FANTASIA OBSCURA: An Iconic Designer’s Vision of Ant-mageddon
There are some fantasy, science fiction, and horror films that not every fan has caught. Not every film ever made has been seen by the audience that lives for such fare. Some of these deserve another look, because sometimes not every film should remain obscure.
Sometimes, size does matter, and when you have a choice, you might want to go small…
Phase IV (1974)
(Dist: Paramount Pictures; Dir: Saul Bass)
Saul Bass is considered a giant in American cinema, mainly for his small contributions to cinema as the designer of some of the more iconic film posters and title sequences that opened movies by the likes of Otto Preminger, Stanley Kubrick, Martin Scorsese, and especially Alfred Hitchcock. Bass could leave lasting impressions in 1/15th of the time the rest of the film following his work would take to screen; his little masterpieces became as iconic with their own style and as distinctive as the work of the directors he would open for for their pictures.
After years of contributing to such iconic films, and having recently directed a short film that won the Academy Award for Documentary Short Subject in 1968, Why Man Creates, it was only a matter of time before a studio was going to consider him for a feature project.
The studio that did give him the chance was Paramount, which had a project for him. According to Jan-Christopher Horak’s Saul Bass: Anatomy of Film Design, Peter Bart, Vice President in charge of production at the studio, had to come up with an idea on the spot when asked over cocktails by producer Paul Radin what he was up to; he blurted out something about a story that had ants in it, which Radin latched on to, getting Bass involved as he brought together what would soon be known as Phase IV.
Perhaps Bart’s musings on ants might have come up after recently seeing or hearing about The Hellstorm Chronicle, a 1971 “documentary” produced by David L. Wolper where an actor playing a scientist (Lawrence Pressman) discusses how the invertebrates under our feet are going to take over and push us out of the way for dominion of the planet, an argument made forcefully by the photography of the insects and arachnids overseen by Ken Middleham. His work certainly made an impression on both Radin and Bass, who brought him aboard the production to shoot the ants sequences; in many ways he makes possible the plot Bass had to shoot, by getting his formicidae actors to line up and behave in ways ants don’t normally do.
This is important, as the whole film hinges on the premise that something happening out in space (which is unexplained) uplifts the ants, allowing different species to stop going to war with each other and build much bigger communities. The ants put aside their differences and start considering how to work together on major engineering projects, not only large tunnel complexes but environmental engineering that radically alters their environment.
Alarmed at the ants’ efforts to radically change the environment to make it better for their purposes, because that’s what humans are supposed to do, thank you, an entomologist, Dr. Ernest Hubbs (Nigel Davenport) brings to the site in Arizona that the ants are terraforming a younger scientist versed in mathematics and theories of inter-species communications, Dr. James Lesko (Michael Murphy), to assess the threat and try and put them in their place. Picking up and sheltering a survivor of one of the ants’ forays, Kendra Eldridge (Lynne Frederick), the three humans are soon engaged in a contest of survival where three humans with a few helpful tools (poisons, grenades) go up against millions of ants with their own tools and skills.
It’s not much of a contest, really; while the ants are clever and adaptive, Dr. Hubbs is prone to hubris and forced to rash actions when his institution threatens to defund him out in the field. Dr. Lesko gains a somewhat better sense of his opponents by cautiously studying the way the way the ants communicate with each other through electromagnetic transmission (which seems odd considering in real life ants relay data by smell, and probably wouldn’t really need to give that up, but hey…), but in the end it’s not enough to save him from his better organized, clearer thinking opponents.
Not only are the ants better at strategy, they’re far more sympathetic. While Middleham gets amazing shots of ants doing extraordinary things, Bass has problems getting a reasonable performance out of the humans, let along helping the actors find something sympathetic to allow us to not want to see them meet horrible ends. In one sequence, Eldridge takes on an English accent, which seems odd for an Arizona farmer’s daughter; why Frederick didn’t get the guidance needed from her director to avoid slipping into her native accent is hard to fathom. Likewise, there are plenty of short pieces of visual brilliance that the actors can’t seem to work with, which keeps the film from finding its core easily and deters casual viewers from enjoying it.
What works against the movie is the fact that there is an interesting, possibly very profound film here, that the director just did not have the skill set required to turn into an accessible piece of cinema. Using evocative imagery to relay a tale of how humans were going to be replaced by ants is certainly doable, and on paper, Bass might have seemed the person for the job; never having helmed a feature film, however, his limitations become apparent quickly, and the project never gets a chance to get as well organized as the ants on screen.
Not helping the film was Paramount’s inability to make the most of their picture (which gives diehard Bass fans some justification to fully embrace the film, as nothing covers your mistakes like claims of studio interference). The fact that what was supposed to be a meditative film about hubris and our place in the world being taken from us was being marketed like an alternate version of Them! did not do the picture any favors and left audiences unable to warm up to it. The claim that Bass’ original five-minute-and-change ending that would have ended the film in a more satisfying manner was removed by the suits helped to justify the lack of satisfaction one had by the time the credits rolled.
This truism got a serious test when the original ending was discovered and screened for the first time in years in 2012. Viewers of the original were treated to a visual spectacle that was a feast for the eyes but felt empty at heart and in the head, which could be enjoyed on its own for those few minutes you sit through it but not endured as part of a longer, grinding feature. This is a statement that can be made about most of the sequences in the film; each a segment that could have set up a better movie under another director, but did not work strung together into a longer piece.
The reaction to the film he directed was not lost of Bass; shying away from features, he would direct after this only three shorts, and concentrate on designing corporate logos and title sequences for other films, working at those until his death in 1996. From then on, it seems Bass’ philosophy was, “Go small or go home…”
NEXT TIME: In the city, real estate battles can get so animated…
