"She's different in every way." —Dragan Armansky

The beat sidles in: a throbbing arrhythmia peppered by desperate, howling vocals, and then that ooze. That viscid, black ooze that seeps into everything, penetrating crevices, dribbling into lips and eyes, suffocating and sensual and silent. Each ebony form is made osmotic – surging and melding, torn apart and punctured, ensnared, set ablaze – thrashing in the deep. Through flashes of embers and murk, sticky vines creep, hands grapple, foul petals unfurl, and sable fists inflict their fury.

In this elegantly violent title sequence, Trent Reznor, Atticus Ross, and Karen O’s version of “Immigrant Song” swells when coupled with Blur Studio’s monstrous fantasy in David Fincher’s newest offering, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.

"There is no winning! Only degrees of losing!" —Gavin D'Amato

The War of the Roses is Danny Devito's second excursion into feature film direction, having received accolades for his slapstick comedy Throw Momma from the Train two years earlier. It concerns the courtship, marriage, and, mostly, the comedically bitter divorce of Oliver and Barbara Rose, played by Michael Douglas and Kathleen Turner, as recounted by their chain-smoking attorney Gavin D'Amato, played by DeVito himself.

The ingredients in the Roses opening title sequence are basic: a static, nouveau sans-serif typeface is superimposed over a neutral gray background, soon revealed to be a swath of white fabric – presumably a bedsheet or a wedding gown detail, given the film's premise. Over the course of the sequence, the fabric gains depth and relief, presented at first by subtle gradients and delicate shafts of light, then becoming a contoured landscape of rolling hills. The folds become more pronounced and dramatic over time and by the end, we find ourselves face-down in a crumpled mess of fabric.

The sequence is capped by D'Amato removing the fabric from his coat pocket and blowing his nose into it.

As with many of Bass' previous title entries (Saul crafted this sequence with his wife Elaine), the opening titles to Roses can be read as a microcosm of the film itself, albeit entirely allegorical. Oliver Rose's dull existence is given new meaning and definition when he meets Barbara, but their honeymoon is short-lived, and soon the pretense of marriage becomes a catalyst for destruction instead of salvation. This narrative is played out in its entirety during the opening sequence, right under the noses of an unsuspecting audience.

The titles to The War of the Roses are not the most memorable in the Bass portfolio. Their signature op-art approach in the ’50s and ’60s had fallen out of vogue, and they had long since migrated over to commercial design. Along with Penny Marshall's film Big in 1988, Roses represented a return to titling for the Basses, having won the favor of a new generation of directors who had grown up on their work. And with that revival came a paradigm shift in their approach to the craft: sharp lines gave way to smooth surfaces and graphic representation was replaced by photographic imagery. And while it would take some time for the Basses to regain their footing with this new vernacular, their trademark less-is-more, concept-over-content approach to title design remained intact.

WRITER: Ben Radatz

“One final thing I have to do… and then I’ll be free of the past. “ —John ‘Scottie’ Ferguson

There is a threshold in art and design where a work can become so iconic as to transcend its own scope and become a symbol for its medium. Consider Warhol’s soup cans or Mondrian’s color fields, or – to bring it closer to home – Saul Bass’ iconic AT&T or United Airlines logos. And just as it would be difficult to find an American unfamiliar with these works, so too would it be difficult to find a moviegoer unfamiliar with the title sequence to Vertigo. Credit Bernard Herrmann’s haunting score or Bass’ odd synthesis of sensual Kim Novak closeups and spirographic imagery, but it’s likely an alchemy of the three that makes the Vertigo titles an enduring classic.

The spirographic images (called Lissajous waves, technically) were contributed by artist John Whitney, a pioneer of computer arts and a long-time animator at UPA, a commercial animation studio well-known for their modern aesthetic and experimental techniques. (In fact, Bass would again use a UPA alum, Bill Melendez – best known as the Peanuts sole animator – three years later in his sequence for It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World.)

