#Title sequences movie#

Here’s your chance to see a fraction of the work Bass has done during his long and prolific career: Saul Bass’ title sequences.įrance Claude Autant-Lara + Jacques Becker + Claude Berri + Robert Bresson + Philippe de Broca + Marcel Carné + André Cayatte + Claude Chabrol + René Clair + René Clément + Henri-Georges Clouzot + Costa-Gavras + Julien Duvivier + Jean-Luc Godard + Sacha Guitry + Georges Lautner + Claude Lelouch + Louis Malle + Jean-Pierre Melville + Édouard Molinaro + Max Ophüls + Marcel Pagnol + Roman Polanski + Jean Renoir + Alain Resnais + Yves Robert + Éric Rohmer + Claude Sautet + Jacques Tati + Bertrand Tavernier + François Truffaut + Henri Verneuil Germany Fritz Lang + Otto Preminger + Josef von Sternberg Italy Michelangelo Antonioni + Mauro Bolognini + Luigi Comencini + Vittorio De Sica + Federico Fellini + Pietro Germi + Sergio Leone + Pier Paolo Pasolini + Elio Petri + Antonio Pietrangeli + Dino Risi + Francesco Rosi + Roberto Rossellini + Ettore Scola + Luchino Visconti Japan Hayao Miyazaki Spain Luis Buñuel Sweden Ingmar Bergman UK Basil Dearden + Bryan Forbes + Alfred Hitchcock + David Lean + Mike Leigh + Christopher Nolan + Michael Powell + Carol Reed + Ridley Scott USA Robert Aldrich + Woody Allen + Robert Altman + Paul Thomas Anderson + Wes Anderson + Darren Aronofsky + Hal Ashby + Mel Brooks + Budd Boetticher + Tim Burton + Frank Capra + John Carpenter + William Castle + John Cassavetes + Michael Cimino + Francis Ford Coppola + Joel & Ethan Coen + Roger Corman + George Cukor + Michael Curtiz + Delmer Daves + Cecil B. 20 years after his death Bass’ work is still very much alive, yet few people who claim to be inspired by him have seen much of his work. Below you’ll find an overview with links to blogposts featuring over a thousand stills and dozens of videos. I’ve located 46 of the 55 title sequences he created.

Most of the title sequences Bass designed are available on blu-ray and DVD. 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.” Bass created some of the best title sequences ever for some of the best directors who ever lived ( Billy Wilder, Alfred Hitchcock, Otto Preminger, Stanley Kubrick, Martin Scorsese) and some of the best films ever made (Vertigo, North by northwest, Anatomy of a murder, Spartacus, Goodfellas). In Bass’ own words: “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.

Saul Bass’ powerful title sequence for “The Man With the Golden Arm” changed the way directors and designers would treat the opening titles. Until then the credits were referred to as ‘popcorn time.’ Audiences resented them and projectionists only pulled back the curtains to reveal the screen once they’d finished.

#Title sequences movie#

This is the text of a note that was stuck on the cans when the reels of film for “The Man With the Golden Arm” arrived at US movie theatres in 1955. “PROJECTIONISTS – PULL CURTAIN BEFORE TITLES”.