"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."
"Design is thinking made visual."
Saul Bass (1920 - 1996) was an American designer who was best known for his opening credit sequences for films. He worked with directors such as Alfred Hitchcock, Otto Preminger, Stanley Kubrick and Martin Scorsese.
For our purposes, I wish to take a look at six particular credit sequences that demonstrate Bass' use of line. These sequences are deceptively simple as Bass uses a minimum of means to convey the psychological content of the films they precede. By using lines that redefine space in a series of shifting compositions, Bass will stress emotional or psychological content not only by how the lines interact with one another, but also the type of line that is employed. In most cases, the lines in the examples provided below are mechanical in nature, either straight or curved (as in the case of Vertigo) with precision. However calculated they may be, Bass uses them in a highly expressive manner, as they slice and divide the space within the frame to conjure states of disorientation. What you will see are lines with a vertical, horizontal or diagonal emphasis. Lines in isolation, or in clusters/groupings.
Please pay attention to not only the speed of the animated motion, but also to the changing density of the lines, or how many fill the screen, in relation to the music on the soundtrack. When exploring the expressive structuring of line in your own projects, it might not be a bad idea to listen to your lines. Do they suggest a tranquil or an agitated composition? Are they lines in motion, or lines at rest? Do they appear rational or irrational? Tight or loose? Harmonious or dissonant? One last note: if there is a tendency in this course to show you films or film fragments in relation to preparing you for your projects, it is in the hope of urging you to think of the medium you are working with as something that, although static in nature, can capture the suggestion of motion and rhythm. Although such elements of composition will be the subject of a more in-depth discussion down the road, I hope to to plant the seed of implied dynamism from the start.
The sequences of note are those from The Man with the Golden Arm (1955; directed by Otto Preminger), Vertigo (1958; directed by Alfred Hitchcock), North By Northwest (1959; directed by Alfred Hitchcock), Psycho (1960; directed by Alfred Hitchcock), The Age of Innocence (1993; directed by Martin Scorsese) and Casino (1995; directed by Martin Scorsese).