While seemingly unrelated to the story and perhaps even too modern for their own good, Whitney’s contributions to Vertigo were validated by Bass’ graphic direction and Hermann’s score, folding his designs into their tried-and-true audio-visual template. The resulting sequence is a landmark work both for Bass and the title industry, framing the film’s premise through evocative-yet-unlikely imagery and Hitchcock’s unique branding eye.

WRITER: Ben Radatz

"Not every conspiracy is a theory."

An unseen agent trails the truth, circling mysteries and raising questions with every paranoid swipe of the highlighter. Newspapers, bar codes, maps, documents, and photos – otherwise mundane minutiae is checked and rechecked for evidence, a pattern of some kind, or perhaps nothing at all. Every whir and click of the microfilm reader widens the web, as the line between conspiracy theorist and intelligence analyst is blurred in Imaginary Forces’ title sequence for AMC’s Rubicon.

"I think I must have one of those faces you can't help believing." —Norman Bates

It's safe to say that after half a century of critical writing about Psycho, there are few stones left unturned. The same can also be said of Bass' now infamous opening title sequence. Designed on a $21k budget, it is likely his most significant and familiar accomplishment in the eyes of cinephiles and laymen alike.

Admittedly, Bass does not give his audience much to work with. Like the minimalists who came before him and his modernist contemporaries, Bass' favorite route from idea to execution was usually the shortest — and there are few routes shorter than the one taken in Psycho. He uses a series of simple white bars to usher in the sans-serif titles and escort them back out again. Although these lines come from different areas of the screen, they never once break formation or intersect. Likewise, the animation of these lines and the type itself are just as reserved — every object has a path from which it does not deviate. On, off, left, right, up, down, black, white — those are Bass's self-imposed restrictions on Psycho, and he employs them with dramatic effect.

There are two major currents running through Psycho: contrast and tension. Antagonist Norman Bates' dual personality provides the contrast, and the caper (or the Macguffin, as Hitchcock would have called it) brings the tension. In many ways, the film succeeds because it doesn't stray far from these core elements. There is very little comedic relief, for example. Romance and interpersonal relationships are little more than props. As far as plot husbandry goes, Psycho is about as streamlined and fuel-efficient as they come.

Therein also lies the brilliance of Bass' title sequence. In the space of a few short minutes, with his minimal toolkit and Bernard Herrmann's jagged score, Bass creates a parallel visual tension to the film that tells the audience everything they need to know about the plot, without saying much of anything at all. He artfully sets the tone by asking the viewer to read between the lines -- quite literally -- but he also asks that we read into them.

I can think of no better way to enter a Hitchcock film.

WRITER: Ben Radatz

"There'll come a time when all of us must leave here..." —George Harrison, The Art of Dying

Like sighs from a scythe in a wheat field of psychosis, the opening title sequence for Gaspar Noé’s Enter the Void is a melting onslaught of typographic design foisted upon the senses. This unrelenting visual overdose hacks pleasurably at the viewer, as the tip of a nail does finding its destiny. Names become bright little deaths fired to a machine gun beat; the images encircle your pupils as LFO’s "Freak" drives the nail deeper.

To celebrate the release of the long-awaited book Saul Bass: A Life In Film & Design, I put together a brief visual history of some of Saul Bass's most celebrated work.

Saul Bass: A Life In Film & Design, by Jennifer Bass and Pat Kirkham, is available on Amazon.

The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) will also celebrate the life of Saul Bass with a film screening and talk on Monday, November 14, 2011, at 7:00 p.m. This special event features the New York premiere of Saul and Elaine Bass's Academy Award-winning short Why Man Creates (1968), newly preserved by the Academy Film Archive, as well as a rich selection of title sequences, commercials, and corporate campaigns.

Among the evening's guest presenters are the book's author, Pat Kirkham, a distinguished design historian who knew Bass personally; Chip Kidd, the award-winning contemporary graphic designer and writer noted for his brilliant book covers; and Kyle Cooper, a legendary graphic designer in his own right, with such unforgettable film title sequences as Se7en, X-Men: First Class, the Spider-Man trilogy, and countless others.

Full details here: The Academy and MoMA Present Saul Bass: A Life in Film & Design

- Ian Albinson, Editor-in-Chief