed some of the most iconic corporate logos in North America, including the Geffen Records logo in 1980, the Hanna-Barbera "swirling star" logo in 1979, the sixth and final version of the Bell System logo in 1969, as well as AT&T Corporation's first globe logo in 1983 after the breakup of the Bell System. He died from non-Hodgkin's lymphoma in Los Angeles on April 25, 1996, at the age of 75.
Early life Saul Bass was born on May 8, 1920, in the Bronx, New York City, 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 night classes with György Kepes at Brooklyn College. In 1938, Saul married Ruth Cooper and they had two children, Robert in 1942 and Andrea in 1946.
He began his time in Hollywood in the 1940s, designing print advertisements for films including Champion (1949), Death of a Salesman (1951) and The Moon Is Blue (1953), directed by Otto Preminger. His next collaboration with Preminger was to design a 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 a title sequence 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-1950s. Bass decided to create an innovative title sequence to match the film's controversial subject. He chose the arm as the central image, as it is a strong image relating to heroin addiction. The titles featured an animated, white on black paper cut-out arm of a heroin addict. As he hoped, it caused 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. In 1960, Bass wrote an article for Graphis magazine called "Film Titles – a New Field for the Graphic Designer," which has been revered as a milestone for "the consecration of the movie credit sequence as a design object." One of the most studied film credit designers, Bass is known for integrating a stylistic coherence between the designs and the films in which they appear.
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".Kael, Pauline. "One, Two, Three." Film Quarterly Vol. 15, No. 3. (Spring, 1962): 62–65 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.Bass, Saul (1977) Bass on Titles. Pyramid Films. Santa Monica, CA In the 1950s, Saul Bass used a variety of techniques, from cut-out animation for Anatomy of a Murder (1958), to fully animated mini-movies such as the epilogue for the Best Picture Oscar winner Around the World in 80 Days (1956), and live-action sequences.
On occasion, Bass' title sequences were said to outshine the films they introduced. When Billy Wilder's The Seven Year Itch (1955) was released, a film critic wrote, "If the film had lived up to the titles, it would have been a good picture." In reviewing A Walk on the Wild Side (1962), more than half of New York Critics claimed that Bass' titles were better than the film itself. In 1962, Variety even suggested that Bass might no longer find work in the title field since there has been too frequent the use of the line: "The best thing about the film is the Saul Bass credits."
In 1955, Elaine Makatura came to work with Bass in his Los Angeles office. With the opening to Spartacus (1960), she was directing and producing title sequences, and in 1961 the couple married, beginning more than 30 years of close collaboration. After the birth of their children, Jennifer in 1964 and Jeffrey in 1967, they concentrated on their family, film directing, and title sequences. Saul and Elaine designed title sequences for more than 30 years, continuously experimenting with a variety of innovative techniques and effects, from Bunraku-style maneuvers in Spartacus (1960), live-action sequences in Walk on the Wild Side (1962), to time-lapse photography in The Age of Innocence (1993), and even chopped liver in Mr. Saturday Night (1992). Their 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 World War I and the middle of World War II, where the film begins.
From the mid-1960s to the late '80s, Saul and Elaine moved away from main titles to focus on filmmaking and their children. About this time away from title design, Saul said:
In the 1980s, Saul and Elaine were rediscovered by James L. Brooks and Martin Scorsese, who had grown up admiring their film work. For Scorsese, Saul and Elaine Bass created title sequences for Goodfellas (1990), Cape Fear (1991), The Age of Innocence (1993), and Casino (1995), their last title sequence. This later work with Martin Scorsese saw the Basses move away from the optical techniques that Saul had pioneered and move into the use of computerized effects. The Basses' title sequences featured new and innovative methods of production and startling graphic design.
