Saul and Elaine Bass

1. Saul and Elaine Bass By Hollie Potter

2. • Saul and Elaine Bass were a married couple most known for their contribution to filmmaking in the 1950’s. They worked along side each other for over 40 years and throughout their career produced hundreds of critically acclaimed film titles.

3. Before they met … Saul Bass was born in New York on May 8th, 1920 and passed away on April 25th, 1996 due to Non-Hodgkins lymphoma, an uncommon cancer that develops in the lymphatic system. In his lifetime, Bass was a graphic designer and filmmaker, and was highly praised for his film titles and film posters in particular. Bass was employed by some of Hollywood’s biggest names in the filmmaking industry, including Alfred Hitchcock, Stanley Kubrick, Otto Preminger, Billy Wilder, and Martin Scorsese. He finally created a name for himself after creating the title sequence for Otto Preminger’s ”The Man with the Golden Arm” in 1955. He further impressed the industry after working for Alfred Hitchcock on the title sequences “North by Northwest”, “Vertigo” and “Psycho”, Bass had the industry in awe of his new style of film titles he invented through a type of kinetic typography, through his new way of designing he has influenced and advanced the way film titles are produced today and has become a huge name in filmmaking history. Bass also designed many iconic logos in America, including the original AT&T “bell”, the “globe” logo, the Continental Airlines’ 1968 “Jetstream” logo and the United Airlines’ 1974 “tulip” logo. • Alike to Saul, Elaine Bass was born in New York on January 1st, 1927 and is currently 94 years of age today. Elaine is an American title designer and filmmaker and began working with Saul in 1955). Due to the societal injustices of the 1960’s, Elaine lacked the praise her partner Saul would receive and was often underappreciated for her work. Elaine grew up extremely artistic and fulfilled her earlier years with skills such as drawing and singing, from the age of 12 to 18, her sisters and her sang as “The Belmont Sisters” in New York. Elaine then threw herself into the world of fashion before moving to Los Angeles in 1947 to begin her path to success in the filmmaking industry. •

4. Their work • Carmen Jones (1954) • The Big Knife (1955) • The Seven Year Itch (1955) • The Man with the Golden Arm (1955) • Vertigo (1958) • Anatomy of a Murder (1959) • Psycho (1960) • Walk on the Wild Side (1962) • Seconds (1966) • Grand Prix ((1966) • Goodfellas (1990) • Casino (1995)

5. Joined forces • After the birth of their children, Jennifer (1964) and Jeffrey (1967), the Basses decided to take time out from the industry to focus on their family with the ambitions to eventually pursue the art of short films. This worked extremely well for the Basses as in 1968 they produced the short film “Why Man Creates” which was a huge success and in return won an Oscar. • In the late 80’s their talents for film titles was resourced through James L. Brooks and Martin Scorsese as they began working again on title openings. They created the title sequences for films ”Broadcast News”, ”Big”, ”Mr Saturday Night”, ”The War of the Roses”, ”Higher Learning”, and for Scorsese, “Goodfellas”, ”Cape Fear”, ”The Age of Innocence”, and ”Casino” being their last title sequence together. • After the death of Saul Bass in 1996, Elaine joined creative forces with title designer Pablo Ferro to design the opening of the remake for the film ”psycho” (1998).

6. My favourite work and why • The film title for “Walk on the Wild Side” is by far one of my favourite pieces of work from the Bass’s as the imagery of the black cat perfectly encapsulates the theme of wilderness and promiscuity. They feline eyes is a recurring motif and creates a beautiful juxtaposition between dark and light. The almond like eyes also delves into the concept of shapes, figures and contortions which can be compared against the figure of a woman, again alluding to the idea of the woman being uninhibited and free to express her body and sexuality.