Saturday, October 13, 2007

Saul Bass titles, and what's NNW?

Via Bright Lights, a link to an engrossing blog post about Hitchcock’s North by Northwest: speculation on the film’s title, little-known facts and a tribute to Saul Bass’s superb title sequence design. And while on Bass, here’s a collection of videos of other title sequences designed by him for films like The Man With the Golden Arm, Anatomy of a Murder, Vertigo, Psycho, West Side Story, Spartacus, Goodfellas and Casino. Excellent stuff. I have fond adolescent memories of how well his visuals worked in conjunction with Bernard Herrmann's music in the Hitchcock films - would spend a lot of time watching just those 2-3 minutes over and over again. (In fact, though I wasn't crazy about North by Northwest the first time I saw it, I loved the opening - right from the opening frame, with the MGM lion disappearing into a lurid green background as the first strains of Herrmann's rousing score appear on the soundtrack and Bass's lines begin to move right to left across the screen. Modern movies are often too self-conscious to provide such excitements.)

2 comments:

  1. Not as cool as Saul Bass, but I haven't a title sequence compress so much info in such little time.
    http://movies.yahoo.com/feature/thekingdom.html?showVideo=1
    Then there was that catch me if you can title sequence, looked really saul bassian to me.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Just heard that Anne Enright has won the Man Booker. Any comments on 'The Gathering'?

    ReplyDelete