Research of Saul and Elaine Bass

 Saul Bass, was an american graphic designer and filmmaker, who brought in a new kind of style with his idea of film sequences that conveyed the theme of the film and prepared audiences for the type of film your about to watch. Eliane Bass was Married to Saul Bass but had a successful career before meeting Saul. She was an American title designer, and filmmaker like Saul. She worked 40 years alongside Saul Bass, together they worked on projects for directors like Martin Scorsese and Danny DeVito.

Elaine and Saul Bass created title sequences for films such as Goodfellas, Cape Fear, The Age of Innocence, and Casino, which was their last title sequence they created. All Modern opening title sequences that introduce the mood or theme of the film are a clear use of Basses work.

Saul and Elaine Bass during their 40 year career managed to work with big directors that we all know today, the likes off Alfred Hitchcock who has directed Psycho, Stanley Kubrick who has directed the Shinning, Otto Preminger who has directed the Human factor, Billy Wilder who has directed The lost weekend, and Martin Scorsese who has directed Shutter island. I have attached a video below of the couples work throughout their careers.

One of the best pieces of work that the Basses have done in their line of work was the opening to the 1959 film Anatomy of a Murder directed by Otto Preminger. The film is about a semi retired Michigan lawyer Paul Biegler takes the case of Army Lt. Manion, who has murdered a local innkeeper after his wife claimed that he raped her. Over the course of an extensive trial.

The very start of the Opening of the sequence has parts of the body appearing that are all disattached from each other which gives the instant image of a death as it looks like all the limbs are dismembered from the body, This gives an idea that the films Genre is going to relate around the idea of crime and thriller. Colour in film was introduced around the 1940s so when this film was being made they could of had colour within. I think having it black and white was done on purpose to relate to the dark mood and theme of the film giving it a creepy aspect. These also give clues to the narraitve of the film being about a murder

Throughout the sequence the screen tends to focus on certain parts of the dismembered body but then they are cut in half, this could be playing into the fact that this murder have lots of loopholes about it, or that it is a very messy case, and to show the messiness of this is by splitting up the body even furthur. This again gives further clues to the rest of the film being about a case of a murder.

I think this style of opening works well, because it's not only very simple but i like the use of what seems to be the use of paper cut outs, almost like a caricature aspect which is Basses way of trying to take away, from the dark side of the film. The font they used for this was quite formal to show that this is quite a serious film. The camera hardly ever cuts but has the transitions of the body parts moving onto screen which gives the image that this film is going to be very good at flowing through an giving it a sense of rhythm
without breaking the tension.

A film that i think of immediately that has taken huge inspiration from this style of opening is the film 'CandyMan' from 2021 which did pretty much use the same exact style, but with the use of puppeteers. Again this was able to take away from the dark sense around the film and as 'candy' stereotypically are for kids having this style relates to kids and puppets that they may see. Films these days have a huge inspiration from the filmmaking of Saul and elaine Bass which has impacted films up to the way films are made today.