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Our guest today may
look young

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for a pioneer,

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but a pioneer he is.

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A pioneer in motion
picture techniques.

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Norman Mclaren

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of "the national film
board of canada"

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creates

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some of the most
unusual movies.

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Many people, like me,
think they're wonderful.

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Other people don't
understand them.

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This is where I spend most
of my time in filmmaking,

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in front of this machine,
and by this bench.

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Without taking the film
out of the machine,

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I can just pull it out here,

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and I can draw or
scrape away images here,

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and as soon as i've
scraped away a few,

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sometimes just one that
I scrape, I can run it.

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[Narrator]: This is a photo of
Norman Mclaren, the filmmaker,

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taken at his christening in
stirling, Scotland, in 1914.

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19 years after
the birth of cinema.

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[Mclaren]: If there's a
technical thing invented,

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a person with an artist's nature
is likely to take it and use it.

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You're getting young
artists using computers,

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they make a new kind of
animation, a new type of film.

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That's the way it should be.

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if I was growing up now,

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I would go right in and try

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to do things with a computer.

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But one is a child of one's age.

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one is born at a certain time,

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one uses certain things.

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Mclaren's conscious
interest in the arts

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was awakened

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in his early teens when he read

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a modern poem breaking the rules

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he was being taught at school.

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Excited by a cartoon
in "Punch" magazine

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satirizing modern art,

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Mclaren began to abstract

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his school drawing
and painting projects.

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At 18, Mclaren enrolled in
the "glasgow school of art".

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[Mclaren]: I didn't get
enjoyment from drawing

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from plaster casts,
or life models,

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or from what I learned.

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[Narrator]: So, after one year,
Mclaren decided to specialize

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in interior design,

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and produced,
according to one teacher,

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fantastic schemes for
interior decoration, furniture,

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and goodness knows what else.

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This multi-sensory cocktail bar

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incorporated coloured smoke
fountains, scents and sound.

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[Mclaren]: But I discovered

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great works of cinema, those
of pudovkin and eisenstein.

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I know they did have
a terrific impact.

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The intimacy of
the intercutting,

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the wide variety of viewpoint
of the subject matter,

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cutting from one
thing to another

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is similar to
the mental process.

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It's instantaneous.

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A sudden juxtaposition
of two things

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very different from each other,

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as in a dream.

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Its spirit's able to jump around

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with extreme rapidity

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in spite of the laws of logic.

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[Narrator]: A filmmaking club
had been started at art school

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and, galvanized by
Mclaren's energy,

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it produced several
films over three years.

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Mclaren's first film
was "seven 'til five".

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[Mclaren]: My very simple camera

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couldn't do animation,

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so I just relied upon
discontinuous cutting

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to cover one day

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in the life of an art school.

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And I realized that
here is a new area

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that's not really been explored.

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It had just been invented

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about 20 or 30 years ago.

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So much has been done
in drawing and painting

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for thousands of years.

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So many styles that I considered
it at that age a dead art--

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drawing and painting.

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The new art of the
future was movies.

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And I thought
I will make movies.

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On the second film

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I got a camera which
could do fade-ins, fade-outs,

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double exposures, split frame,
and a single frame at a time.

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That was the first opportunity
I had to animate.

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Objects usually,

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plates from the table,

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the instruments of the orchestra
coming out of their boxes...

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At the end of the film,
the camera goes to bed.

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The bed clothes come up over it.

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These came just
spontaneously to me.

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I just thought in
terms of animation.

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[Narrator]: At the third
"Scottish Amateur Film Festival",

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the adjudicator was documentary
filmmaker John Grierson.

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He was scathing in his
criticism of Mclaren's joy,

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"camera makes whoopee".

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[Mclaren]: Grierson said:
"you've got lots of imagination,

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"trying new things, but totally
undisciplined, unharnessed.

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"you don't know how
to make a film,

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we're going to knock
some discipline into you."

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These were his very words:

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"knock some
discipline into you."

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[Narrator]: Mclaren
worked for Grierson

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at the "british
general post office".

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Mclaren learned the
craft and discipline:

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editing, writing and
directing documentaries.

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In october 1939,
he emigrated to the USA

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to continue his work
in experimental film.

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In 1941, he moved to canada.

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Grierson, the founding head of
canada's government film agency,

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the "National Film Board",

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asked Mclaren to come and make
films of an experimental nature.

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Mclaren would stay at the "NFB"
until his retirement in 1984.

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during those 43 years,

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he founded the "NFB
animation department",

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made 50 films and received over
200 awards for his achievements.

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In the early 1700s

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a jesuit priest, louis
Bertrand Castell, wrote:

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"What stranger exercise
could be inspired

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"in the whole field of art
than to make sound visible,

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"to make available to the eye

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those many pleasures
which music affords the ears."

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In 1953, Norman Mclaren
wrote to a friend in Scotland:

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"More than anything
in the past years,

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"what has moved me
most and to tears

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"has been the death
of Kathleen Ferrier.

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"first when I heard of it,
and the other evening again,

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"when there was a memorial
program on the air.

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"I can't express my feelings,

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"except to say that I weep
bitter tears of the sadness

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when I hear her sing
and think of it."

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Music was the central love

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in Mclaren's life and work.

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Music of all sorts and across
many cultural boundaries.

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[Mclaren]: In my teens,
before the "Art School",

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I used to hear music,
for the first time,

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coming from the radio
stations of europe.

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As I shut my eyes, I saw
the play and dance of forms.

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[Narrator]: Yhis multi-sensory
reaction to stimuli

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is called synaesthesia.

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[Mclaren]: Music can do
all kinds of things.

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The tempo can be slow or fast,
can accelerate, decelerate,

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can be pianissimo or fortissimo.

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I could visualize the
equivalent of these things

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in the picture area.

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Things could skip
and leap about joyfully

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or they could drag
themselves tragically around.

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There's lots of adjectives
that you can apply to music

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and to the movement

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of the shapes and forms
in an abstract film.

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The pieces that excited me, i
wanted to express them visually.

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[Narrator]: Debussy's
"L'apres-midi d'un faune"...

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Cgany interpretation
of hungarian folk music...

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Scottish rhapsody...

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[Mclaren]: It was only

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when I joined the
"Film Society in Glasgow"

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that I saw the
first abstract film,

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Brahm's fifth
hungarian rhapsody,

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made by Oscar Fischinger.

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I said: "that's it,

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film is the medium to express
my feelings about music."

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What may be half of my
whole output of films

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is the expression of
the spirit of music.

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"Je la menai
aupres d'une fontaine"

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"Je la menai
aupres d'une fontaine"

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A long time ago,

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in the thirties, shortly
after I began making movies,

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I discovered
surrealist painting.

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One of the surrealists
whose work I very much admired

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was Yves Tanguay.

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So one day in 1944,

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I decided to improvise
a moving growing landscape

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in a surrealistic manner.

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And this is it.

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It's much influenced

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by the way tanguay uses space
and forms in his paintings.

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I must confess I don't really
know what any of it means.

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It all comes out
of my subconscious.

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I call it "Tanguay
landscape test".

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It never got any further
than what you see now.

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A problem with
making a surreal film

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is keeping up the inspiration
while constantly improvising.

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[Narrator]: The surrealist
idea of subconscious

187
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as a source of
artistic inspiration

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was the major force in
Mclaren's creative process.

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It would remain an influence
through his career.

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[Mclaren]: Surrealism meant

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cutting down the conscious
control of what was happening.

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I had tended to be an
improviser in earlier films,

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so this fitted in with
the idea of surrealism.

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You let what's next come
out of your subconscious.

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Having seen just one or
two surrealist paintings

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released me to make films

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Iike "Love on the wing" where
the image keeps metamorphosing.

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[Narrator]: "Divertissement",
by Jacques Ibert,

199
00:14:45,985 --> 00:14:50,115
was the musical inspiration
for "Love on the wing".

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00:14:50,256 --> 00:14:54,625
Mclaren's loud entry into the
world of experimental cinema,

201
00:14:54,760 --> 00:15:00,130
his first professional step as
a maker of fancy and fantasy.

202
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[Mclaren]: A
sudden juxtaposition

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of two things very different
from each other as in a dream.

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The spirit is able to jump
around with an extreme rapidity

205
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in spite of the laws of logic.

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[Narrator]: Mclaren used

207
00:15:36,735 --> 00:15:39,101
a technique of
filmic metamorphosis,

208
00:15:39,238 --> 00:15:43,140
or continual change, to
make his surreal cinema.

209
00:15:47,746 --> 00:15:51,113
He had discovered
metamorphosis in 1937

210
00:15:51,250 --> 00:15:53,616
in films by Emile Cohl.

211
00:15:53,752 --> 00:15:59,122
The french animator had used
the technique as early as 1908.

212
00:15:59,258 --> 00:16:01,556
Here, in the film "Fantasmagorie".

213
00:16:01,694 --> 00:16:05,061
Mclaren said Cohl's
animation was a revelation

214
00:16:05,197 --> 00:16:09,566
which impressed him deeply,
and greatly affected his work.

215
00:16:09,702 --> 00:16:13,570
Here was animation
at its purest and best,

216
00:16:13,706 --> 00:16:17,574
unadulterated and unaffected
by the ideas and methods

217
00:16:17,710 --> 00:16:20,406
of other media
and earlier times.

218
00:16:20,546 --> 00:16:26,075
It rejoiced in the fact
that it was drawn with a line

219
00:16:26,218 --> 00:16:29,085
and that the line could move.

220
00:16:29,221 --> 00:16:34,625
It breathed with this knowledge,
and it followed the logic of it.

221
00:16:42,234 --> 00:16:44,600
The "British postmaster general"
forbade the distribution

222
00:16:44,737 --> 00:16:47,103
of "Love on the wing".

223
00:16:47,239 --> 00:16:49,139
too freudian, he said.

224
00:17:09,828 --> 00:17:12,160
The fore-ground images
in "Love on the wing"

225
00:17:12,197 --> 00:17:14,062
were made without a camera

226
00:17:14,199 --> 00:17:18,067
by drawing directly
with a pen onto the film.

227
00:17:18,203 --> 00:17:21,366
Mclaren would perfect
this technique in new york.

228
00:17:39,792 --> 00:17:44,229
Mclaren had emigrated
to the USA in 1939

229
00:17:44,363 --> 00:17:45,762
with Guy Glover,

230
00:17:45,898 --> 00:17:48,799
his lifetime companion
and creative confidant.

231
00:17:51,370 --> 00:17:52,769
several years later,

232
00:17:52,905 --> 00:17:57,103
Mclaren spoke of those
new york days in an interview.

233
00:17:57,242 --> 00:18:01,542
"I had a terrible time during my
first trip there in the 30's,"

234
00:18:01,680 --> 00:18:04,012
he recalled with a smile.

235
00:18:04,149 --> 00:18:08,552
"I made those guggenheim films
while I was nearly starving

236
00:18:08,687 --> 00:18:11,622
"in a little room
on 1 25th street.

237
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"all I had was a pen,
some dyes, a plain table,

238
00:18:16,695 --> 00:18:19,926
"a sloping bench with a
groove for sliding film

239
00:18:20,065 --> 00:18:21,760
"and a wire coat hanger.

240
00:18:21,900 --> 00:18:27,065
"but later", he mused, "I moved
to the oldest house in flushing.

241
00:18:27,206 --> 00:18:30,107
it had lovely
fir trees and birds."

242
00:18:30,242 --> 00:18:34,076
Mclaren bent a
surprisingly muscular wrist

243
00:18:34,213 --> 00:18:37,580
slowly flexing five
tapering fingers.

244
00:18:37,716 --> 00:18:39,343
"it had birds

245
00:18:39,485 --> 00:18:41,214
Iike silver falcons."

246
00:20:09,241 --> 00:20:12,608
during his two
years in new york,

247
00:20:12,744 --> 00:20:16,111
Mclaren drew seven
films directly onto film.

248
00:20:16,248 --> 00:20:17,715
he was encouraged

249
00:20:17,849 --> 00:20:19,612
by hilla von rebay,

250
00:20:19,751 --> 00:20:22,948
curator of the "museum
of non-objective painting",

251
00:20:23,088 --> 00:20:24,453
now the "guggenheim".

252
00:20:24,590 --> 00:20:27,457
the museum bought
most of these films,

253
00:20:27,593 --> 00:20:30,391
featuring them on programs
of non-objective cinema.

254
00:20:30,529 --> 00:20:33,123
it's a very simple
machine,

255
00:20:33,265 --> 00:20:35,130
not much to it.

256
00:20:35,267 --> 00:20:37,132
this is the film.

257
00:20:37,269 --> 00:20:40,636
it runs through a
holder over here.

258
00:20:40,772 --> 00:20:42,637
and there's a light

259
00:20:42,774 --> 00:20:46,141
that shines through
glass in my holder.

260
00:20:46,278 --> 00:20:49,145
I use pen and india
ink --

261
00:20:49,281 --> 00:20:51,146
just an ordinary
pen.

262
00:20:51,283 --> 00:20:55,117
I draw on each frame
of film,

263
00:20:55,254 --> 00:20:59,691
making each drawing slightly
different from the one before.

264
00:21:28,820 --> 00:21:32,278
after drawing that,
I pull the film up

265
00:21:32,424 --> 00:21:34,324
and draw the next
second.

266
00:21:34,459 --> 00:21:36,620
[interviewer]: it sounds
most interesting.

267
00:21:36,762 --> 00:21:40,630
it seems to be a most
satisfying business,

268
00:21:40,766 --> 00:21:44,133
painting straight
onto a film like that.

269
00:21:44,269 --> 00:21:47,636
[Mclaren]: don't let the
complexities of filmmaking

270
00:21:47,773 --> 00:21:49,138
get you down.

271
00:21:49,274 --> 00:21:52,641
I try to preserve in my
relationship to the film

272
00:21:52,778 --> 00:21:55,144
the same closeness and intimacy

273
00:21:55,280 --> 00:21:58,647
that exists between
a painter and his canvas.

274
00:21:58,784 --> 00:22:00,149
in normal filmmaking,

275
00:22:00,285 --> 00:22:03,584
there's a series of optical,
chemical, mechanical processes.

276
00:22:03,722 --> 00:22:08,591
and these stand between the
artist and his finished work.

277
00:22:08,727 --> 00:22:13,596
how much simpler it is for
an artist with his canvas.

278
00:22:13,732 --> 00:22:19,602
so I decided to throw away
the camera and work on the film.