Screenwriter Nicholas Pileggi said of Saul and Elaine Bass, "You write a book of 300 to 400 pages and then you boil it down to a script of maybe 100 to 150 pages. Eventually you have the pleasure of seeing that the Basses have knocked you right out of the ballpark. They have boiled it down to four minutes flat."Jennifer Bass and Pat Kirkham, Saul Bass: A Life in Film & Design, Laurence King Publishing, 2011, pg.263
In a sense, all modern opening title sequences that introduce the mood or theme of a film can be seen as a legacy of the Basses' innovative work. In particular, title sequences for some recent movies and television series, especially those whose setting is during the 1960s, have purposely emulated the graphic style of Saul Bass's animated sequences from the 1950s. Some examples of title sequences that pay homage to Bass's graphics and animated title sequences are Catch Me If You Can (2002),Interview with Olivier Kuntzel and Florence Degas, designers of the Catch Me If You Can title sequence. Artofthetitle.com. Retrieved 2011-12-10 X-Men: First Class (2011),Interview with Simon Clowes, designer of the X-Men First Class title sequence. Watchthetitles.com and the openings to the AMC series Mad MenMad Men Q&A: Mad Men Title Designers Mark Gardner and Steve Fuller Retrieved 2011-12-19 and TBS's Conan.
Selected film title sequences
Carmen Jones (1954) The Big Knife (1955) The Man with the Golden Arm (1955) The Racers (1955) The Seven Year Itch (1955) The Shrike (1955) Around the World in Eighty Days (1956) Storm Center (1956) Attack (1956) Johnny Concho (1956) Edge of the City (1957) Saint Joan (1957) The Pride and the Passion (1957) The Young Stranger (1957) Bonjour Tristesse (1958) Cowboy (1958) Vertigo (1958) The Big Country (1958) Anatomy of a Murder (1959) North by Northwest (1959) Psycho (1960) Spartacus (1960) The Facts of Life (1960) Exodus (1960) Ocean's 11 (1960) West Side Story (1961) Something Wild (1961) Advise & Consent (1962) Walk on the Wild Side (1962) The Victors (1963) Nine Hours to Rama (1963) It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World (1963) The Cardinal (1963) In Harm's Way (1965) Bunny Lake Is Missing (1965) Grand Prix (1966) Not with My Wife, You Don't! (1966) Seconds (1966) Such Good Friends (1971) That's Entertainment, Part II (1976) Broadcast News (1987) Big (1988) Tonkō (1988) The War of the Roses (1989) Goodfellas (1990) Cape Fear (1991) Doc Hollywood (1991) Mr. Saturday Night (1992) The Age of Innocence (1993) Higher Learning (1995) Casino (1995) A Personal Journey with Martin Scorsese Through American Movies (1995)
Logos and other designs
Bass' firm was responsible for some of the best-remembered, most iconic logos in North America, including both the Bell Telephone logo (1969) and American Bell globe later used for successor AT&T (1982). Other well-known designs by Saul Bass & Associates included Continental Airlines (1968), Dixie (1969) and the United Airlines tulip (1974). His firm became known as Bass/Yager & Associates with the arrival of Herb Yager in 1978, and it would be merged into Lloyd Northover in 1997, a year after Bass' death.
Selected logos by Bass' firm and their respective dates (note that the links shown point to articles on the entities themselves, and not necessarily to the logos):
Alcoa (1963) Ajinomoto (1973) AT&T Corporation (1984) Avery International (1975) Bell System (1969) Boys Clubs of America (1980) Celanese (1965) Continental Airlines (1967–1991)Serling, Robert J. (1974). Maverick: The story of Robert Six and Continental Airlines. Doubleday & Company. . Dixie (1969) Frontier Airlines (1978) Fuller(-O'Brien) Paints (1963) Geffen Records (1980) General Foods (1984) Girl Scouts of the USA (1978) Hanna-Barbera (1979) Japan Energy Corporation (1993) J. Paul Getty Trust (1993) (1984) Kleenex (1961) Kosé Cosmetics (1991) Lawry's Seasoned Salt and Lawry's The Prime Rib (1960) Maeda Corporation (1991) Minami Sports (1991) Minolta (1981) NCR Corporation (1996) Pacific Life (1999, posthumous) Quaker Oats Company (1970) Rockwell International (1968) Security Pacific Bank (1966) Southern California Rapid Transit District (1980) United Airlines (1974–2010) United Way and United Way Centraide Canada (1972–75) University of Southern California (1994)