The contributions of American designer Saul Bass (1920-1996) initiated a revolution in the film advertising industry. Where motion picture advertising was once an unrefined and artless trade, Bass endowed the craft with the sophistication of a bona fide art form.

In the world of Saul Bass, letters walked, and roses turned to raindrops; analogous correspondence between unrelated objects was a way of life. He was a master of presentation and communication. He extracted simple and unassuming moments in time, raising each to the level of great art. With his great knack for exposing a magic meld between image, typography, and motion, he held seasoned filmmakers in awe as repeatedly he captured the naked essence of a two-hour feature-length film and condensed the emotion of the drama into a brief title track of two minutes or less. Bass possessed a heightened sense of expression and an ability to convey...