279
00:22:19,738 --> 00:22:25,608
and if I don't like
what I do, I rub it out.

280
00:22:25,744 --> 00:22:27,609
[interviewer]: it sounds simple.

281
00:22:27,746 --> 00:22:31,614
it must be simpler
for you than for me.

282
00:22:31,750 --> 00:22:33,650
[Mclaren]: well...
yes. um... um...

283
00:22:52,771 --> 00:22:56,639
you can turn me into
anything you like:

284
00:22:56,775 --> 00:23:00,142
Ioaf of bread, bike,
stylish hat, roastbeef,

285
00:23:00,278 --> 00:23:04,578
thrilling book, comfy seat,
yard of cloth, pound of cheese,

286
00:23:04,716 --> 00:23:08,311
ticket to a movie or
anything you please.

287
00:23:08,453 --> 00:23:10,421
[Narrator]: Mclaren once said

288
00:23:10,555 --> 00:23:14,082
"handmade cinema was
like watching thought.

289
00:23:14,226 --> 00:23:17,593
if thought could be seen."

290
00:23:17,729 --> 00:23:21,597
[Mclaren]: I wasn't
aware of the general line

291
00:23:21,733 --> 00:23:26,602
of what was going to happen
1 0-20 seconds from now.

292
00:23:26,738 --> 00:23:30,606
I was always aware of how
things were developing:

293
00:23:30,742 --> 00:23:34,610
this is going to happen
in the next five seconds.

294
00:23:34,746 --> 00:23:39,615
but a minute from now in
the film, I didn't know.

295
00:23:39,751 --> 00:23:43,118
the subconscious plays
a very important role.

296
00:23:43,255 --> 00:23:47,624
it perhaps has the whole
thing pretty well formed

297
00:23:47,759 --> 00:23:49,624
from start to finish.

298
00:23:49,761 --> 00:23:52,628
it's a matter of
the consciousness

299
00:23:52,764 --> 00:23:58,134
not knowing that form
but creating it

300
00:23:58,270 --> 00:24:02,570
and getting uncomfortable,
nervous or neurotic even,

301
00:24:02,707 --> 00:24:04,538
if it's going wrong.

302
00:24:05,744 --> 00:24:07,473
[Narrator]: when Mclaren was 18,

303
00:24:07,612 --> 00:24:11,070
he wrote a story
about life in 2066.

304
00:24:11,216 --> 00:24:15,084
the function of art in
Mclaren's brave new world

305
00:24:15,220 --> 00:24:17,586
was to make life gloom-proof.

306
00:24:17,722 --> 00:24:20,088
Mclaren looked back
with amusement

307
00:24:20,225 --> 00:24:23,092
on this fantasy of a teenager,

308
00:24:23,228 --> 00:24:26,095
excited by anything
that was new.

309
00:24:26,231 --> 00:24:31,100
for the most part, Mclaren's
public art was one of fancy,

310
00:24:31,236 --> 00:24:33,602
of wit and of hope.

311
00:24:33,738 --> 00:24:36,969
rarely did his films
show his suffering.

312
00:24:37,108 --> 00:24:41,477
this he kept for
his private drawings.

313
00:24:43,081 --> 00:24:46,107
this surreal footage,
"the head test",

314
00:24:46,251 --> 00:24:50,654
dates from the 1940s
and was left incomplete.

315
00:26:37,162 --> 00:26:42,099
the hand-drawn films were the
expression of his idea of cinema

316
00:26:42,233 --> 00:26:46,135
as an art of movements
designed through time.

317
00:26:52,243 --> 00:26:54,711
Mclaren also thought of cinema

318
00:26:54,846 --> 00:26:58,577
as motion and change
painted with light.

319
00:27:25,710 --> 00:27:28,076
this footage dates from 1943

320
00:27:28,213 --> 00:27:32,081
and is the first
test for the technique

321
00:27:32,217 --> 00:27:37,587
in which he metamorphosed light
and shade in a pastel drawing.

322
00:27:37,722 --> 00:27:41,089
he called this technique
"chain of mixes".

323
00:27:41,226 --> 00:27:46,596
this test led directly to the
film "la-haut sur ces montagnes".

324
00:27:46,731 --> 00:27:51,134
Mclaren's interest in the
metamorphosis of light and shade

325
00:27:51,269 --> 00:27:54,102
was aroused by the
scottish environment

326
00:27:54,239 --> 00:27:56,366
of his formative years.

327
00:27:56,508 --> 00:27:58,476
[Mclaren]: our house,

328
00:27:58,610 --> 00:28:01,204
it had a big square garden.

329
00:28:01,346 --> 00:28:03,280
this is a square lawn,

330
00:28:03,415 --> 00:28:07,613
a path around it, and my
mother's sunniest flower beds,

331
00:28:07,752 --> 00:28:10,744
she gave over to roses.

332
00:28:10,889 --> 00:28:14,825
her great interest
was in gardening.

333
00:28:14,959 --> 00:28:18,725
at adolescence, the big
change came over me.

334
00:28:18,863 --> 00:28:23,357
I remember the day and the
experience where it hit me.

335
00:28:23,501 --> 00:28:26,561
it was a lovely,
brilliant, sunny morning

336
00:28:26,705 --> 00:28:30,505
going out into the
back garden of the house.

337
00:28:30,642 --> 00:28:32,576
suddenly everything
seemed magical.

338
00:28:32,711 --> 00:28:35,305
the drops of dew on the grass

339
00:28:35,447 --> 00:28:39,383
and the shapes of the flowers.

340
00:28:39,517 --> 00:28:42,577
but that morning it
just overwhelmed me,

341
00:28:42,721 --> 00:28:44,416
and I went indoors

342
00:28:44,556 --> 00:28:50,927
and tried to write a
poem expressing this.

343
00:28:51,062 --> 00:28:54,520
Iike in my bedroom,
the first thing I did

344
00:28:54,666 --> 00:28:57,100
once I became
adolescently sensitive

345
00:28:57,235 --> 00:29:03,071
was to jump out of bed,
-- the window was wide open --

346
00:29:03,208 --> 00:29:06,541
Iooked to the east
and to the west,

347
00:29:06,678 --> 00:29:10,774
to the distant hills
with a few clouds over them.

348
00:29:18,189 --> 00:29:21,886
the play of light
and shade on the hills

349
00:29:22,026 --> 00:29:26,087
continued to
affect me very much.

350
00:29:27,699 --> 00:29:31,601
[Narrator]: stirling landscape,
painted by Mclaren in 1947.

351
00:29:34,005 --> 00:29:38,499
[Mclaren]: 20 years ago
I went over to visit my parents

352
00:29:38,643 --> 00:29:41,578
and several of us took a walk.

353
00:29:41,713 --> 00:29:44,079
it was windy,
beautiful blue sky,

354
00:29:44,215 --> 00:29:45,944
great scudding cumulus clouds,

355
00:29:46,084 --> 00:29:50,544
and the play of light
and shade, and the wind...

356
00:29:50,688 --> 00:29:53,657
I was just utterly thrilled.

357
00:29:53,792 --> 00:29:58,991
if "la-haut" had been in colour,
it would have been like that.

358
00:29:59,130 --> 00:30:02,099
[Narrator]: although
"la-haut sur ces montagnes"

359
00:30:02,233 --> 00:30:04,098
was inspired by Scotland,

360
00:30:04,235 --> 00:30:09,104
it was one film in a series
of french-canadian folk songs.

361
00:30:09,240 --> 00:30:13,609
[compere:] when disney and
his animators turn out a film,

362
00:30:13,745 --> 00:30:16,612
they do thousands of
individual drawings.

363
00:30:16,748 --> 00:30:19,615
but that is not your technique.

364
00:30:19,751 --> 00:30:22,618
[Mclaren]: no, in this film
I used one drawing

365
00:30:22,754 --> 00:30:26,121
and made thousands of
changes on the one drawing.

366
00:30:26,257 --> 00:30:28,623
this is the drawing I used.

367
00:30:28,760 --> 00:30:33,629
it's a bit of cardboard, with
a chalk representation on it.

368
00:30:33,765 --> 00:30:36,632
I used black and white chalk,

369
00:30:36,768 --> 00:30:40,135
and during the
photographing of the film,

370
00:30:40,271 --> 00:30:42,637
I would change the drawings.

371
00:30:42,774 --> 00:30:46,710
if the sun was rising
on this mountain scene,

372
00:30:46,845 --> 00:30:52,181
I would add white chalk
to highlight the mountains.

373
00:30:58,289 --> 00:31:00,154
very edges of things.

374
00:31:00,291 --> 00:31:03,089
I might lighten a whole area.

375
00:31:03,228 --> 00:31:05,025
then, i'd stop drawing

376
00:31:05,163 --> 00:31:10,601
and let the cameraman
shoot part of the picture

377
00:31:10,735 --> 00:31:12,566
in this condition.

378
00:31:12,704 --> 00:31:15,468
he'd blend it into
the previous condition.

379
00:31:15,607 --> 00:31:17,438
we'd stop the camera,

380
00:31:17,575 --> 00:31:21,102
and i'd start changing
the picture again.

381
00:31:21,246 --> 00:31:24,113
I might lighten up the sky.

382
00:31:24,249 --> 00:31:27,116
it's a series of
constant changes

383
00:31:27,252 --> 00:31:29,618
to the same
basic drawing.

384
00:31:29,754 --> 00:31:31,119
that's right.

385
00:31:31,256 --> 00:31:32,621
photograph each
change.

386
00:31:32,757 --> 00:31:33,781
yes.

387
00:31:33,925 --> 00:31:37,122
and after I lightened up the sky

388
00:31:37,262 --> 00:31:41,358
and the mountains
a little bit more,

389
00:31:41,499 --> 00:31:42,898
we'd photograph some more.

390
00:31:43,034 --> 00:31:48,631
then we'd stop the camera again,
and i'd add some more detail.

391
00:31:48,773 --> 00:31:52,675
I might introduce
some clouds in the sky.

392
00:31:54,879 --> 00:32:00,181
and i'd change every part
of the picture a little bit.

393
00:32:02,220 --> 00:32:06,919
and then, say I was wanting
to introduce a sunset,

394
00:32:07,058 --> 00:32:10,619
I might rub the
existing chalk away.

395
00:32:15,266 --> 00:32:19,600
the cameraman would photograph
the picture in that stage,

396
00:32:19,737 --> 00:32:23,537
mixing it with the previous.

397
00:32:23,675 --> 00:32:25,609
and so on it went;

398
00:32:25,743 --> 00:32:29,144
Iittle by little, the
picture would change.

399
00:32:51,269 --> 00:32:52,634
[Narrator]: in 1966,

400
00:32:52,770 --> 00:32:56,137
Mclaren began a
metamorphic film, "the seasons",

401
00:32:56,274 --> 00:33:00,643
in which he explored the
light and colour of canada.

402
00:33:00,778 --> 00:33:05,078
he feared this almost formless
abstraction would be boring.

403
00:33:05,216 --> 00:33:11,587
he put the film to one side,
taking it out from time to time

404
00:33:11,723 --> 00:33:16,092
in the hope of an inspiration,
which never came.

405
00:33:16,227 --> 00:33:20,095
Mclaren readily admitted
to the painterly influence

406
00:33:20,231 --> 00:33:23,598
of the 19th century
english artist j.w. turner,

407
00:33:23,735 --> 00:33:27,102
on his attempt to
capture the seasons

408
00:33:27,238 --> 00:33:29,638
in this impressionistic manner.

409
00:33:48,860 --> 00:33:52,762
in the mid-1 940s,
Mclaren and evelyn lambart

410
00:33:52,897 --> 00:33:56,060
shot tests for a folk song film,

411
00:33:56,200 --> 00:33:57,633
Ia poulette grise.

412
00:33:57,769 --> 00:33:59,760
they made slides of hens,

413
00:33:59,904 --> 00:34:03,601
which they projected onto
undulating corrugated board.

414
00:34:06,210 --> 00:34:09,577
they were unhappy
with the results,

415
00:34:09,714 --> 00:34:14,617
so Mclaren decided to use
the chain of mixes technique.

416
00:34:19,223 --> 00:34:20,588
picasso said:

417
00:34:20,725 --> 00:34:24,593
"it would be very interesting
to record, photographically,

418
00:34:24,729 --> 00:34:29,098
"not the stages of a painting,
but its metamorphoses.

419
00:34:29,233 --> 00:34:34,603
"one would see, perhaps, by
what course a mind finds its way

420
00:34:34,739 --> 00:34:37,606
"to the crystallization
of its dream.

421
00:34:37,742 --> 00:34:42,111
"the picture is not thought out
and determined beforehand;

422
00:34:42,246 --> 00:34:45,113
"rather while it is being made,

423
00:34:45,249 --> 00:34:48,116
"it follows the
mobility of thought.

424
00:34:48,252 --> 00:34:50,117
"finished, it changes further,

425
00:34:50,254 --> 00:34:54,623
"according to the condition
of him who looks at it.

426
00:34:54,759 --> 00:34:58,627
a picture lives its life
like a living creature."

427
00:34:58,763 --> 00:35:03,564
[Mclaren]: when I see a painting
done by some other artist,

428
00:35:03,701 --> 00:35:09,071
I don't think of all the
stages that led up to that.

429
00:35:09,207 --> 00:35:12,574
but in my own experience
of doing paintings,

430
00:35:12,710 --> 00:35:17,579
i've been very conscious that
I build the thing up gradually

431
00:35:17,715 --> 00:35:20,582
and change it here and there...

432
00:35:20,718 --> 00:35:22,083
it slowly evolves.

433
00:35:22,220 --> 00:35:27,248
that process seems to be more
important than the final result.

434
00:35:27,391 --> 00:35:32,090
i'm not a good painter, that's
one of the symptoms of it.

435
00:35:32,230 --> 00:35:34,596
I don't know when to stop.

436
00:35:34,732 --> 00:35:38,532
the changing around fascinates
me more than the result...

437
00:35:38,669 --> 00:35:43,606
which naturally led to trying
to channel this into filmmaking.

438
00:35:43,741 --> 00:35:48,610
and the film that, in my
opinion, does that best

439
00:35:48,746 --> 00:35:50,145
is "poulette grise".

440
00:35:53,751 --> 00:35:56,618
[Narrator]: the roots
of Mclaren's interest

441
00:35:56,754 --> 00:36:01,123
in the metamorphosis of
light and shade and imagery

442
00:36:01,192 --> 00:36:04,559
Iay in the scottish
environment of his youth.

