Phase IV

The only feature Saul Bass directed, and it looks like nothing else because he was a title designer.

Ants in the Arizona desert achieve a collective intelligence after a cosmic event. Two scientists in a sealed dome try to communicate with them.

Ken Middleham shot the insect sequences as genuine macro documentary, with real ants performing real behaviours, and Bass cuts them together as though the ants have a plot, which they do. There is no anthropomorphism and no animation.

The dome, the heat, the geometric towers the ants build, and the yellow light are pure design intelligence applied to a science fiction premise.

Paramount removed the original ending, a four-minute abstract sequence, and it was believed lost until a print turned up in 2012. Find a version that has it.

Almost nobody saw it. Almost everybody who has cites it.