Unseen Saul Bass
The great movie designer's early gems
Christmas, 1955. As cinema staff gingerly unwrapped the reels for a new Frank Sinatra movie their attention was drawn a little note stuck to the cans: “Projectionists – pull curtain before titles”. Before The Man With The Golden Arm hit screens, credits sequences has become so dull – essentially rolling boilerplates 'enlivened' by the odd drifting cloud – that they'd become used to waiting until they'd finished before pulling back the curtain. Saul Bass’s simple but stylised title sequence for Preminger’s melodrama – not to mention that handy note –changed all that for good. “Everybody said ‘Wow!’” Se7en title designer Kyle Cooper explains of this quiet revolution, "main titles can be more then just this utilitarian thing that we have to get out of the way”. Put simply, Bass was a gamechanger. He applied commercial design techniques to create timeless motifs for the movies of Preminger, Hitchcock, Wilder and Scorsese. Think of Vertigo’s Lissajous swirls or Carmen Jones’s scarlett rose, the first of 12 collaborations with Preminger. Think De Niro’s fiery descent to hell at the beginning of Casino. Think the credits sliding across North By Northwest’s citiscape like an elevator. And if you like porridge, he designed Quaker Oats’ logo too. The man had game. To celebrate the release of Saul Bass: A Life In Film & Design, a feast of Bass rarities and insights lovingly compiled by his daughter Jennifer and design historian Pat Kirkham, we’ve laid our hands on some little-seen posters and storyboards.
WORDS PHIL DE SEMLYEN
|
|
|