443
00:36:04,695 --> 00:36:07,255
but the idea to use film

444
00:36:07,398 --> 00:36:11,027
to explore this interest
came from seeing this film,

445
00:36:11,169 --> 00:36:15,105
"night on bare mountain",
in the late 1 930s.

446
00:36:34,725 --> 00:36:39,253
[Mclaren]: I think an abstract,
a so-called abstract film

447
00:36:39,397 --> 00:36:41,262
can have human feelings.

448
00:36:41,399 --> 00:36:42,764
in other words,

449
00:36:42,900 --> 00:36:47,599
the things that you see on
the screen may be abstract.

450
00:36:47,738 --> 00:36:51,834
if you looked at a frame
of film, you'd say:

451
00:36:51,976 --> 00:36:55,605
that doesn't mean anything;
there's no images there.

452
00:36:55,746 --> 00:36:59,113
but once the thing
goes into motion,

453
00:36:59,250 --> 00:37:01,548
the things that are there,

454
00:37:01,686 --> 00:37:06,055
no matter what kind
of shape they may be,

455
00:37:06,190 --> 00:37:10,058
can behave in a
human or animal way,

456
00:37:10,194 --> 00:37:15,598
which echoes something
quite human in a person.

457
00:37:26,711 --> 00:37:30,078
[don mcw.]: would you
say there's a connection

458
00:37:30,214 --> 00:37:32,239
between your films and dance?

459
00:37:32,383 --> 00:37:40,119
in many of them, the
abstract films, like...

460
00:37:43,961 --> 00:37:46,930
good gracious,
i've forgotten its name!

461
00:37:47,064 --> 00:37:48,588
[don]: "fiddle dee-dee"?

462
00:37:48,733 --> 00:37:50,724
[Mclaren]: "fiddle dee-dee", no.

463
00:37:50,868 --> 00:37:54,998
"begone dull care" is more
like wild folk dancing.

464
00:37:55,139 --> 00:37:56,606
i'm confused,

465
00:37:56,741 --> 00:37:58,606
because "begone
dull care"

466
00:37:58,743 --> 00:38:00,176
is more abstract

467
00:38:00,311 --> 00:38:05,044
than "fiddle-dee-dee" which
is sort of a dance melody.

468
00:38:05,182 --> 00:38:07,548
[Mclaren]: it's a dance melody,

469
00:38:07,685 --> 00:38:13,590
but it's a very simple melody
and it's a very simple film.

470
00:38:33,711 --> 00:38:36,805
it doesn't have
all the features,

471
00:38:36,947 --> 00:38:41,611
promontories and
crags and lowlands

472
00:38:41,752 --> 00:38:43,743
of "begone dull care".

473
00:39:19,523 --> 00:39:20,956
when, in london,

474
00:39:21,092 --> 00:39:26,052
I went to the ballet,
i'd never seen ballet before.

475
00:39:26,197 --> 00:39:31,066
I was utterly fascinated because
I saw several types of ballet.

476
00:39:31,202 --> 00:39:36,071
but I was more interested
in the non-dramatic ballet,

477
00:39:36,207 --> 00:39:38,767
the ballet of movement

478
00:39:38,909 --> 00:39:41,571
and the creation
of the choreography

479
00:39:41,712 --> 00:39:45,580
and the changing forms
and patterns on the stage.

480
00:39:45,716 --> 00:39:50,585
even if i'd been born
when I was born, in london,

481
00:39:50,721 --> 00:39:53,417
and could have
gone to the ballet

482
00:39:53,557 --> 00:39:56,583
from the age of eight or ten,

483
00:39:56,727 --> 00:40:01,096
I might have wanted
to be a ballet dancer

484
00:40:01,232 --> 00:40:03,132
and eventually a choreographer.

485
00:40:15,312 --> 00:40:17,177
when doing "hen hop",

486
00:40:17,314 --> 00:40:22,115
I felt that I was
that hen doing the dance.

487
00:40:22,253 --> 00:40:26,622
after all, before i
went to make "hen hop".

488
00:40:26,757 --> 00:40:31,626
I selected the music, and
the music was a scratchiness

489
00:40:31,762 --> 00:40:36,631
and its silly, fiddly tune
made me think of hens.

490
00:40:36,767 --> 00:40:41,136
I always think of hens
as stupid, silly creatures.

491
00:40:41,272 --> 00:40:45,140
I went to an experimental
farm near ottawa,

492
00:40:45,276 --> 00:40:51,146
and asked to spend a day in
the hen houses, drawing hens.

493
00:40:51,282 --> 00:40:55,150
I went in there, and caused
the greatest disruption

494
00:40:55,286 --> 00:40:57,151
between these 200 hens.

495
00:40:57,288 --> 00:40:59,654
because they didn't accept me.

496
00:40:59,790 --> 00:41:02,588
there was great
cackling and fluttering

497
00:41:02,726 --> 00:41:05,593
and flying from roost to roost.

498
00:41:05,729 --> 00:41:09,597
they moved so fast
I couldn't draw any.

499
00:41:09,733 --> 00:41:13,100
but after half an hour
they settled down,

500
00:41:13,237 --> 00:41:16,604
they seemed to
accept me as a hen.

501
00:41:16,740 --> 00:41:20,608
I studied their postures
and watched their movements,

502
00:41:20,744 --> 00:41:26,614
and got imbued with the
spirit of their henliness.

503
00:41:26,750 --> 00:41:28,377
I think!

504
00:41:28,519 --> 00:41:33,115
in a way, when you're
animating a creature,

505
00:41:33,257 --> 00:41:38,126
if the creature is moving,
you are that...

506
00:41:38,262 --> 00:41:40,662
you feel the motion.

507
00:41:50,274 --> 00:41:53,141
your feet on the floor
and your back to the wall

508
00:41:53,277 --> 00:41:55,142
and over the left
with your corner's all

509
00:41:55,279 --> 00:41:57,144
a hand to your partner
grand jangle

510
00:41:57,281 --> 00:41:59,146
right go left

511
00:41:59,283 --> 00:42:01,581
go right to the buggy
left to the wheel

512
00:42:01,719 --> 00:42:05,086
go all the way around
on the ball of your heel

513
00:42:05,222 --> 00:42:07,588
put your wooden leg up
and your cork one down

514
00:42:07,725 --> 00:42:10,125
hurry up girls
you'll never get around

515
00:42:51,268 --> 00:42:54,635
[Narrator]: in 1 946,
picasso saw "hen hop".

516
00:42:54,772 --> 00:42:57,639
he is reported
to have exclaimed:

517
00:42:57,775 --> 00:43:02,109
"finally, something new
in the art of drawing!"

518
00:43:25,135 --> 00:43:28,104
[m. isacsson]: where
did you get the hen?

519
00:43:28,238 --> 00:43:30,297
[Mclaren]: you're
going way back.

520
00:43:30,441 --> 00:43:35,105
ask my psychiatrist
why I chose a hen!

521
00:43:35,245 --> 00:43:37,110
I wanted a simple image,

522
00:43:37,247 --> 00:43:41,149
not a human image
because it's too complex

523
00:43:41,285 --> 00:43:44,618
to manipulate,
so many parts to move.

524
00:43:44,755 --> 00:43:48,316
you can draw a hen
in a few lines,

525
00:43:48,459 --> 00:43:52,122
it's much easier to do
hundreds of drawings.

526
00:43:52,262 --> 00:43:54,492
birds idea took my fancy,

527
00:43:54,632 --> 00:43:59,126
particularly hens because
i'm always amused by hens.

528
00:43:59,269 --> 00:44:02,136
they're stupid,
they make funny sounds

529
00:44:02,272 --> 00:44:04,604
and behave in a rattly way,

530
00:44:04,742 --> 00:44:07,643
if they're running
or scratching...

531
00:44:36,774 --> 00:44:39,106
[Narrator]: Mclaren once said

532
00:44:39,243 --> 00:44:44,647
he thought his mother
thought she was a bird.

533
00:44:56,827 --> 00:44:59,625
[Mclaren]: it's a form of dance.

534
00:44:59,763 --> 00:45:03,790
that's my way of
thinking about film.

535
00:45:03,934 --> 00:45:08,064
there are other films,
dramatic films,

536
00:45:08,205 --> 00:45:10,070
where speech is important.

537
00:45:10,207 --> 00:45:14,109
but I never use
speech in my films.

538
00:45:16,714 --> 00:45:18,614
I couldn't.

539
00:45:18,749 --> 00:45:24,119
i'd feel it an intrusion
of a very alien kind.

540
00:45:26,223 --> 00:45:29,590
[Narrator]: Mclaren would
send letters to friends.

541
00:45:29,727 --> 00:45:32,594
sometimes fancy,
rather than words,

542
00:45:32,730 --> 00:45:35,130
would express his feelings.

543
00:45:47,678 --> 00:45:49,509
[Mclaren]: one
aspect of creativity

544
00:45:49,680 --> 00:45:51,409
relates to esthetic value,

545
00:45:51,615 --> 00:45:54,106
the making of
something beautiful.

546
00:45:54,251 --> 00:45:57,118
you can find that in flowers.

547
00:45:57,254 --> 00:46:00,451
if you've ever
imagined yourself a bee

548
00:46:00,591 --> 00:46:03,958
and come in right
close to an iris,

549
00:46:04,094 --> 00:46:06,062
it looks terribly exciting...

550
00:46:06,196 --> 00:46:10,394
all this little tube that
gets narrower and narrower...

551
00:46:10,534 --> 00:46:12,365
all the colours reflected...

552
00:46:12,503 --> 00:46:18,339
it's really a wondrous invention

553
00:46:18,475 --> 00:46:20,602
by the great inventor.

554
00:46:23,247 --> 00:46:27,581
animals too, show this
evolutionary creativity.

555
00:46:27,718 --> 00:46:32,553
take for instance
tropical birds of plumage.

556
00:46:32,689 --> 00:46:37,092
take the bower bird of
australia which make a nest...

557
00:46:37,227 --> 00:46:41,596
the little hole and the
little platform in front.

558
00:46:41,732 --> 00:46:45,099
it decorates its nest
with little berries,

559
00:46:45,235 --> 00:46:49,604
beads and flowers, and
little bits of coloured glass,

560
00:46:49,740 --> 00:46:53,608
and a little platform
for the bower birds

561
00:46:53,744 --> 00:46:56,110
to dance a mating dance.

562
00:46:56,246 --> 00:46:58,111
it's all very pretty.

563
00:46:58,248 --> 00:47:00,614
what's the point of it?

564
00:47:00,751 --> 00:47:04,585
the point is sexual
attraction and reproduction.

565
00:47:23,574 --> 00:47:30,070
so, I think in the world of
plants and flowers and animals,

566
00:47:30,214 --> 00:47:32,079
you get creativity.

567
00:47:32,216 --> 00:47:34,582
it's built into
them structurally.

568
00:47:34,718 --> 00:47:38,586
mind you, I think
maybe creativity in man

569
00:47:38,722 --> 00:47:41,088
is structurally built into him,

570
00:47:41,225 --> 00:47:45,423
because some men and women
are more creative than others.

571
00:47:45,562 --> 00:47:50,090
they have an urge to
make not just beauty

572
00:47:50,234 --> 00:47:56,195
but humour, tragedy, if
it's literature, or fantasy.

573
00:47:56,340 --> 00:48:00,140
they have an urge
to make something.

574
00:48:05,682 --> 00:48:08,048
[Narrator]: octavio
paz once said:

575
00:48:08,185 --> 00:48:12,053
"a chained man need
only shut his eyes

576
00:48:12,189 --> 00:48:14,589
to make the world explode."

577
00:48:16,693 --> 00:48:18,558
paraphrasing octavio paz,

578
00:48:18,695 --> 00:48:22,563
Iouis bunuel, that spanish
master of cinema, said:

579
00:48:22,699 --> 00:48:28,069
"the white eye of the screen
need only reflect the light

580
00:48:28,205 --> 00:48:33,074
that is properly its own
to blow up the universe."

581
00:48:33,210 --> 00:48:35,576
paraphrasing bunuel,
we would say:

582
00:48:35,712 --> 00:48:41,082
"the white eye of the screen
need only reflect the light

583
00:48:41,218 --> 00:48:44,619
that is properly its own
to create a new universe."

584
00:49:00,237 --> 00:49:04,537
in 1 969, glenn gould,
canada's master of the keyboard,

585
00:49:04,675 --> 00:49:06,540
had a weekly program

586
00:49:06,677 --> 00:49:10,579
on the radio of the "canadian
broadcasting corporation".

587
00:49:29,700 --> 00:49:33,067
[Announcer:] the art of
glenn gould, take 1 5.

588
00:49:33,203 --> 00:49:35,569
a talk with the composer

589
00:49:35,706 --> 00:49:38,072
of that intriguing
bit of anti-melody,

590
00:49:38,208 --> 00:49:39,573
filmmaker Norman Mclaren.

591
00:49:39,710 --> 00:49:43,043
[gould:] it's the music
track which he designed

592
00:49:43,180 --> 00:49:46,081
for his six-minute
masterpiece called "mosaic".

593
00:49:46,216 --> 00:49:48,081
[Announcer:] I haven't seen it.

594
00:49:48,218 --> 00:49:53,588
[gould:] in that film, a man
walks in from the stage right,

595
00:49:53,724 --> 00:49:55,589
and launches a spherical object

596
00:49:55,726 --> 00:49:57,591
against no
discernible background.

597
00:49:57,728 --> 00:50:01,596
exeunt stage left, leaves
the object to multiply

598
00:50:01,732 --> 00:50:05,099
and to create a world of its own

599
00:50:05,235 --> 00:50:07,601
until he reverses
the stage directions.

600
00:50:07,738 --> 00:50:12,107
I have a feeling that
you have, if only tacitly,

601
00:50:12,242 --> 00:50:14,107
been influenced by schoenberg,

602
00:50:14,244 --> 00:50:17,111
or the schoenbergen
principle of music,

603
00:50:17,247 --> 00:50:22,378
because there is an inclination
in your films to make one cell,

604
00:50:22,519 --> 00:50:24,009
one cellular idea

605
00:50:24,154 --> 00:50:26,122
responsible for
everything that happens.

606
00:50:26,256 --> 00:50:29,623
"mosaic" is like that,
and "spheres" too.

607
00:50:29,760 --> 00:50:32,752
one motion inaugurates
all the other motions.

