Featured Screenings:

Why Man Creates Saul Bass
Toccata for Toy Trains and Tops Ray & Charles Eames
Ghosts Before Breakfast Hans Richter
Permutations and Experiments in Motion Graphics John Whitney
Lines, Spines and Porcupines
Designing With Everyday Materials: Straws
The Social Side of Health
Discovering Dark and Light
Where's My Left Testicle Trevor Adams
Woman Times Seven (title sequence)

Curated by Phil Harder

Why Man Creates (1968)
Saul Bass
Symbolize and summarize were the words Saul Bass lived by, and his careful choice of single images quickly set the tone for such films as Preminger's Exodus and Anatomy Of A Murder. Why Man Creates exemplifies a variety of Bass's design techniques in one humorous film. In this film Bass seems to draw from his library of famous title sequences; from the double exposures of North by Northwest, to the stop motion of Psycho, Man with the Golden Arm, and Bonjour Tristese,and the optical printing techniques of Grand Prix. Best known for his work with directors Alfred Hitchcok, Otto Preminger and Stanley Kubrick, Bass broke things wide open in 1955 with the foreboding poster and titles to The Man With the Golden Arm. Setting aside images of lead mug Frank Sinatra, Bass instead grabbed audiences with a simple silhouette of a twisted arm. His swirling, op-art designs for Vertigo and Psycho tipped viewers off through posters and title sequences that they were about to have their equilibriums disrupted.
So valued was Bass's visual opinion, he served not only as title designer, but as visual consultant on Spartacus, West Side Story, and Grand Prix. Yet his most famous collaboration must be his storyboards for the infamous shower scene in Hitchcock's Psycho. Over the years, a great debate has grown over what has been called the most famous and studied scene in cinematic history. Bass claims he actually directed the scene; co-stars and historians disagree. After a golden period that lasted well into the mid-sixties, Bass turned to corporate design with his firm, Saul Bass and Associates. He subsequently put his stamp on the corporate world with logos for the likes of United Airlines, AT & T and Quaker. Meanwhile, he crafted several short features including Why Man Creates.
The creative juices really started flowing again when rabid film fan Martin Scorsese stoked the master. For Cape Fear, Goodfellas, The Age Of Innocence, and Casino. Bass and wife Elaine set out to make mini movies that would set the tone for what was to follow. Having evolved from the stark symmetry of North by Northwest's opening, Bass's modern age titles are now more subtle; for Age Of Innocence the slo-mo blossoming of a laced rose perfectly sums up the film's themes of formality and sexual urges and repressions; for Casino, Bass sent a car-bombed DeNiro spiraling through a neon inferno predicting his subsequent decent into hell.

Toccata for Toy Trains (1957) 14m. and Tops(1969) 7m.
Charles and Ray Eames
Charles and wife Ray Eames made an extraordinary contribution to the way we think about design. Two of their short films Toccata for Toy Trains, and Tops demonstrate the depth and significance of their design appreciation. The Eames' occupy a central position in the history of postwar American design and are considered by many to be among the most important American designers of the twentieth century. It is as furniture designers whose work was both technologically and aesthetically innovative that they are most famous. Their 1946 bent plywood chair, their 1950 fiberglass chair, and their 1956 lounge chair and ottoman quickly became regarded as classics of mid-century modernism. Charles and Ray Eames won international acclaim as independent filmmakers with their very first films to be shown in public. Between 1952 to 1977 they made over eighty short films. The two approached filmmaking much as they approached their design work, putting the same depth and research, insistence on quality, and attention to detail into the shortest of films as into any other project.
Toccata for Toy Trains (1957) is a celebration of "great old toy's from the world of trains". The Eames' hoped that their close study of toys moving to music composed by Elmer Bernstein would encourage viewers to think about the qualities of design and production that they regarded as a basic element to healthy creativity. "TheyÕre not experimental films", Charles said. "They are not really films, just attempts to get across an idea". Toccata for Toy Trains won international awards at Edinburgh Film Festival in 1957, Melbourne Film Festival in 1958, and The American Film Festival in 1959. Tops (1969) is as much a "toy" film as it is an "ideas" film. It shows mankind of all races and places playing with a single simple toy. The unity of humanity comes through in a way that is utterly pleasurable and absolutely unforgettable. The cast comprises 123 tops from countries all over the world. "Tops" epitomizes the Eames' ability to convey complex ideas - in this case, ideas about the physics of motion and the universal nature of tops. Included is a wonderful moment of comprehension when a simple tack, thrown onto a drawing board, spins and is suddenly seen as a top.

