Opening Screening

This year, the National Film Board of Canada is celebrating the 65th anniversary of the founding of its animation studios. In conjunction with this milestone, the NFB is making the complete works of Norman McLaren (1914-1987) available for the first time on DVD, as part of a box set called Norman McLaren: The Master's Edition. The box set was launched at the Annecy Festival in France, and it is available for purchase in Canada, the US, and around the world. In addition, events highlighting McLaren's work are taking place in Europe and North America throughout the year.

Norman McLaren was born in Scotland in 1914. His interest in filmmaking began early in life after he became acquainted with works by the great Russian filmmakers Eisenstein and Pudovkin and the German animator Oskar Fischinger. While a student at the Glasgow School of Fine Arts, McLaren's fascination with dance led him to make such stylized documentaries as Seven Till Five (1933). He subsequently joined the General Post Office Film Unit (GPOFU) in London, where he worked with John Grierson. It was there that he created Love on the Wing (1937), using the technique of drawing directly on the filmstrip. In 1939, McLaren immigrated to the United States, where he made several abstract films, including Stars and Stripes (1940) and Dots (1940). In 1941, he came to Canada and met up once again with John Grierson, who, at the request of the Canadian government, had founded the NFB. Grierson asked McLaren to put together the NFB's first animation team.

McLaren's personality and philosophy are inseparable from the direction animation took at the NFB. A tireless innovator, he perceived animation filmmakers as artisans who, much like artists in their studios, control every step of the production of their films. Consequently, McLaren set an example for his colleagues, motivating them to develop their own tools and experiment with new techniques. Owing to such masterpieces as Begone Dull Care (co-directed by Evelyn Lambart, 1949) and Blinkity Blank (1955), McLaren's name has become widely associated with drawing and etching directly on film, yet his impressive filmography shows a variety of techniques: paper cut-outs (Rythmetic, co-directed by E. Lambart, 1956; Le merle, 1958), animating a chalk drawing through a series of modifications (Là-haut sur ces montagnes, 1945), the systematic use of cross fading (C'est l'aviron, 1944), pixillation (Neighbours, 1952; Opening Speech: McLaren, 1961) and superimposing images obtained by an optical printer (Pas de deux, 1968).

Norman McLaren was a creative and technical innovator whose film career spanned more than 50 years, during which he created a body of work that has no peer in cinema. Considered an artist, animator, filmmaker, scientist, inventor, musician and technical expert, his work might be better classified as experimental than as animation. His films are artisanal creations designed to provoke an aesthetic response, although they also inform, amuse and entertain.

Joining the anniversary celebrations, Animateka's festival opening will feature a special screening of McLaren's work and his DVD collection will be available for purchase during the festival at the festival boutique.

Pas de Deux

Norman McLaren (National Film Board of Canada)

Kanada / Canada, 1968, 35 mm, 13'

Norman McLaren takes a look at the choreography of ballet, with cinema effects that are all that you would expect from this master of improvisation in music and illustration. By exposing the same frames as many as ten times, the artist creates a multiple image of the ballerina and her partner (Margaret Mercier and Vincent Warren). A bare, black stage and back-lit figures, plus the remote, airy music of panpipes, produce a quiet and detachment telling the story of a young woman's awakening to love.