1 + 3 + 4 OCT 2024 / 10h00
Biblioteca Municipal de Lagos Dr. Júlio Dantas
School Sessions / Limited to 3 classes
1 + 3 OCT - Preschool and Primary
4 OCT - 3rd Cycle and Secondary
55'/ Upon reservation
Norman McLaren, known as the poet of animation, 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 films might be better classified as experimental than as animation.
His work reveals an artistic vision that combines the simplicity of the materials with a complex and delicate approach to human emotion, resulting in visual and sound experiences designed to provoke an aesthetic response, although they also inform, amuse and entertain.
For this screening (structured into three sessions, two for children and one for teenagers) we have selected 11 of his short films – true visual poems that move between the abstract and the figurative, perfectly exploring the relationship between colour, shape, sound and movement – as well as works by two of his closest collaborators and artistic partners – filmmaker René Jodoin, a pioneer in exploring the educational and artistic potential of animation, and filmmaker Evelyn Lambart, who has a unique visual sensibility.
All three artists worked at the National Film Board of Canada (NFB).
BLINKITY BLANK
Norman McLaren / 1955 / 5′
This experimental short film is a playful exercise in intermittent animation and spasmodic imagery. Playing with the laws relating to persistence of vision and after-image on the retina of the eye, McLaren engraves pictures on blank film creating vivid, percussive effects.
SPOOK SPORT *
Norman McLaren / 1940 / 7′
An expressionistic interpretation of ‘Danse macabre’ by Camille Saint-Saëns. Conventional cel animation and pen drawings done by Norman McLaren directly on 35 mm film stock.
SPHERES **
Norman McLaren e René Jodoin / 1968 / 7′
A play on motion set against a background of multi-hued sky. Spheres of translucent pearl float weightlessly in the unlimited panorama of the sky, grouping, regrouping or colliding like the stylized burst of some atomic chain reaction. The dance is set to the musical cadences of Bach, played by pianist Glenn Gould.
RYTHMETIC
Norman McLaren / 1956 / 8′
An animated film that endows arithmetic with lively humour. The screen becomes a numerical free-for-all as digits meet in playful encounter, add and subtract, jostle, attack and elude one another.
MOSAIC
Norman McLaren & Evelyn Lambart / 1965 / 5′
This short experimental animation tempts the eye with gradually unfolding yet increasingly complex movement, colour and sound. McLaren and Lambart’s film follows a single tiny square as it divides and multiplies, eventually forming a colourful, hypnotic mosaic set to the animators’ precise and deliberate musical orchestration.
CANON *
Norman McLaren & Grant Munro / 1964 / 9′
McLaren and Munro use three different animation techniques to provide visual representations of canons in a film designed to teach viewers about this ancient musical form. The soundtrack combines both recorded classical music and sounds produced by a synthesizer.
LE MERLE *
Norman McLaren / 1958 / 4′
In this animation film, McLaren imparts unusual activity to an old French-Canadian nonsense song. Simple white cut-outs on pastel backgrounds, many by Evelyn Lambart, provide lively illustrations. The folksong “Mon Merle” is sung in French by the Trio Lyrique of Montreal.
NOTES ON A TRIANGLE
René Jodoin / 1966 / 4′
In this film the triangle achieves the distinction of principal dancer in a geometric ballet. The triangle is shown splitting into some three hundred transformations, dividing and sub-dividing with grace and symmetry to the music of a waltz.
A MATTER OF FORM
René Jodoin / 1984 / 3′
Set to the rousing notes of Schubert’s Military March, this film is an ingenious example of how a single point can be the building-block for a multiplicity of shapes and configurations. Lines and forms grow out of the point, eventually covering the entire screen in splashes of colour. This is geometric wizardry at its colourful best.
THE HOARDER *
Evelyn Lambart / 1969 / 7′
A greedy little blue jay carries away whatever his beak can grasp. Berries, birds’ eggs (nests and all), and even the sun in the sky go into his secret cache. Nothing is safe from his consuming avarice. But there is a moral tucked away. The blue jay learns a lesson about the importance of sharing, and he and his friends are all the merrier for it.
THE LION AND THE MOUSE *
Evelyn Lambart / 1976 / 4′
A visual adaptation of the famous Aesop fable “The Lion and the Mouse,” in which a mouse proves to a lion that the weak and small may be of help to those much mightier than themselves.
OPENING SPEECH: McLAREN **
Norman McLaren / 1961 / 6′
In this short film, Norman McLaren is literally caught by his own film tricks. As he attempts to welcome an audience, he is frustrated by an animated microphone with a will of its own.
A CHAIRY TALE **
Norman McLaren & Claude Jutra / 1957 / 9′
A chair refuses to be sat upon, forcing a young man to perform a sort of dance with the chair. The musical accompaniment is by Ravi Shankar and Chatur Lal.
BEGONE DULL CARE **
Norman McLaren & Evelyn Lambart / 1949 / 7′
In this extraordinary short animation, Evelyn Lambart and Norman McLaren painted colours, shapes, and transformations directly on to their filmstrip. The result is a vivid interpretation, in fluid lines and colour, of jazz music played by the Oscar Peterson Trio.
LINES HORIZONTAL **
Norman McLaren & Evelyn Lambart / 1962 / 5′
An experiment in pure design. Lines, ruled directly on film, move with precision and grace against a background of changing colors, in response to music specially composed for the films.
* Sessão 1 + 3 OCT
** Sessão 4 OCT
Produced and Distributed: National Film Board of Canada