Ghosts Before Breakfast (1927) 10m.
Hans Richter
Richter was considered one of the early Dadaists, a form of art which was marked by nonsense and travesty. Richter created a name for himself through his numerous art shows displaying his works as a painter, graphic artist, avant-gardist and experimental filmmaker. In 1921 his first abstract film was produced and was soon followed by Ghosts Before Breakfast (1927). "Ghosts before Breakfast" is a silent experimental avant-garde film that is considered to be one of the first surrealistic films ever made. Richter's interest in Dadaism is shown directly in this work as he challenges current art and design standards of the time by presenting a theme of obscurity and fantasy. Clocks, legs, ladders, hats and people undergo total irrational happenings in unusual settings. Men with beards magically appear and disappear before the viewer's eyes, hats fly around in the air, a man's head comes off and floats in the air etc. all while digging into the viewer's mind for inner experience in thought and idea. The design and conceptual elements Richter pulls together for this 10 minute film were incredibly powerful for its time and still influence modern day films.

Lines, Spines and Porcupines (1970) 7 1/2m.
This animated film is an attempt to capture the imagination of the young mind and awaken in him the awareness of lines in his visual images. Vocabulary: "laces, giddy, solemn, fierce, slither, sly, kangaroo, bold, mane, delicate, pump".

The Social Side of Health (late 1960's) 10 m.
Les Clark
This late 1960's Disney produced film uses an equilateral triangle to demonstrate the need for social belonging. Within the superb animation lies a subtle form of propaganda that attempts to keep young adults in line with society as a whole. The film includes a hilarious pill popping scene, classic animated graphics and a dancing triangle.

Where's My Left Testicle? (1999) 5 m.
Trevor Adams
Trevor's anti-design film.

Experiments in Motion Graphics (1968) 15 m. and Permutations (1968) 10 m.
John Whitney
From the Museum of Modern Art film library, Experiments in Motion Graphics illustrates the making of computer wizard John Whitney's film Permutations. Whitney's technical knowledge is so involved that his narrated vocabulary makes the imagery even more bizarre than is visually perceived. Computer punch cards, an automatically controlled film camera, and optical printing are all part of this demonstration of early computer graphics used to create a "new" form of visual art.
Just when you think Whitney is about to lighten the complicated load of technical language, he shifts the subject to an intense philosophy about the "agony" of his work: "If this type of computer art study looks fun, which it is, let me add that there is some agony in it too. My use of the word agony is not in the lofty Christian sense. I don't personally suffer, but I do in the sense because of my three fold agony: 1. because computers are not cheap. 2. because computers are slow. 3. because computers are too big to take home over the weekend to continue the work when it gets behind schedule. My real agony is one of impatience." As a true visionary, Whitney goes on to hypothesize a future where the computer may be reduced to the size of a television for home use.
Permutations features beautiful computer generated visuals made from strips of film as part of an IBM research program on computer graphics. Whitney's images were made by selecting numerical variables that determine particular graphic patterns. Whitney describes Permutations as "the first step toward developing a compositional language by which the art of graphics in motion might be structured in time."

Designing With Everyday Materials: Straws (1970) 11 m.
Did you know that a multitude of sculptural forms and symmetrical and asymmetrical compositions are possible using straws alone? Why do people enjoy creating nonobjective designs out of straws? The answer to the principles of design: proportion, balance, opposition, rhythm, and repetition can be found in those weird art projects you find at Grandma's house, from Grandma's match stick Kleenex box to her knit beer can hat she gave you for your birthday. Earth to Grandma, what the hell is that?

Discovering Dark and Light (1965) 18 m.
The eye-a delicate, light-sensitive window to the world. In the dark, everything is hidden; there is nothing but empty blackness. In total light, the eye is blinded by glaring white. A world of dark and light lies between these two extremes. These beautiful variations of light and dark we call value. Expand your seeing power by discovering the world of dark and light.

Woman Times Seven (1967) 2m. (title sequence)
Vittorio De Sica
Director Vittorio De Sica, director of The Bicycle Thief, enlists the help of renowned french titlest Jean Fouchet F.L. to create the creme de la creme of graphic title sequences in Woman Times Seven.

Grumpy's City Club Cinema is an ideal setting with a decor that mirrors the design aesthetic of the featured films. For further information please contact City Club curator,  Kevin Karpinski.