608
00:50:32,896 --> 00:50:36,127
this was the principle in
which schoenberg believed,

609
00:50:36,266 --> 00:50:38,632
and the thing he strove for.

610
00:50:38,769 --> 00:50:41,863
[Mclaren]: what's influenced
me in that direction

611
00:50:42,005 --> 00:50:45,634
has been my contact with
hindu classical music.

612
00:50:45,776 --> 00:50:50,145
because there you get
one germ in the raga,

613
00:50:50,280 --> 00:50:54,649
and that germ is developed
and developed and developed.

614
00:50:54,785 --> 00:50:58,152
and it builds all the time.

615
00:50:58,288 --> 00:51:02,725
it's not an a, b, a,
it's just a constant build.

616
00:51:02,859 --> 00:51:06,795
you start on a film.

617
00:51:06,930 --> 00:51:10,093
and once you make
an initial statement,

618
00:51:10,233 --> 00:51:13,100
it forecloses all
sorts of possibilities.

619
00:51:13,236 --> 00:51:15,602
you're narrowing
down the channel

620
00:51:15,739 --> 00:51:18,105
in which you can progress.

621
00:51:18,241 --> 00:51:22,109
it's like starting off
a melody in one key.

622
00:51:22,245 --> 00:51:25,112
you could go off at a tangent,

623
00:51:25,248 --> 00:51:29,116
then come back, and
go off at another tangent.

624
00:51:29,252 --> 00:51:33,086
it's a theme and variation
built into the structure.

625
00:51:33,223 --> 00:51:37,626
a great work often
uses very few elements,

626
00:51:37,761 --> 00:51:44,132
it may do a theme and variation,
or a rondo form or sonata form.

627
00:51:44,267 --> 00:51:51,139
many of the structures in music
I found helpful as guidelines

628
00:51:51,274 --> 00:51:56,177
for structures in abstract
films or in films in general.

629
00:52:17,234 --> 00:52:20,601
there are two kinds
of abstract film.

630
00:52:20,737 --> 00:52:23,103
one is pure abstract film.

631
00:52:23,240 --> 00:52:26,107
the images, you
cannot recognize them

632
00:52:26,243 --> 00:52:29,610
as anything else
than what they are.

633
00:52:29,746 --> 00:52:34,115
they don't suggest human beings
or any kind of creatures.

634
00:52:34,251 --> 00:52:37,118
and they don't
move with anything

635
00:52:37,254 --> 00:52:41,122
but geometric kind of
movement, like the film "lines".

636
00:52:41,258 --> 00:52:46,218
"horizontal lines",
"vertical", "mosaic" and "spheres".

637
00:52:46,363 --> 00:52:48,627
the others are abstract films

638
00:52:48,765 --> 00:52:52,132
where there are objects
which are identifiable.

639
00:52:52,269 --> 00:52:53,668
i'm thinking of "rythmetic".

640
00:52:53,803 --> 00:52:55,100
there are numerals.

641
00:52:55,238 --> 00:52:59,140
and in numerals, by their
behaviour, and action,

642
00:52:59,276 --> 00:53:04,578
perform as if they're animals or
human beings pushing and shoving

643
00:53:04,714 --> 00:53:08,115
and reacting and
fighting with each other.

644
00:53:10,820 --> 00:53:12,583
in my abstract films,

645
00:53:12,722 --> 00:53:17,091
the elements, like a
blue dot and a grey dot,

646
00:53:17,227 --> 00:53:21,095
take on a personality by
virtue of their movement.

647
00:53:21,231 --> 00:53:24,598
the images or forms
may be abstract,

648
00:53:24,734 --> 00:53:28,932
but movement is non-abstract;
it's humanly motivated.

649
00:53:29,072 --> 00:53:30,937
the motion is separate

650
00:53:31,074 --> 00:53:35,067
from the particular
shape or form that moves.

651
00:53:35,212 --> 00:53:40,115
it is this motion which
is at the heart of cinema

652
00:53:40,250 --> 00:53:44,152
and that makes film
such a powerful medium.

653
00:53:46,523 --> 00:53:51,961
[isacsson]: animated film
is an illusion of movement.

654
00:53:52,095 --> 00:53:55,622
[Mclaren]: all film
is a kind of illusion,

655
00:53:55,765 --> 00:53:59,861
because you have just 24
stationary frames a second.

656
00:54:00,003 --> 00:54:04,565
so when it's screened, you
get the illusion of movement.

657
00:54:04,708 --> 00:54:09,202
if I were asked the
definition of animated film,

658
00:54:09,346 --> 00:54:14,579
it is where you can stop
between any frame of film

659
00:54:14,718 --> 00:54:17,551
and the next frame of film,

660
00:54:17,687 --> 00:54:20,087
and make a
controlled adjustment.

661
00:54:20,223 --> 00:54:23,590
[isacsson]: that's
what you have been doing?

662
00:54:23,727 --> 00:54:25,092
[Mclaren]: it's manipulating

663
00:54:25,228 --> 00:54:28,095
the difference in pure,
straight animation,

664
00:54:28,231 --> 00:54:33,100
where you move what's
in front of you a little

665
00:54:33,236 --> 00:54:36,637
and take another frame,
move it again...

666
00:54:36,773 --> 00:54:41,710
or if the movement
has been drawn in advance,

667
00:54:41,845 --> 00:54:47,613
you are in complete control
of the frame to frame motion.

668
00:54:47,751 --> 00:54:53,781
and for full animation you have
to do 24 moves per every second.

669
00:54:54,791 --> 00:54:56,622
[don]: is collaboration
important in your process?

670
00:54:56,760 --> 00:54:58,387
[Mclaren]: it's very important.

671
00:54:58,528 --> 00:55:00,621
[don]: what about the role

672
00:55:00,764 --> 00:55:03,562
that evelyn lambart
played in your films?

673
00:55:03,700 --> 00:55:08,569
[Mclaren]: her role was immense,
except for the last ten years,

674
00:55:08,705 --> 00:55:11,731
when she started
making her own films.

675
00:55:11,875 --> 00:55:14,275
we got together in the forties.

676
00:55:14,411 --> 00:55:17,574
we worked out tests
for "poulette grise"

677
00:55:17,714 --> 00:55:21,081
before I arrived at
the final decision.

678
00:55:21,217 --> 00:55:24,448
she started kind of
as an assistant,

679
00:55:24,587 --> 00:55:27,579
but more and more we fitted in

680
00:55:27,724 --> 00:55:31,683
and in some films
she was co-directing them.

681
00:55:31,828 --> 00:55:35,093
one thing was that
she was very methodical.

682
00:55:35,231 --> 00:55:36,664
terribly systematic,

683
00:55:36,800 --> 00:55:39,291
had lots of things on hand,

684
00:55:39,436 --> 00:55:41,267
protractors and compasses

685
00:55:41,404 --> 00:55:43,099
and the other instruments.

686
00:55:43,239 --> 00:55:46,106
we felt the same
way about colour.

687
00:55:46,242 --> 00:55:50,645
she came into the
designing the use of colour

688
00:55:50,780 --> 00:55:52,975
in "mosaic",

689
00:55:53,116 --> 00:55:54,981
where there's little flickers...

690
00:55:55,118 --> 00:55:57,450
when the dots crowd together,

691
00:55:57,587 --> 00:56:00,181
you get a little
clump of flickers.

692
00:56:00,323 --> 00:56:03,554
so we shared ideas and opinions.

693
00:56:03,693 --> 00:56:05,092
and... um...

694
00:56:07,697 --> 00:56:11,098
and... um... she was a...

695
00:56:15,772 --> 00:56:18,707
I felt the value
of a second person

696
00:56:18,842 --> 00:56:20,776
provided that other person

697
00:56:20,910 --> 00:56:29,113
felt the same way about art and
colour and about movie movement.

698
00:56:32,222 --> 00:56:34,122
and there she was...

699
00:56:42,565 --> 00:56:43,896
there's grant munro.

700
00:56:44,033 --> 00:56:47,196
with grant, it's collaboration

701
00:56:47,337 --> 00:56:49,100
and sometimes it's co-direction,

702
00:56:49,239 --> 00:56:51,639
sometimes he's
become the editor.

703
00:57:01,451 --> 00:57:07,549
I think i've made more films
with people than working myself.

704
00:57:07,690 --> 00:57:11,558
in the early days,
it was just myself.

705
00:57:11,694 --> 00:57:13,559
but regardless
of that,

706
00:57:13,696 --> 00:57:16,426
the films carry
your stamp.

707
00:57:16,566 --> 00:57:20,195
[Mclaren]: maybe i've
had the general idea.

708
00:57:20,336 --> 00:57:22,566
that's so with eve lambart.

709
00:57:22,705 --> 00:57:27,074
I said how about trying
to make a minimal film...

710
00:57:27,210 --> 00:57:31,169
this is before the minimalist
movement in graphic arts...

711
00:57:31,314 --> 00:57:36,581
I wanted to use a single line,
moving, bending and wiggling it,

712
00:57:36,719 --> 00:57:40,086
and try to keep up the interest.

713
00:57:40,223 --> 00:57:44,592
I said: "I don't think
we can keep it up

714
00:57:44,727 --> 00:57:46,592
for more than a minute."

715
00:57:46,729 --> 00:57:50,688
we tried various things,
and it just became boring.

716
00:57:50,834 --> 00:57:54,099
we decided we'll start
with a single line,

717
00:57:54,237 --> 00:57:59,106
then make it two, then four,
seven and more complex buildup.

718
00:57:59,242 --> 00:58:02,541
[don]: are you thinking
about boring the audience

719
00:58:02,679 --> 00:58:04,044
or boring you?

720
00:58:04,180 --> 00:58:06,011
[Mclaren]: boring the audience.

721
00:58:06,149 --> 00:58:10,210
there's an audience
somewhere in my mind,

722
00:58:10,353 --> 00:58:13,550
but for "lines", "vertical",
"horizontal" and "mosaic",

723
00:58:13,690 --> 00:58:17,182
it would interest
people who were interested

724
00:58:17,327 --> 00:58:20,524
in art maybe,
a limited audience.

725
00:58:20,663 --> 00:58:22,563
[don]: does that worry you

726
00:58:22,699 --> 00:58:25,065
that the audience
may be limited?

727
00:58:25,201 --> 00:58:29,433
[Mclaren]: no, most people can't
be interested in everything.

728
00:58:29,572 --> 00:58:35,067
they tend to be interested
in, say the dance or something,

729
00:58:35,211 --> 00:58:42,208
rather than sports or golf,
or interested in cooking.

730
00:58:42,352 --> 00:58:46,083
but if they're interested
in film and movement

731
00:58:46,222 --> 00:58:48,087
and art in general,

732
00:58:48,224 --> 00:58:53,594
there'd be a fair number of them
interested in those films,

733
00:58:53,730 --> 00:58:55,095
I thought.

734
00:58:55,231 --> 00:58:58,962
but we were doing it more
to amuse ourselves, I think.

735
00:59:00,236 --> 00:59:04,536
[Narrator]: it is possible a
seed for Mclaren's minimalism

736
00:59:04,674 --> 00:59:08,041
was planted during
his 1 935 trip to russia,

737
00:59:08,177 --> 00:59:12,045
where he saw paintings by
the constructivist movement.

738
00:59:12,181 --> 00:59:15,048
they astonished the
21 year old Mclaren.

739
00:59:15,184 --> 00:59:16,549
[Mclaren]: the russians...

740
00:59:16,686 --> 00:59:21,248
interestingly, logically
related in the gallery,

741
00:59:21,391 --> 00:59:25,054
starting from a realistic
painting to simplified realism

742
00:59:25,194 --> 00:59:28,061
to semi-abstract to
completely abstract

743
00:59:28,197 --> 00:59:31,394
to getting sparser and
fewer geometric forms.

744
00:59:31,534 --> 00:59:36,437
and at the end of the gallery,
was this black canvas.

745
00:59:39,208 --> 00:59:43,076
[Narrator]: in 1 961,
a mathematician called briggs

746
00:59:43,212 --> 00:59:46,079
saw "lines vertical"
and "lines horizontal"

747
00:59:46,215 --> 00:59:48,080
at the "cork film festival".

748
00:59:48,217 --> 00:59:52,085
he wrote: "these films
seem in many ways

749
00:59:52,221 --> 00:59:55,088
"the culmination of
Norman Mclaren's search

750
00:59:55,224 --> 01:00:00,093
"for the ultimate in an art
that he has made his own.

751
01:00:00,229 --> 01:00:04,598
"he has stripped the animated
film to its barest essentials,

752
01:00:04,734 --> 01:00:09,103
"in the same way that the more
advanced abstract painters

753
01:00:09,238 --> 01:00:11,103
"have stripped pictorial art.

754
01:00:11,240 --> 01:00:16,109
"but in his march along
the last ridge to the summit,

755
01:00:16,245 --> 01:00:19,612
"he may have left behind
his popular touch.

756
01:00:19,749 --> 01:00:24,152
he is likely to find himself
almost alone on everest."

757
01:00:53,149 --> 01:00:56,175
all I can say is that...

758
01:00:59,288 --> 01:01:03,088
maybe it is the
spirit of the times,

759
01:01:03,226 --> 01:01:07,629
the era, the age you
live in, affects you.

760
01:01:07,764 --> 01:01:12,599
it's difficult for an artist
to escape the effects of the art

761
01:01:12,735 --> 01:01:16,102
that's going on around
him and being done.

762
01:01:16,239 --> 01:01:18,605
he's part of the movement.

763
01:01:18,741 --> 01:01:21,107
[don]: bussoni wrote once that

764
01:01:21,244 --> 01:01:24,111
"creative power may be
more readily recognized

765
01:01:24,247 --> 01:01:28,081
the more it shakes itself
loose from tradition."

766
01:01:28,217 --> 01:01:31,618
[Mclaren]: on the whole
that's a correct statement.

767
01:01:31,754 --> 01:01:33,619
but there are exceptions.

768
01:01:33,756 --> 01:01:36,122
one great exception is bach.

769
01:01:36,259 --> 01:01:39,626
he was by many of
his contemporaries

770
01:01:39,762 --> 01:01:42,128
considered an old fuddy duddy,

771
01:01:42,265 --> 01:01:45,132
still rummaging around
in those counterpoints.

772
01:01:45,268 --> 01:01:49,136
[don]: do you think an artist
should recognize a tradition?

