Somewhere along the line a convention developed that the opening of a film was just a laundry list of credits. There was no incentive to complicate an area that was settled.
Interpretation
This quote critiques the unoriginality in film credits, suggesting that they lack creativity and complexity.
Saul Bass highlights how the tradition of opening film credits has become a monotonous checklist of names rather than an opportunity for artistic expression. He points out the absence of motivation to innovate in this aspect of filmmaking, implying that such conventions stunt creativity and fail to engage audiences from the very beginning of a film.
In practice
During a lecture on film history to emphasize the importance of innovative opening sequences.
In the course of our daily lives, we're bombarded with a barrage of visual messages, some blatantly aggressive, some subtle. The trick is to find a way to break through without adding to the clutter and the ugliness. We have to be responsible about that.
My initial thoughts about what a title can do was to set mood and the prime underlying core of the film's story, to express the story in some metaphorical way. I saw the title as a way of conditioning the audience, so that when the film actually began, viewers would already have an emotional resonance with it.
I want to make beautiful things, even if nobody cares.
Logos are a graphic extension of the internal realities of a company.
My work on titles was a marvelous opportunity to learn about filmmaking. I think I touched on just about every aspect of the process, both creative and technical. And I worked with many wonderful people.
When I provided the disembodied arm as the logo for 'The Man With the Golden Arm,' it was the first time an advertising-publicity campaign was based on a single symbol. Until then film companies used a variety of symbols and photographs to cover all bets. The concept of using one logo was mine and Otto Preminger's.
Fantasy is not antirational, but pararational; not realistic but surrealistic, a heightening of reality. In Freud's terminology, it employs primary not secondary process thinking. It employs archetypes which, as Jung warned us, are dangerous things. Fantasy is nearer to poetry, to mysticism, and to insanity than naturalistic fiction is. It is a wilderness, and those who go there should not feel too safe.
When I write in Italian - this is just the metaphor that came to me immediately, and I really think this is what it is - I feel like I'm writing with my left hand. Because of that weakness, there is this enormous freedom that comes with it.
All objects, all phases of culture are alive. They have voices. They speak of their history and interrelatedness. And they are all talking at once!
Before I studied the art, a punch to me was just like a punch, a kick just like a kick. After I learned the art, a punch was no longer a punch, a kick no longer a kick. Now that I've understood the art, a punch is just like a punch, a kick just like a kick. The height of cultivation is really nothing special. It is merely simplicity; the ability to express the utmost with the minimum.
Writing is the same as music. It’s in how you phrase it, how you hold back the note, bend it, shape it, then release it. And what you don’t play is as important as what you do say.
When putting words together is good to do it with nicety and caution, your elegance and talent will be evident if by putting ordinary words together you create a new voice.
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