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Movement Music and Conflict | More… |
| Norman McLaren, Canada 1936-1983, DV | ||
| Norman McLaren believed movies were about movement. Music was also the foundation of many of his films. This programme shows some of the amazing ways McLaren developed filmic movement and how he achieved an astonishing musical expression. McLaren’s strong political beliefs are also on display. Rarely screened earlier, darker works as well as more exuberant films emphasise the breadth of his achievements. | ||
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McLaren the Innovator | More… |
| Norman McLaren, Canada 1941-2004, DV | ||
| Exploring and discovering new and powerful film techniques was a way of working for Norman McLaren. In completed films, tests and unfinished pieces, McLaren almost always works frame-by-frame, but sometimes paints and scratches directly on the film stock, or manipulates live-action – in-camera or in the processing laboratory. | ||
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McLaren Dazzlers | More… |
| Norman McLaren, Canada 1939 - 1971, 35mm | ||
| This selection of Norman McLaren’s most famous and spectacular work starts with the whimsical Opening Speech (1960), followed by four direct films, each using a different technique – Stars and Stripes (1939), Hen Hop (1942), Begone Dull Care (1949), Blinkety Blank (1955). Chairy Tale (1957) and Pas de deux (1968) reveal an optimistic view of humanity. Finally, McLaren’s ultimate expression of music/movement – Synchromy (1971), and his Oscar-winning, anti-war classic – Neighbours (1952). | ||
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Len Lye: Art that Moves | More… |
| 16mm + DV | ||
| Norman McLaren said of the work
of Len Lye, the great New Zealand-born film-maker: “Len Lye has
shown the way, and shown it in a masterly and brilliant fashion.” Our programme opens with a film directed by Roger Horrocks about Lye as a teenager in New Zealand, having his “Eureka!” discovery of “the art that moves”. Then there are 14 of Lye’s best films to illustrate his rich visual imagination, sense of humour, and love of music. They include films recently restored such as Prime Time and Life’s Musical Minute. A surprise extra is Atomic Power, one of the famous March of Time programmes Lye directed as his day job. |
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| Norman McLaren: Animation Genius | |
| Presentation of these films is made possible by the generous support of the National Film Board of Canada. Selections and notes by Terence Dobson, who will introduce the films at screenings around the country. | |
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“A leading pioneer in animation and experimental filmmaking, Norman McLaren is the most honoured, innovative and influential filmmaker in the history of Canadian cinema and one of the leading film artists of the twentieth century. In a career spanning five decades, his playfully cerebral, stylistically adventurous and politically conscious films embraced a fusion of cinema, painting, music, dance, folk art and graphic design, while exploring the possibilities of film as art and art as film… Famous for experimenting with both the visual and aural possibilities of the moving image, McLaren’s films are marked by an internationalist social conscience, an insistence on exploring the malleability of the film form and a playful sense of humour. No matter how abstract they may at first appear, his films boast an engaging narrative structure that contributes to their timelessness and accessibility.” – Toronto International Film Festival “Norman McLaren was an animator in the purest sense – he brought things to life. Those ‘things’ might be objects, like a chair, or colours, lines, shapes… and also, always, celluloid… In an oeuvre which encompasses experiments in stop-frame, scratched film, paper cut-outs, freehand and pixillation effects, metamorphosis is the only constant.” – Tom Charity, Sight & Sound NFB Canada Focus on Animation: Biography
by Donald McWilliams |