773
01:01:49,272 --> 01:01:52,503
[Mclaren]: it's a matter
of his own feeling.

774
01:01:52,642 --> 01:01:56,134
if he finds other possibilities
within that tradition,

775
01:01:56,279 --> 01:01:58,144
he should pursue them.

776
01:01:58,281 --> 01:02:04,083
if he gets tired, as I do
making a film in one style,

777
01:02:04,220 --> 01:02:06,085
when it's finished,

778
01:02:06,222 --> 01:02:09,589
I want to do something
completely different,

779
01:02:09,726 --> 01:02:13,662
with a different technique
and a different theme.

780
01:02:13,796 --> 01:02:17,755
[don]: you are a filmmaker,
a 20th century art form.

781
01:02:17,900 --> 01:02:21,427
where is the tradition
for you to break?

782
01:02:21,571 --> 01:02:24,096
[Mclaren]: that's why
I chose film.

783
01:02:24,240 --> 01:02:27,175
because there are
very few traditions

784
01:02:27,310 --> 01:02:29,642
in filmmaking...

785
01:02:29,779 --> 01:02:33,112
here's a medium that's
full of possibilities.

786
01:02:33,249 --> 01:02:39,188
it's just beginning
to be explored...

787
01:02:39,322 --> 01:02:43,725
Iong after I realized that,
I saw the work

788
01:02:43,860 --> 01:02:49,389
of early french pioneers doing
trick film work, I realized

789
01:02:49,532 --> 01:02:53,229
that they'd realized some of
the possibilities immediately.

790
01:02:55,772 --> 01:03:00,675
[Narrator]: the opening moments
of Mclaren's "pas de deux".

791
01:03:02,712 --> 01:03:05,078
there are two sections.

792
01:03:05,214 --> 01:03:10,117
in the first, the awakened
girl dances narcissistically.

793
01:03:19,228 --> 01:03:21,025
in the second section,

794
01:03:21,164 --> 01:03:23,598
a young man appears,

795
01:03:23,733 --> 01:03:25,598
and gradually she realizes

796
01:03:25,735 --> 01:03:30,104
that her happiness lies
in the love of another.

797
01:03:30,239 --> 01:03:34,608
the growing love is expressed
with the multiplied image

798
01:03:34,744 --> 01:03:38,111
created by Mclaren
on the optical printer.

799
01:03:38,247 --> 01:03:40,442
he consciously
took his inspiration

800
01:03:40,583 --> 01:03:42,278
for the multiplied imagery

801
01:03:42,418 --> 01:03:45,285
from earlier attempts
in photography and painting

802
01:03:45,421 --> 01:03:47,446
to capture all the phases

803
01:03:47,590 --> 01:03:50,616
of a motion in a single instant.

804
01:03:50,760 --> 01:03:54,127
this multiple image
photograph of a fencer

805
01:03:54,263 --> 01:03:57,960
was taken by french physiologist
etienne-Jules marey

806
01:03:58,100 --> 01:04:00,000
in the late 1 880s.

807
01:04:00,136 --> 01:04:04,072
marey also took this
diagrammatic photo

808
01:04:04,207 --> 01:04:07,108
of a man walking.

809
01:04:09,245 --> 01:04:12,078
duchamp described
his 1 91 2 painting

810
01:04:12,215 --> 01:04:16,049
"nude descending a staircase"

811
01:04:16,185 --> 01:04:21,589
thus: "a static composition of
indications of various positions

812
01:04:21,724 --> 01:04:25,626
taken by a form in movement."

813
01:04:28,097 --> 01:04:31,589
harold edgerton's 1 930s
stroboscopic photographs

814
01:04:31,734 --> 01:04:37,434
were a major influence in
the gestation of "pas de deux".

815
01:04:37,573 --> 01:04:41,100
this edgerton photo
of a drum majorette

816
01:04:41,244 --> 01:04:45,681
was pinned to the outside
of Mclaren's office door.

817
01:04:49,252 --> 01:04:54,121
Mclaren's first multiplied image
tests were done in the mid-50s.

818
01:04:54,257 --> 01:04:57,624
he multiplied in the
optical printer marks

819
01:04:57,760 --> 01:05:01,161
which he had engraved
on black film.

820
01:05:06,202 --> 01:05:12,107
he used that technique briefly
in his 1 955 "blinkity blank".

821
01:05:19,782 --> 01:05:22,580
in 1 961, Mclaren and grant munro

822
01:05:22,718 --> 01:05:26,085
applied the multiplied
principle to live action.

823
01:05:26,222 --> 01:05:29,589
an action was filmed
in slow motion.

824
01:05:29,725 --> 01:05:31,090
this filmed image

825
01:05:31,227 --> 01:05:34,094
was superimposed upon
itself several times,

826
01:05:34,230 --> 01:05:38,098
but always with a delay
of a few frames,

827
01:05:38,234 --> 01:05:43,103
so that the viewer sees all
the stages in the movement,

828
01:05:43,239 --> 01:05:45,139
as in stroboscopic photography.

829
01:05:53,950 --> 01:05:56,783
in 1 965, Mclaren
did further tests

830
01:05:56,919 --> 01:06:00,116
with dancers from
"les grands ballets canadiens"

831
01:06:00,256 --> 01:06:02,884
in order to perfect the lighting

832
01:06:03,025 --> 01:06:07,052
and to establish the ballet
steps, movements and tempi

833
01:06:07,196 --> 01:06:10,597
best suited to his
theme and technique.

834
01:06:12,702 --> 01:06:14,602
only after these final tests

835
01:06:14,737 --> 01:06:17,604
did Mclaren feel
ready to carry out

836
01:06:17,740 --> 01:06:22,609
his transformations of the
common place into "pas de deux".

837
01:06:41,230 --> 01:06:45,098
[Mclaren]: a work
of art has to have

838
01:06:45,234 --> 01:06:48,601
cohesiveness and consistency,

839
01:06:48,738 --> 01:06:56,110
but not so much cohesiveness and
consistency as to become boring,

840
01:06:56,245 --> 01:07:07,053
and not so much non-cohesiveness
as to fall apart...

841
01:07:07,189 --> 01:07:10,056
it has to be organically linked,

842
01:07:10,192 --> 01:07:17,064
and yet it must have surprises
in it that you don't expect,

843
01:07:17,199 --> 01:07:22,330
but surprises that are
relevant to the whole work.

844
01:07:22,471 --> 01:07:25,065
he was looking
at his rushes,

845
01:07:25,207 --> 01:07:28,074
Iight had got
into the camera.

846
01:07:28,210 --> 01:07:32,078
so these original
rushes were spoiled.

847
01:07:32,214 --> 01:07:35,081
everybody was kind
of sad about it...

848
01:07:35,217 --> 01:07:37,082
except Norman.

849
01:07:37,219 --> 01:07:40,586
Norman was saying:
"but you notice how,

850
01:07:40,723 --> 01:07:45,592
"when it gets that light colour,
it becomes kind of ghostly...

851
01:07:45,728 --> 01:07:51,098
if we would want to do that,
I know what to do now..."

852
01:07:51,233 --> 01:07:55,670
he was thinking what it was
instead of what it wasn't.

853
01:07:57,573 --> 01:08:01,373
[Mclaren]: this x-ray
of my head was taken in 1 955.

854
01:08:01,510 --> 01:08:02,772
i'd gone to

855
01:08:02,912 --> 01:08:06,211
hospital because I was
suffering from headaches.

856
01:08:06,348 --> 01:08:09,875
they took many views of my head.

857
01:08:10,019 --> 01:08:12,852
they gave me the
plates afterwards.

858
01:08:12,988 --> 01:08:15,855
I was going to fling them out...

859
01:08:15,991 --> 01:08:19,051
it is sort of a portrait of me.

860
01:08:19,195 --> 01:08:21,857
I filled the head with doodles.

861
01:08:21,997 --> 01:08:25,160
I improvised anything
that came into my head.

862
01:08:25,301 --> 01:08:29,738
of course, there are very
few things drawn here,

863
01:08:29,872 --> 01:08:33,899
while my head is swirling
with thoughts.

864
01:08:34,043 --> 01:08:39,743
I was working on a film
called "one, two, three",

865
01:08:39,882 --> 01:08:42,077
which I got stuck on.

866
01:08:42,218 --> 01:08:45,745
i picked it up again,
that became rythmetic.

867
01:08:54,230 --> 01:08:56,494
there's a noughts
and crosses game

868
01:08:56,632 --> 01:09:02,070
that represents my interest
in things that are puzzling.

869
01:09:08,010 --> 01:09:11,810
also you notice
there's the clocks.

870
01:09:11,947 --> 01:09:16,043
that indicates my obsession
with time in filmmaking:

871
01:09:16,185 --> 01:09:18,050
the number of seconds,

872
01:09:18,187 --> 01:09:25,286
the number of frames and
24 frames in every second.

873
01:09:25,427 --> 01:09:28,555
the chain of film from my eye

874
01:09:28,697 --> 01:09:32,064
that goes up and
turns into letters...

875
01:09:32,201 --> 01:09:37,571
at that period, I was getting
mail from all over the world

876
01:09:37,706 --> 01:09:40,072
wanting to know
about my techniques.

877
01:09:40,209 --> 01:09:43,576
that disturbed my process
of filmmaking and thinking,

878
01:09:43,712 --> 01:09:47,910
so I wrote technical notes
on every film I made,

879
01:09:48,050 --> 01:09:50,484
which could then be sent out.

880
01:09:50,619 --> 01:09:55,079
there's a stairway
which turns into film.

881
01:09:55,224 --> 01:09:59,593
that meant I was trying
to get better and better

882
01:09:59,728 --> 01:10:01,753
with every film I made.

883
01:10:01,897 --> 01:10:04,092
of course, this being 1 955,

884
01:10:04,233 --> 01:10:08,101
I was keenly aware
that the atom bomb

885
01:10:08,237 --> 01:10:11,104
might destroy
not just my films,

886
01:10:11,240 --> 01:10:15,108
but all the films
that filmmakers have made.

887
01:10:15,244 --> 01:10:20,113
right at the very top is
a little flower with wings,

888
01:10:20,249 --> 01:10:23,150
that represents hope, I think...

889
01:10:26,755 --> 01:10:31,624
coming up from my neck are
the feelings of my heart,

890
01:10:31,760 --> 01:10:35,628
which don't seem
to be very strong...

891
01:10:35,764 --> 01:10:38,961
that represents a
hope that my films

892
01:10:39,101 --> 01:10:40,625
would move people,

893
01:10:40,769 --> 01:10:44,535
not intellectually
but emotionally, more.

894
01:10:44,673 --> 01:10:50,077
I was conscious that I had a
tendency to become too abstract,

895
01:10:50,212 --> 01:10:55,149
and there was the urge
lurking in my subconscious

896
01:10:55,284 --> 01:11:00,847
of wanting to put more
human emotion in my films.

897
01:11:02,958 --> 01:11:06,086
and of course the hens' feet

898
01:11:06,228 --> 01:11:10,096
which start from
the feet of a man

899
01:11:10,232 --> 01:11:15,101
and grow into a bush
or a flower, I suppose...

900
01:11:15,237 --> 01:11:17,102
I don't know.

901
01:11:17,239 --> 01:11:21,175
these are just random
interpretations

902
01:11:21,310 --> 01:11:23,938
of the things I doodled.

903
01:11:32,221 --> 01:11:34,689
[Narrator]: the teenage
Mclaren read a book about

904
01:11:34,923 --> 01:11:37,118
a synaesthetic art,
colour music,

905
01:11:37,259 --> 01:11:39,454
in which sound and colour

906
01:11:39,595 --> 01:11:42,155
were believed to be
directly equivalent.

907
01:11:42,298 --> 01:11:45,665
he was greatly influenced
by this idea.

908
01:11:49,271 --> 01:11:53,139
his high school painting,
"the walls of jericho",

909
01:11:53,275 --> 01:11:55,641
was conceived of as music,

910
01:11:55,778 --> 01:11:57,643
the curves representing tempe,

911
01:11:57,780 --> 01:12:01,147
the area and
saturation of colour

912
01:12:01,216 --> 01:12:04,117
representing volume and pitch.

913
01:12:15,230 --> 01:12:18,097
in 1 949, Mclaren
and evelyn lambart

914
01:12:18,233 --> 01:12:20,098
made "begone dull care"

915
01:12:20,235 --> 01:12:24,103
in which they totally
ignored the frame line

916
01:12:24,239 --> 01:12:28,141
and painted and scratched
directly onto the film.

917
01:12:36,251 --> 01:12:39,118
Mclaren once said
"begone dull care"

918
01:12:39,254 --> 01:12:42,621
was his colour music
dream come true.

919
01:12:42,758 --> 01:12:46,125
it was painted
to a musical script

920
01:12:46,261 --> 01:12:48,729
improvised by oscar peterson.

921
01:12:48,864 --> 01:12:51,196
[Mclaren]: many people
wrote theories

922
01:12:51,333 --> 01:12:53,733
about colour, music and pitch.

923
01:12:53,869 --> 01:12:56,497
I have no precise
theory about this,

924
01:12:56,638 --> 01:13:01,268
but with sections of music
which are very low in pitch,

925
01:13:01,410 --> 01:13:04,072
I will use dark colours.

926
01:13:08,717 --> 01:13:11,948
if there is high pitch music,

927
01:13:12,087 --> 01:13:14,647
i'll use light colours like

928
01:13:14,790 --> 01:13:17,088
yellows, whites,
very pale blues.

929
01:13:17,226 --> 01:13:20,093
in "begone dull care",
I was conscious

930
01:13:20,229 --> 01:13:22,424
of manipulating
colours this way,

931
01:13:22,564 --> 01:13:25,624
but you can't push it too far

932
01:13:25,768 --> 01:13:29,135
or you end up with
an impossibility.

933
01:13:38,013 --> 01:13:40,607
[Narrator]: Mclaren's first
hand-made film experiments

934
01:13:40,749 --> 01:13:43,115
were done at art school.

935
01:13:43,252 --> 01:13:45,447
Mclaren, the art student,

936
01:13:45,587 --> 01:13:47,680
could draw and paint

937
01:13:47,823 --> 01:13:51,122
the motions and colours
he saw in his mind's eye

938
01:13:51,260 --> 01:13:53,125
directly onto movie film.

939
01:13:53,262 --> 01:13:55,196
[Mclaren]: everything
was projected

940
01:13:55,330 --> 01:13:57,298
at a frantic motion.

