Three months research..
Saul Bass: The timelessness and the commercialism in his movie projects. How they areachieved and what they teach us?
Saul Bass: The timelessness and the commercialism in his movie projects. How they areachieved and what they teach us?
In 1996, Saul Bass said: “I want to make beautiful things even if nobody cares”. In July 2011, I read this quote on the web. I was fascinated! Saul Bass was a graphic designer who worked for movies and created some of the most stunning artworks for film campaigns and film sequences. He instantly became my new idol, my personal hero, and my research topic. The reason why I choseto examine cinema was my love for this kind of art; the reason why I became more involved with Saul Bass was because he made cinema more beautiful.
My research is about timelessness and commercialism of his works. I have selected four important directors, with whom he collaborated, and some of their films,whose campaigns were designed by Saul Bass. Twenty one film campaigns of fourdirectors (Otto Preminger, Billy Wilder, Alfred Hitchcock and Martin Scorsese) are analyzed into my research, based on the psychology of colour, the theory of graphic design and the theory of aesthetics, willing to confirm that they serve the purpose of their creation. Through the method of analysis, I attempt to prove the timeless value, the commercial spirit and the beauty of his film projects.
My paper is divided in three important parts. The first part includes the prologue and the introduction to the main topic, which gives the reader some important information about Saul Bass, his work and the history of film campaigns, in general. The second part is divided in four chapters. Each chapter covers one of the four, mentioned above, directors and their movies. All chapters lead to part three, the final part of the research, which includes the conclusions I’ve reached and the epilogue. The last pages of this paper include an annex, a glossary of terms, the books I read, the sites I visited and the films I watched to support my research and my conclusions.
This research has been of great importance to me, since I gained skills on how to think and act about a campaign and manage to make it last for long. Thus, I decided to apply the knowledge I got to my thesis. I hope that this dissertation would be useful to my new colleagues, since there is no sufficient literature in Greek concerning Saul Bass.
