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Ode to Saul Bass

JA December 05

Imitation may be the sincerest form of flattery – and so it is for these film posters, a visual ode to the minimalist style of master designer Saul Bass (1920-1996), who collaborated with filmmakers such as Alfred Hitchcock and Martin Scorsese among many others throughout his long career.

One of these collaborations included designing the credits for Otto Preminger’s The Man with the Golden Arm (starring Frank Sinatra as a jazz musician struggling to overcome a heroin addiction). According to Design Museum, the reels for this film came with a note ‘Projectionists – pull curtain before titles’.

Until then, the lists of cast and crew members which passed for movie titles were so dull that projectionists only pulled back the curtains to reveal the screen once they’d finished. But Preminger wanted his audience to see ‘The Man with the Golden Arm'’s titles as an integral part of the film.

… [T[he titles featured an animated black paper-cut-out of a heroin addict’s arm. Knowing that the arm was a powerful image of addiction, Bass had chosen it – rather than Frank Sinatra’s famous face – as the symbol of both the movie’s titles and its promotional poster.

saul_bass_man_with_the_golden_arm
Film poster for The Man with the Golden Arm by Saul Bass.

45351
Film poster for Black Swan

precious
Film poster for Precious

Tron2
Film poster from Tron by Hexagonall

2001
Film poster from 2001: A Space Odyssey by Hexagonall

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Film poster from Lord of the Rings by Hexagonall


 

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