941
01:13:57,433 --> 01:14:03,895
but we found that when we used
very fast popular music,

942
01:14:04,039 --> 01:14:08,567
and what was in front
of the eye was so fast

943
01:14:08,710 --> 01:14:13,079
that there's a more than 50%
feeling of synchronization.

944
01:14:13,215 --> 01:14:15,080
it had no form.

945
01:14:15,217 --> 01:14:17,742
it wasn't a work of art.

946
01:14:17,886 --> 01:14:19,683
it was an endless

947
01:14:19,822 --> 01:14:21,050
band of effects,

948
01:14:21,190 --> 01:14:27,095
but since it was startingly
new at that time, in 1 935,

949
01:14:27,229 --> 01:14:30,096
everyone was interested in it.

950
01:14:30,232 --> 01:14:34,134
[don]: were you surprised
the first time you saw it?

951
01:14:37,406 --> 01:14:39,271
[Mclaren]: happily so...

952
01:14:39,408 --> 01:14:42,206
we found the reaction
very stimulating.

953
01:14:42,344 --> 01:14:45,177
if you can do something
so simply

954
01:14:45,314 --> 01:14:48,579
with movie as to excite people,

955
01:14:48,717 --> 01:14:53,120
with movie you've got
a field of excitement

956
01:14:53,255 --> 01:14:56,520
Iying there to be explored,

957
01:14:56,658 --> 01:14:59,286
compared with in a painting...

958
01:14:59,428 --> 01:15:05,958
in fact, I felt that painting
was a dead or a dying medium

959
01:15:06,101 --> 01:15:11,698
which to me is partly true,
I still believe that.

960
01:15:11,840 --> 01:15:12,807
[don]: why?

961
01:15:18,714 --> 01:15:23,083
I think fewer people
take interest in it

962
01:15:23,218 --> 01:15:28,212
and with the advent
of tv, even more so.

963
01:15:28,357 --> 01:15:31,087
we don't experience
the same thrill

964
01:15:31,226 --> 01:15:34,093
as a medieval
church-goer would have

965
01:15:34,229 --> 01:15:38,598
when going into church and
seeing a stained glass window

966
01:15:38,734 --> 01:15:41,601
or a painting of
a biblical scene.

967
01:15:41,737 --> 01:15:43,898
something new in
their experience.

968
01:15:44,039 --> 01:15:48,738
there's always an element
of newness in a work of art.

969
01:15:48,877 --> 01:15:53,678
if it's not new, it's a
refinement of something old.

970
01:15:53,815 --> 01:15:55,180
for instance,

971
01:15:55,317 --> 01:15:57,615
I consider a jackson pollock,

972
01:15:57,753 --> 01:16:01,120
no matter what
its size and price,

973
01:16:01,189 --> 01:16:08,061
to be of the same ilk
as a piece of marble.

974
01:16:08,196 --> 01:16:12,155
superb graining and
colouring and detail.

975
01:16:12,301 --> 01:16:17,068
people of the 20th century
are not the first to appreciate

976
01:16:17,205 --> 01:16:20,072
a jackson pollack kind of art.

977
01:16:20,208 --> 01:16:25,578
in the villas of pompei during
the first period of decoration,

978
01:16:25,714 --> 01:16:29,081
the walls were
panelled with just...

979
01:16:29,217 --> 01:16:31,082
they weren't marble.

980
01:16:31,219 --> 01:16:34,086
they were painted
to imitate marble.

981
01:16:34,222 --> 01:16:38,090
just as jackson pollack
wasn't imitating anything,

982
01:16:38,226 --> 01:16:42,128
but he was creating
his own marble.

983
01:17:11,193 --> 01:17:13,559
[Narrator]: in the early 1 940s,

984
01:17:13,695 --> 01:17:16,061
Mclaren was introduced
to the tesseract,

985
01:17:16,198 --> 01:17:20,567
or the hypercube, by fellow
animator george dunning.

986
01:17:20,702 --> 01:17:24,570
Mclaren was always fascinated
by "trompe l'oeil",

987
01:17:24,706 --> 01:17:28,574
and the tesseract
particularly caught his fancy.

988
01:17:28,710 --> 01:17:33,579
he made several over the years
out of balsa wood.

989
01:17:33,715 --> 01:17:38,584
they would hang from the ceiling
in the homes of friends,

990
01:17:38,720 --> 01:17:43,089
and in 1 971, he designed
this large aluminum tesseract

991
01:17:43,225 --> 01:17:47,127
for the lobby of
"The National Film Board".

992
01:18:05,180 --> 01:18:07,045
Mclaren used the tesseract

993
01:18:07,182 --> 01:18:11,050
as the basis for the
design of many things,

994
01:18:11,186 --> 01:18:14,087
Iarge and small,
including a house.

995
01:18:15,857 --> 01:18:17,722
I go in the west
door,

996
01:18:17,859 --> 01:18:19,724
you go in the east.

997
01:18:19,861 --> 01:18:21,726
I walk down
the corridor

998
01:18:21,863 --> 01:18:24,559
and go into
the second room

999
01:18:24,700 --> 01:18:27,567
on the right on
the ground floor.

1000
01:18:27,703 --> 01:18:30,069
you go up one flight

1001
01:18:30,205 --> 01:18:34,073
and take the first
room on the left.

1002
01:18:34,209 --> 01:18:37,076
we find ourselves
in the same room,

1003
01:18:37,212 --> 01:18:40,079
the one with the
broken window pane.

1004
01:18:40,215 --> 01:18:43,582
you are one floor
higher than me,

1005
01:18:43,719 --> 01:18:47,086
but we are also
in the same room.

1006
01:18:47,222 --> 01:18:51,124
are we therefore also
on the same floor?

1007
01:18:56,231 --> 01:18:58,597
this incompleted film,
"the corridor",

1008
01:18:58,734 --> 01:19:03,034
uses a technique invented
by Mclaren in the 1 930s,

1009
01:19:03,171 --> 01:19:06,038
the travelling zoom.

1010
01:19:06,174 --> 01:19:10,543
his intention was gradually
to make the corridor disappear,

1011
01:19:10,679 --> 01:19:14,046
so that the viewer's
initial imprisonment

1012
01:19:14,182 --> 01:19:20,052
would give way to the freedom
of the infinity of space.

1013
01:19:20,188 --> 01:19:23,555
Mclaren once said his
fascination with space

1014
01:19:23,692 --> 01:19:27,059
came from being accidentally
locked in a cupboard

1015
01:19:27,195 --> 01:19:29,720
when he was seven years old.

1016
01:19:29,865 --> 01:19:31,230
some years after,

1017
01:19:31,366 --> 01:19:35,735
he pooh-poohed this explanation,
saying his fascination was,

1018
01:19:35,871 --> 01:19:38,066
rather, aroused by
surrealist painting

1019
01:19:38,206 --> 01:19:40,572
and also by those cartoons

1020
01:19:40,709 --> 01:19:45,078
in which disney created
an illusion of deep space

1021
01:19:45,213 --> 01:19:48,114
with the multi-plane technique.

1022
01:20:03,231 --> 01:20:06,598
"to the health of his sisters
and his brothers"

1023
01:20:06,735 --> 01:20:10,603
"to the health of him
that his heart loves"

1024
01:20:10,739 --> 01:20:14,106
“it’s rowing
who leads us leads leads"

1025
01:20:14,242 --> 01:20:17,609
“it’s rowing
who leads us in circles"

1026
01:20:17,746 --> 01:20:22,115
Mclaren's first film based
entirely on this technique

1027
01:20:22,250 --> 01:20:26,152
was the 1 944 “it’s rowing”.

1028
01:20:28,657 --> 01:20:31,125
we wide
flat black cards,

1029
01:20:31,259 --> 01:20:33,124
I painted
small details

1030
01:20:33,261 --> 01:20:35,627
of the landscape.

1031
01:20:35,764 --> 01:20:39,131
a tree here
and a house there.

1032
01:20:39,267 --> 01:20:40,632
on each card

1033
01:20:40,769 --> 01:20:43,636
there was a
separate detail.

1034
01:20:43,772 --> 01:20:47,674
here is a cliff,
there is a tree.

1035
01:20:47,809 --> 01:20:49,640
we photographed these cards

1036
01:20:49,778 --> 01:20:52,975
by approaching the camera
gradually towards it,

1037
01:20:53,114 --> 01:20:54,843
what's called a zoom.

1038
01:20:54,983 --> 01:20:57,645
instead of photographing
all these cards,

1039
01:20:57,786 --> 01:21:02,086
one after the other
on the same bit of film,

1040
01:21:02,224 --> 01:21:05,091
we overlapped the
photographing of each card.

1041
01:21:05,227 --> 01:21:07,787
[gilmour]: the feeling
of a canoe.

1042
01:21:07,929 --> 01:21:09,624
how did you get

1043
01:21:09,764 --> 01:21:11,095
the canoe effect?

1044
01:21:11,233 --> 01:21:13,599
the canoe is very simple...

1045
01:21:13,735 --> 01:21:15,100
very economical.

1046
01:21:15,237 --> 01:21:18,104
to put the canoe into the film,

1047
01:21:18,240 --> 01:21:23,610
we wound the film in the camera
back to the beginning again

1048
01:21:23,745 --> 01:21:26,111
and photographed
the entire length,

1049
01:21:26,248 --> 01:21:31,117
with me holding the canoe
and moving it up and down.

1050
01:21:31,253 --> 01:21:33,448
with the motion
of the water...

1051
01:21:33,588 --> 01:21:35,818
to the rhythm of the song...

1052
01:21:35,957 --> 01:21:40,360
he would invent a new world,
for instance, in "spheres",

1053
01:21:40,495 --> 01:21:43,464
everything goes
at the same rate,

1054
01:21:43,598 --> 01:21:46,123
it never changes rate.

1055
01:21:46,268 --> 01:21:51,137
and the effects are the result
of making everything move

1056
01:21:51,273 --> 01:21:55,141
according to the laws
of that world.

1057
01:21:55,277 --> 01:22:00,146
most people will pretend
to invent a world,

1058
01:22:00,282 --> 01:22:04,082
and then put
events in that world

1059
01:22:04,219 --> 01:22:06,585
that belong to this world.

1060
01:22:06,721 --> 01:22:08,586
the same old drama...

1061
01:22:08,723 --> 01:22:12,591
he visualized what
would be a real event

1062
01:22:12,727 --> 01:22:16,356
that could only happen
in that world.

1063
01:22:16,498 --> 01:22:19,296
and then dramatized that.

1064
01:22:21,236 --> 01:22:24,603
[Narrator]: in 1 949,
Mclaren and rene jodoin

1065
01:22:24,739 --> 01:22:28,106
animated a film,
"chalk river ballet",

1066
01:22:28,243 --> 01:22:34,045
in which metal cutouts
represented atoms in space.

1067
01:22:34,182 --> 01:22:38,118
they had decided to animate
entirely in constant motion.

1068
01:22:38,253 --> 01:22:40,949
it would be an
experimental abstraction

1069
01:22:41,089 --> 01:22:44,820
with none of the animal-like
or anthropomorphic movement,

1070
01:22:44,960 --> 01:22:48,657
at that time so characteristic
of Mclaren's films.

1071
01:22:50,765 --> 01:22:54,826
the shooting completed,
they thought it boring

1072
01:22:54,970 --> 01:22:57,131
and put it aside.

1073
01:22:57,272 --> 01:23:00,799
Mclaren looked at it
from time to time,

1074
01:23:00,942 --> 01:23:04,537
and it was always boring.

1075
01:23:04,679 --> 01:23:09,878
but when watching the film in
1 967, it no longer seemed so.

1076
01:23:10,018 --> 01:23:12,885
Mclaren combined the
cutouts with backgrounds,

1077
01:23:13,021 --> 01:23:16,752
including a travelling zoom shot
originally for "c'est l'aviron".

1078
01:23:16,891 --> 01:23:20,588
he asked glenn gould
to provide the music,

1079
01:23:20,729 --> 01:23:23,755
three of bach's 48
preludes and fugues.

1080
01:23:23,898 --> 01:23:28,597
[gould]: I was flabbergasted
by the degree to which you came

1081
01:23:28,737 --> 01:23:30,602
with a prepared concept.

1082
01:23:30,739 --> 01:23:36,109
you told me that you concocted
the visual track 20 years ago...

1083
01:23:36,244 --> 01:23:40,613
you then decided to make it
assimilate three bach items,

1084
01:23:40,749 --> 01:23:46,119
which were not in your mind
at the time of its composition.

1085
01:23:46,254 --> 01:23:50,122
it was so remarkably done
that one couldn't imagine

1086
01:23:50,258 --> 01:23:54,126
that they hadn't grown
out of one initial idea.

1087
01:23:54,262 --> 01:23:58,130
I admit that ears and eyes
can be generous...

1088
01:23:58,266 --> 01:24:00,131
but this wasn't generosity.

1089
01:24:00,268 --> 01:24:05,069
the pivotal idea on the screen
allied with changes of harmony

1090
01:24:05,206 --> 01:24:07,401
that were the significant ones.

1091
01:24:07,542 --> 01:24:11,069
what plotting goes in
to make it happen?

1092
01:24:11,212 --> 01:24:16,081
[Mclaren]: the essential thing
is that I had 48 to choose from.

1093
01:24:16,217 --> 01:24:19,084
and that's a lot.

1094
01:24:19,220 --> 01:24:24,089
[gould]: so a ratio
of 1 6 to 1 applies...

1095
01:24:24,225 --> 01:24:27,592
[Mclaren]: the picture
was worked out rhythmically,

1096
01:24:27,729 --> 01:24:30,095
and it so turned out

1097
01:24:30,231 --> 01:24:34,099
that I found those particular
fugues and the prelude,

1098
01:24:34,235 --> 01:24:36,135
which seemed to vibe.

1099
01:24:51,252 --> 01:24:54,619
[Narrator]: a major art
movements of the 1 960s

1100
01:24:54,756 --> 01:24:56,121
was minimalism.

1101
01:24:56,257 --> 01:25:00,125
upon reflection, Mclaren no
longer found "spheres" boring

1102
01:25:00,261 --> 01:25:03,059
because it was
a minimalist film,

1103
01:25:03,198 --> 01:25:09,330
and expressed an aspect of the
artistic spirit of the 1 960s.

