Oscar Winning Short WHY MAN CREATES

This is one movie that was threaded into the Bell and Howell high school AV Department projector over and over again.

WHY MAN CREATES was written by Saul Bass and Mayo Simon, with Bass directing. It's one of those movies that I watched at least once a year from about fifth grade onward.  George Lucas, who was a student at USC at the time, is the uncredited second unit director.

Bass was known as a graphic designer and his work for movie title sequences was in demand.

The nature of creativity is the elusive subject in WHY MAN CREATES. I like the movie. There's a lot of animation in it, a lot of funny bits, and some really great writing. Hang around for the ping pong ball factory story.

It won an Oscan and had its TV premiere, in a shortened version, on CBS' 60 Minutes program on September 24, 1968. I have to wonder if that ping pong ball sequence, which I always thought of as radical and terrific and big spoof of religion, was cut.





Related: Annyas.com: a great site that has stills of movie title sequences of Saul Bass and others.