Maurice Binder | |
|---|---|
| Born | (1925-12-04)December 4, 1925 New York City, U.S. |
| Died | April 9, 1991(1991-04-09) (aged 65) London, England |
| Occupation | Film title designer |
| Known for | Work on 16James Bond films, including the first,Dr. No (1962), and forStanley Donen's films from 1958 |
Maurice Binder (December 4, 1925 – April 9, 1991) was an Americanfilm title designer best known for his work on 16James Bond films, including the first,Dr. No (1962), and forStanley Donen's films from 1958.
Binder was born inNew York City, but he mostly worked in Britain from the 1950s. In 1951, Binder directed two short films in the obscureMeet Mister Baby series; these films were preserved by theAcademy Film Archive in 2015.[1] He created his first film-title design forStanley Donen'sIndiscreet (1958).[2] The James Bond producers first approached him after being impressed by his title designs for the Donen comedy filmThe Grass Is Greener (1960). Binder also provided sequences for Donen forCharade (1963) andArabesque (1966), both accompanying music byHenry Mancini.
Binder created the signaturegun-barrel sequence for the opening titles of the first Bond film,Dr. No (1962). Binder originally planned to employ a camera sighted down the barrel of a .38-calibre gun, but this caused some problems. Unable to fit the lens of a standard camera far enough down the barrel to bring the entire gun barrel into focus, his assistant Trevor Bond created a pinhole camera to solve the problem, and the barrel became clear.[3]
Binder described the genesis of the gun-barrel sequence in his last interview in 1991:
That was something I did in a hurry, because I had to get to a meeting with the producers in twenty minutes. I just happened to have little white, price tag stickers and I thought I'd use them as gun shots across the screen. We'd have James Bond walk through and fire, at which point blood comes down onscreen. That was about a twenty-minute storyboard I did, and they said, "This looks great!"[4]
At least one critic has also observed that the sequence recalls the gun fired at the audience at the end ofThe Great Train Robbery (1903).[5] Binder is also known for featuring womendancing, jumping ontrampolines and shootingweapons in his title sequences.
Binder was succeeded byDaniel Kleinman as the title designer forGoldenEye (1995). Prior toGoldenEye, the only James Bond films for which Binder did not create the opening title credits wereFrom Russia with Love (1963) andGoldfinger (1964), both of which were designed byRobert Brownjohn.
Binder shot opening and closing sequences involving a mouse (an animal that did not appear in either the novel or the film) forThe Mouse That Roared (1959), a sequence of monks filmed as amosaic explaining the history of the golden bell inThe Long Ships (1963) and a sequence of Spanish dancers inThe Day the Fish Came Out (1967).
He designed thetitle sequence forSodom and Gomorrah (1963) that featured anorgy. The sequence, originally planned to take one day, spanned three days of work.[6]
Binder also was a producer ofThe Passage (1979) and a visual consultant onDracula (1979) andOxford Blues (1984).
Binder died fromlung cancer in London in 1991 at the age of 65.[7][8]
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