1104
01:25:12,207 --> 01:25:17,076
in the mid-1 940s, Mclaren
began "dans un petit bois",

1105
01:25:17,212 --> 01:25:22,616
a fiendishly complicated film
which combined non-stop zooming

1106
01:25:22,750 --> 01:25:26,311
with a multi-plane setup.

1107
01:25:26,454 --> 01:25:29,252
"the little wood"
was made of cutouts,

1108
01:25:29,390 --> 01:25:32,587
animated on 1 2 panes of glass.

1109
01:25:32,727 --> 01:25:35,252
as the camera travelled,

1110
01:25:35,396 --> 01:25:37,626
panes of glass were removed.

1111
01:25:37,765 --> 01:25:41,599
the shooting was "wearing
him down with cares".

1112
01:25:41,736 --> 01:25:46,002
he had completed an introduction
and two verses when,

1113
01:25:46,141 --> 01:25:51,135
one day, he was liberated
from all those cares.

1114
01:25:51,279 --> 01:25:53,611
evelyn and I were
working

1115
01:25:53,748 --> 01:25:56,114
in a very hot studio

1116
01:25:56,251 --> 01:25:58,116
above the
"metropolitan store".

1117
01:25:58,253 --> 01:26:01,313
we were working at
the front.

1118
01:26:01,456 --> 01:26:03,253
we didn't see Norman,

1119
01:26:03,391 --> 01:26:06,053
but he climbed up
the ladder

1120
01:26:06,194 --> 01:26:08,059
to reach the camera,

1121
01:26:08,196 --> 01:26:10,061
fell off the ladder

1122
01:26:10,198 --> 01:26:12,564
through the sheets
of glass...

1123
01:26:12,700 --> 01:26:15,567
we ran in expecting
the worst;

1124
01:26:15,703 --> 01:26:18,570
Norman was sitting
in this mess

1125
01:26:18,706 --> 01:26:20,071
Iaughing and
laughing...

1126
01:26:20,208 --> 01:26:23,075
he said: "thank god,
now I don't have

1127
01:26:23,211 --> 01:26:25,611
to make the damn
thing."

1128
01:26:27,282 --> 01:26:30,080
"dans un petit bois"

1129
01:26:30,218 --> 01:26:35,087
"voulez-vous savoir mesdames"

1130
01:26:35,223 --> 01:26:39,091
"dans un petit bois"

1131
01:26:39,227 --> 01:26:43,664
"voulez-vous savoir
ce qu'il y a"

1132
01:26:43,798 --> 01:26:47,097
“there is a little tree”

1133
01:26:47,235 --> 01:26:52,104
"a small tree
love ladies"

1134
01:26:52,240 --> 01:26:56,108
“there is a little tree”

1135
01:26:56,244 --> 01:27:01,113
“a pretty little tree of love”

1136
01:27:01,182 --> 01:27:04,049
"in this little tree"

1137
01:27:04,185 --> 01:27:10,055
“do you want to know ladies”

1138
01:27:10,191 --> 01:27:13,058
"in this little tree"

1139
01:27:13,194 --> 01:27:18,063
"do you want to know
what's there"

1140
01:27:18,199 --> 01:27:21,100
“there is a little nest”

1141
01:27:23,771 --> 01:27:25,671
[broken glass]

1142
01:27:27,909 --> 01:27:28,603
I remember the "NFB"
picture

1143
01:27:29,911 --> 01:27:31,344
about cancer...

1144
01:27:31,479 --> 01:27:36,280
there was one remarkable shot
in that about a scientist

1145
01:27:36,417 --> 01:27:42,083
exploring cancer, and going
into a cell of a human body.

1146
01:27:42,223 --> 01:27:46,091
[Mclaren]: the principle
of animation behind that

1147
01:27:46,227 --> 01:27:50,095
was the same as
in "c'est l'aviron".

1148
01:27:50,231 --> 01:27:52,756
[gilmour]: a little
paddle song first and,

1149
01:27:52,900 --> 01:27:55,767
in the same technique,
a cancer film.

1150
01:27:55,903 --> 01:27:57,268
each new technique

1151
01:27:57,405 --> 01:28:00,431
created by Norman,
perhaps in the form

1152
01:28:00,575 --> 01:28:02,372
of an entertaining
trifle,

1153
01:28:02,510 --> 01:28:05,536
is very soon after
adapted and used

1154
01:28:05,680 --> 01:28:07,545
by other film
workers,

1155
01:28:07,682 --> 01:28:11,049
so that the screen
is increasingly used

1156
01:28:11,185 --> 01:28:14,052
for more serious
purposes.

1157
01:28:16,691 --> 01:28:19,558
[Narrator]: in 1 986,
"mcgill university" established

1158
01:28:19,694 --> 01:28:23,562
the "Norman Mclaren award"
to be presented annually

1159
01:28:23,698 --> 01:28:27,566
to the student whose work
demonstrates social concerns

1160
01:28:27,702 --> 01:28:31,103
similar to those
of Norman Mclaren.

1161
01:28:31,239 --> 01:28:38,805
i'm very touched about this,
and I appreciate it very much.

1162
01:28:42,216 --> 01:28:44,081
[Narrator]:
this Mclaren painting

1163
01:28:44,218 --> 01:28:49,588
dates from the late 1 920s,
when he was in high school.

1164
01:28:49,724 --> 01:28:54,093
it is full of optimism
as he traces the history

1165
01:28:54,228 --> 01:28:57,595
of the era of invention
and industrialization,

1166
01:28:57,732 --> 01:29:02,066
and the promise of
a prosperous future.

1167
01:29:13,548 --> 01:29:18,542
on the back of this 1 939
pastel are written the words

1168
01:29:18,686 --> 01:29:21,587
"drawn the night
hitler invaded poland".

1169
01:29:27,362 --> 01:29:30,229
[p. raymont]: were you
inspired by the politics

1170
01:29:30,365 --> 01:29:32,390
of these russian films?

1171
01:29:32,533 --> 01:29:34,467
[Mclaren]: certainly I was.

1172
01:29:34,602 --> 01:29:37,901
born in 1 914, when I grew up...

1173
01:29:38,039 --> 01:29:43,443
I was a teenager during
the great depression.

1174
01:29:43,578 --> 01:29:47,537
and I had my first
experience of the slums.

1175
01:29:47,682 --> 01:29:51,846
I met a communist
in stirling by chance.

1176
01:29:51,986 --> 01:29:56,389
he said: "i'd like you to come

1177
01:29:56,524 --> 01:29:58,856
"from your middle class home

1178
01:29:58,993 --> 01:30:04,021
to see how most
of the people live."

1179
01:30:04,165 --> 01:30:07,931
I was shocked, that's when
I started thinking politically.

1180
01:30:08,069 --> 01:30:11,232
what can be done about it?

1181
01:30:11,372 --> 01:30:14,068
the economic system was wrong.

1182
01:30:14,208 --> 01:30:18,167
Iike many young people,
in the great depression,

1183
01:30:18,312 --> 01:30:20,678
our minds went to russia

1184
01:30:20,815 --> 01:30:24,683
as a possible experiment
along new economic lines.

1185
01:30:24,819 --> 01:30:26,116
my father,

1186
01:30:26,254 --> 01:30:30,691
a staunch conservative
and pillar of the church,

1187
01:30:30,825 --> 01:30:36,354
was greatly concerned about my
left-wing thoughts and feelings.

1188
01:30:36,497 --> 01:30:38,362
I wanted to go to russia...

1189
01:30:38,499 --> 01:30:40,490
he said: "fine,
i'll give you money,

1190
01:30:40,635 --> 01:30:44,469
"you'll see how they live,
and you'll be cured

1191
01:30:44,605 --> 01:30:49,167
from thinking that communism
is a good thing."

1192
01:30:49,310 --> 01:30:51,676
I went to russia

1193
01:30:51,813 --> 01:30:54,304
for a film and theatre festival.

1194
01:30:54,449 --> 01:30:56,144
I had a marvellous time!

1195
01:30:56,284 --> 01:30:57,649
I wasn't cured

1196
01:30:57,785 --> 01:31:02,051
but I began to get cured when
the purges happened in russia.

1197
01:31:02,190 --> 01:31:06,388
[Narrator]: returning from
russia and still at art school,

1198
01:31:06,527 --> 01:31:11,123
Mclaren and helen biggar,
a sculptor, made "hell unlimited".

1199
01:31:11,265 --> 01:31:14,598
the left wing in britain
was now joining

1200
01:31:14,735 --> 01:31:18,967
with liberal and conservative
groups against fascism.

1201
01:31:19,106 --> 01:31:21,597
biggar and Mclaren stood apart.

1202
01:31:21,742 --> 01:31:23,471
they accused capitalism,

1203
01:31:23,611 --> 01:31:27,843
whether in germany, in japan,
or in the democracies,

1204
01:31:27,982 --> 01:31:31,247
as flourishing from
the sale of arms

1205
01:31:31,385 --> 01:31:35,151
to all sides in a
potential conflict.

1206
01:31:39,093 --> 01:31:41,186
unpolished though
the filmmaking was,

1207
01:31:41,329 --> 01:31:43,194
the courageous and unequivocal

1208
01:31:43,331 --> 01:31:46,129
positions taken by
Mclaren and biggar

1209
01:31:46,267 --> 01:31:48,792
have given it a unique place

1210
01:31:48,936 --> 01:31:52,167
amongst british political
films of the 1 930s.

1211
01:32:51,766 --> 01:32:56,897
in 1 936, when I was working
at the "gpo" film unit,

1212
01:32:57,038 --> 01:32:59,131
Grierson called me and said:

1213
01:32:59,273 --> 01:33:02,367
"would you like to go to spain

1214
01:33:02,510 --> 01:33:05,104
"as a cameraman
with ivor montagu?

1215
01:33:05,246 --> 01:33:08,704
"we want you to go there
for three weeks,

1216
01:33:08,849 --> 01:33:11,079
"and record the civil war,

1217
01:33:11,218 --> 01:33:12,913
"go to alicante

1218
01:33:13,054 --> 01:33:15,022
and then to madrid."

1219
01:33:15,156 --> 01:33:18,922
we filmed, brought the
footage back very quickly

1220
01:33:19,060 --> 01:33:21,187
and edited it very quickly

1221
01:33:21,329 --> 01:33:23,194
into a film

1222
01:33:23,331 --> 01:33:24,696
ivor montagu did.

1223
01:33:24,832 --> 01:33:30,236
and we showed it around
trade union meetings,

1224
01:33:30,371 --> 01:33:34,740
and liberal groups
in order to collect funds

1225
01:33:34,875 --> 01:33:39,539
for "the red cross" and
the "international brigade".

1226
01:33:42,383 --> 01:33:46,149
Iife was hard; there
was very little bread,

1227
01:33:46,287 --> 01:33:48,482
no meat, no heat.

1228
01:33:48,623 --> 01:33:52,389
it was in november, very cold.

1229
01:33:52,526 --> 01:33:56,462
there was bombing
of civilian citizens.

1230
01:33:56,597 --> 01:34:00,556
this was the first time.

1231
01:34:00,701 --> 01:34:03,966
we would have a taxi,

1232
01:34:04,105 --> 01:34:07,734
as we were travelling,
we would notice

1233
01:34:07,875 --> 01:34:10,742
if there was smoke coming up,

1234
01:34:10,878 --> 01:34:14,314
we'd go to where the smoke was

1235
01:34:14,448 --> 01:34:17,576
and photograph the results
of the bombing.

1236
01:34:17,718 --> 01:34:21,085
people being pulled
out of the houses,

1237
01:34:21,222 --> 01:34:24,089
dead bodies, people wounded...

1238
01:34:24,225 --> 01:34:30,130
and we'd try to... we were
newsreel photographers.

1239
01:34:40,074 --> 01:34:46,104
[Narrator]: money was raised at
screenings of "defence of madrid".

1240
01:34:46,247 --> 01:34:49,546
the public discovered
commercial newsreel companies

1241
01:34:49,684 --> 01:34:54,644
were not telling the full
story of the war in spain.

1242
01:35:00,227 --> 01:35:05,062
the horror of the civil war
profoundly affected Mclaren.

1243
01:35:05,199 --> 01:35:06,325
back in london,

1244
01:35:06,467 --> 01:35:10,130
he was plagued by nightmares.

1245
01:35:10,271 --> 01:35:14,367
when, in 1 939,
germany and russia

1246
01:35:14,508 --> 01:35:18,308
signed a non-aggression pact,
Mclaren, with many others,

1247
01:35:18,446 --> 01:35:19,970
felt betrayed.

1248
01:35:20,114 --> 01:35:22,082
he embraced pacifism and,

1249
01:35:22,216 --> 01:35:25,845
following the outbreak
of world war ii,

1250
01:35:25,986 --> 01:35:29,422
he emigrated to the USA
and later...

1251
01:35:34,228 --> 01:35:38,096
during the war years
in u.s.a. and canada,

1252
01:35:38,232 --> 01:35:42,692
Mclaren's films indicated
none of these emotions.

1253
01:35:42,837 --> 01:35:46,273
[Mclaren]: I realized
the necessity of the war

1254
01:35:46,407 --> 01:35:53,108
because of what hitler was
doing to the racial question.

1255
01:35:53,247 --> 01:35:57,115
so I cooperated
with the war effort,

1256
01:35:57,251 --> 01:36:01,119
but no more than I had to.

1257
01:36:01,188 --> 01:36:03,554
I wasn't an enthusiastic
cooperator,

1258
01:36:03,691 --> 01:36:08,128
the cooperation I was asked
to do was very simple:

1259
01:36:08,262 --> 01:36:11,231
make light films
with wartime messages

1260
01:36:11,365 --> 01:36:13,890
Iike buying savings bonds,

1261
01:36:14,034 --> 01:36:16,093
keeping your mouth shut...

1262
01:36:22,109 --> 01:36:24,839
[Narrator]: an interview
in "liberty" in 1 947:

1263
01:36:24,979 --> 01:36:30,076
"once, I took a very lively
interest in politics

1264
01:36:30,217 --> 01:36:33,084
"and in the world around me.

1265
01:36:33,220 --> 01:36:35,620
"things were wrong,

1266
01:36:35,756 --> 01:36:38,088
"I wanted to do something.

1267
01:36:38,225 --> 01:36:41,092
"I joined a radical
party in Scotland,

1268
01:36:41,228 --> 01:36:45,597
"and was fair set to become
a reforming young zealot.

1269
01:36:45,733 --> 01:36:50,102
"then, as time passed,
my passion for creative work

1270
01:36:50,237 --> 01:36:54,606
"grew so strong it usurped
my active political interests.

1271
01:36:54,742 --> 01:37:00,112
"now,I feel I can be of more
value making an artistic

1272
01:37:00,247 --> 01:37:04,047
"rather than a political
contribution to society.

1273
01:37:04,185 --> 01:37:06,585
is that bad?"

1274
01:37:08,689 --> 01:37:13,490
in 1 949, however,
Mclaren found himself in china

1275
01:37:13,627 --> 01:37:16,255
at the climax
of their civil war.

1276
01:37:16,397 --> 01:37:20,060
it would be a watershed
in his life.

1277
01:37:20,201 --> 01:37:23,102
Mclaren's reputation
as a filmmaker

1278
01:37:23,237 --> 01:37:26,206
who made much from little,

1279
01:37:26,340 --> 01:37:30,470
had been noted by the
chinese government and "unesco".

1280
01:37:30,611 --> 01:37:36,675
he ran the audio-visual section
of the "healthy village project".

1281
01:37:36,817 --> 01:37:42,756
in 1 953, he went to india
in a similar capacity

1282
01:37:42,890 --> 01:37:44,949
with edward ardizzone.

1283
01:37:45,092 --> 01:37:47,583
Mclaren trained
artists and teachers

1284
01:37:47,728 --> 01:37:51,596
to produce materials
for use in rural areas

1285
01:37:51,732 --> 01:37:53,791
in conjunction with the work

1286
01:37:53,934 --> 01:37:57,028
of medical and
agricultural experts.

1287
01:37:59,940 --> 01:38:03,341
Mclaren realized that
the use of indigenous means

1288
01:38:03,477 --> 01:38:07,538
of communication was the key
to a successful rural education.

1289
01:38:07,681 --> 01:38:13,051
so he and the chinese artists
invented ingenious variations

1290
01:38:13,187 --> 01:38:15,178
on the wall poster

1291
01:38:15,322 --> 01:38:16,721
and the scroll.

1292
01:38:52,993 --> 01:38:55,860
[Mclaren]: I taught
them some things,

1293
01:38:55,996 --> 01:38:57,896
but they taught me more

1294
01:38:58,032 --> 01:39:01,160
about communicating with
people of other races

1295
01:39:01,302 --> 01:39:02,826
and languages.

1296
01:39:02,970 --> 01:39:05,370
[Narrator]: although "the healthy
village project"

1297
01:39:05,506 --> 01:39:08,236
took place during
the chinese civil war

1298
01:39:08,375 --> 01:39:11,538
between the nationalists
and the communists,

1299
01:39:11,679 --> 01:39:14,170
it had an impressive impact.

1300
01:39:14,315 --> 01:39:17,716
its philosophy became the
basis for "unesco" projects.

1301
01:39:17,851 --> 01:39:21,343
[Mclaren]: three months
after I went there,

1302
01:39:21,488 --> 01:39:25,424
communists took over
our particular town,

1303
01:39:25,559 --> 01:39:29,552
so I was living
under the new regime.

1304
01:39:29,697 --> 01:39:32,325
I saw what it was doing,

1305
01:39:32,466 --> 01:39:36,425
talked with many people
and heard their stories,

1306
01:39:36,570 --> 01:39:40,836
particularly people
between 20 and 30.

1307
01:39:40,975 --> 01:39:46,641
I tended to identify myself
with what was going on there

1308
01:39:46,780 --> 01:39:50,944
because I thought what was
happening was very good.

1309
01:39:51,085 --> 01:39:54,020
almost the day I left china,

1310
01:39:54,154 --> 01:39:57,453
the korean war broke out.

1311
01:39:57,591 --> 01:40:02,153
I came back to north america
and felt great tension

1312
01:40:02,296 --> 01:40:04,821
about war in general.

1313
01:40:04,965 --> 01:40:09,834
the tension that was produced
from my experience in china,

1314
01:40:09,970 --> 01:40:12,768
plus my return to an environment

1315
01:40:12,906 --> 01:40:16,603
where the newspapers were saying
something totally different

1316
01:40:16,744 --> 01:40:19,611
from what i'd been used to,

1317
01:40:19,747 --> 01:40:23,148
that tension produced
the film "neighbours".

1318
01:41:34,822 --> 01:41:37,689
[Mclaren]: I can't
judge my films,

1319
01:41:37,825 --> 01:41:43,127
but if all my films were
to be destroyed, except one,

1320
01:41:43,263 --> 01:41:46,130
I would prefer
to have "neighbours"

1321
01:41:46,266 --> 01:41:50,134
because it has a strong
social message

1322
01:41:50,270 --> 01:41:54,138
about the covetous of man,

1323
01:41:54,274 --> 01:41:57,141
about the irrationality
of using violence

1324
01:41:57,277 --> 01:42:00,144
to solve problems;

1325
01:42:00,280 --> 01:42:04,410
it's a human statement
which reveals human nature,

1326
01:42:04,551 --> 01:42:07,918
which none of my other films do.

1327
01:42:08,055 --> 01:42:11,422
winning an oscar didn't
mean anything to me,

1328
01:42:11,558 --> 01:42:13,890
I didn't know what it was.

1329
01:42:14,027 --> 01:42:18,088
it's not important,
but the film is important.

1330
01:42:18,232 --> 01:42:20,097
[Narrator]: thirty years later,

1331
01:42:20,234 --> 01:42:23,101
"neighbours" is still capturing
audiences universally.

1332
01:42:23,237 --> 01:42:26,604
it was not, however,
John Grierson's favourite.

1333
01:42:26,740 --> 01:42:29,766
[Grierson]: he was proud
of making "neighbours".

1334
01:42:29,910 --> 01:42:32,777
he thought it was
an important film.

1335
01:42:32,913 --> 01:42:36,349
I thought it was very naive.

1336
01:42:36,483 --> 01:42:40,112
I wouldn't trust Norman
as a philosophic thinker.

1337
01:42:40,254 --> 01:42:43,849
Norman is for "hen hop".

1338
01:42:43,991 --> 01:42:47,654
Iet's face it,
"hen hop" is wonderful,

1339
01:42:47,794 --> 01:42:51,389
it's an absolute joy to me.

1340
01:42:55,035 --> 01:42:59,131
that is his basic gift,
he's got joy in his movement,

1341
01:42:59,273 --> 01:43:02,071
he's got loveliness
in his movement,

1342
01:43:02,209 --> 01:43:04,074
fancy in his changes.

1343
01:43:04,211 --> 01:43:05,576
that's enough.

1344
01:43:05,712 --> 01:43:08,943
[Narrator]: in 1 971,
Mclaren was asked

1345
01:43:09,082 --> 01:43:09,741
why he hadn't made any more
films like "neighbours".

1346
01:43:14,221 --> 01:43:17,588
that's because the life
I lead here

1347
01:43:17,724 --> 01:43:20,591
doesn't bring it out of me.

1348
01:43:20,727 --> 01:43:26,097
I shuttle back and forth
between home and the "NFB",

1349
01:43:26,233 --> 01:43:29,100
and lead a relatively
quiet existence

1350
01:43:29,236 --> 01:43:32,103
with a few intimate friends.

1351
01:43:32,239 --> 01:43:36,107
i'm not out in the world
meeting people,

1352
01:43:36,243 --> 01:43:38,905
or in a different culture.

1353
01:43:39,046 --> 01:43:48,114
and the only films which
concern human beings,

1354
01:43:48,255 --> 01:43:51,122
apart from some
very early films,

1355
01:43:51,258 --> 01:43:55,160
is "neighbours, "chairy tale"
and "pas de deux".

1356
01:43:57,264 --> 01:43:59,232
[millar]: "chairy
tale" is the story

1357
01:43:59,366 --> 01:44:03,564
of a man who goes
to sit in a chair,

1358
01:44:03,704 --> 01:44:08,573
and the chair responds by
not wanting him to sit on it.

1359
01:44:08,709 --> 01:44:09,733
yes.

1360
01:44:09,876 --> 01:44:12,071
do you feel sympathy
for inanimate objects

1361
01:44:12,212 --> 01:44:15,079
as much as for animate ones?

1362
01:44:15,215 --> 01:44:19,584
I have sympathy for things
that are sat upon.

1363
01:44:19,720 --> 01:44:22,086
Iike chinese villages?

1364
01:44:22,222 --> 01:44:25,521
yes, the exploited,

1365
01:44:25,659 --> 01:44:28,127
the underdog.

1366
01:44:28,262 --> 01:44:33,097
yet, your films have not really
exploited this theme very much.

1367
01:44:33,233 --> 01:44:35,599
is it because you're a fatalist?

1368
01:44:35,736 --> 01:44:40,400
no, it's because I get
interested in abstraction.

1369
01:44:40,540 --> 01:44:44,101
i've always been interested
in abstraction

1370
01:44:44,244 --> 01:44:48,874
since the age of about 14 or 1 5.

1371
01:44:49,016 --> 01:44:51,610
it's a very important area.

1372
01:44:51,752 --> 01:44:55,119
it's like music,
which is an abstraction.

1373
01:44:55,255 --> 01:44:59,157
it doesn't refer to things
outside of itself.

1374
01:45:01,194 --> 01:45:05,062
[Narrator]: in 1 972,
Mclaren made "ballet adagio".

1375
01:45:05,198 --> 01:45:07,063
during the same period,

1376
01:45:07,200 --> 01:45:13,070
he observed that if he were
to make any more abstract films,

1377
01:45:13,206 --> 01:45:17,074
it would be to the
detriment of his soul.

1378
01:45:17,210 --> 01:45:21,078
[Grierson]: Norman is not
a person who is tragic.

1379
01:45:21,214 --> 01:45:25,583
he suffers, but to suffer
is not to be tragic.

1380
01:45:25,719 --> 01:45:28,586
he suffers because,
like all artists,

1381
01:45:28,722 --> 01:45:32,590
he finds it difficult
to get what he wants

1382
01:45:32,726 --> 01:45:36,093
or to get the effect
that he wants.

1383
01:45:36,229 --> 01:45:40,097
the ease of his life
at the "film board"

1384
01:45:40,233 --> 01:45:43,100
makes his esthetic
life difficult.

1385
01:45:43,236 --> 01:45:48,606
he is the most protected artist
in the history of the cinema.

1386
01:45:48,742 --> 01:45:52,678
he's under no great
pain and suffering.

1387
01:45:52,813 --> 01:45:54,610
and that makes him suffer.

1388
01:45:54,748 --> 01:45:57,114
that's one of the paradoxes.

1389
01:45:57,250 --> 01:46:02,552
the certainty of his life
may not be good for him.

1390
01:46:02,689 --> 01:46:04,088
I don't know...

1391
01:46:14,201 --> 01:46:17,068
[Narrator]: this is
Mclaren's visual outline

1392
01:46:17,204 --> 01:46:19,570
of his 1 983 film "narcissus".

1393
01:46:19,706 --> 01:46:25,076
he first proposed a film
based upon this myth in 1 959.

1394
01:46:25,212 --> 01:46:30,081
it was to be a half-ballet,
half-pantomime film to music.

1395
01:46:30,217 --> 01:46:35,086
a youth wrestles with all
the aspects of his personality

1396
01:46:35,222 --> 01:46:39,591
in his search for maturity,
for friendship and love.

1397
01:46:39,726 --> 01:46:42,593
technically, Mclaren
intended to use

1398
01:46:42,729 --> 01:46:49,828
the optical and mechanical
processes of cinema in new ways.

1399
01:46:49,970 --> 01:46:58,400
the proposal evolved into
two films: "pas de deux," 1 967,

1400
01:46:58,545 --> 01:47:01,571
and "narcissus", 1 983.

1401
01:47:09,389 --> 01:47:11,550
central to both these films

1402
01:47:11,691 --> 01:47:14,057
was Mclaren's conviction
that narcissism,

1403
01:47:14,194 --> 01:47:17,061
an excessive self-love
or self-concern,

1404
01:47:17,197 --> 01:47:20,064
was the major personal
contemporary sin;

1405
01:47:20,200 --> 01:47:23,067
that the wages of narcissism

1406
01:47:23,203 --> 01:47:26,104
was separation from
one's fellow creatures.

1407
01:47:36,716 --> 01:47:40,584
Mclaren followed the traditional
outline of the myth

1408
01:47:40,720 --> 01:47:43,746
in which a youth rejects

1409
01:47:43,890 --> 01:47:45,619
the love of woman...

1410
01:47:49,162 --> 01:47:51,130
and man...

1411
01:47:54,234 --> 01:47:58,170
then falls in love
with his own self.

1412
01:48:09,049 --> 01:48:12,041
as he was making plans
for "narcissus",

1413
01:48:12,185 --> 01:48:14,551
Mclaren spoke to a journalist:

1414
01:48:14,688 --> 01:48:17,054
"the film is a reflection

1415
01:48:17,190 --> 01:48:22,560
"that i'm coming to the end
of a whole span of my life.

1416
01:48:22,696 --> 01:48:27,065
"I have been very narcissistic
myself at one level,

1417
01:48:27,200 --> 01:48:30,067
"though not on the surface.

1418
01:48:30,203 --> 01:48:34,071
"once I had many potentialities,

1419
01:48:34,207 --> 01:48:37,574
"but the one I developed
was narcissism.

1420
01:48:37,711 --> 01:48:41,579
"and maybe that wasn't so bad.

1421
01:48:41,715 --> 01:48:46,118
every artist must be
somewhat narcissistic."

1422
01:48:52,225 --> 01:48:55,092
during the production
of "narcissus",

1423
01:48:55,228 --> 01:48:57,093
Mclaren observed that, nowadays,

1424
01:48:57,230 --> 01:49:00,097
there are artists
who are alienated

1425
01:49:00,233 --> 01:49:03,031
from the general public.

1426
01:49:03,169 --> 01:49:07,037
and yet they create
great things.

1427
01:49:07,173 --> 01:49:12,042
they are primarily in love
with their capacity as artists.

1428
01:49:12,178 --> 01:49:16,547
they have fallen in
love with their art.

1429
01:49:16,683 --> 01:49:20,346
but the narcissist can turn into

1430
01:49:20,487 --> 01:49:25,584
a great contributor to human
culture and to human society.

1431
01:50:10,604 --> 01:50:16,099
in june 1 986, two years after
his retirement from filmmaking,

1432
01:50:16,242 --> 01:50:19,143
Norman Mclaren was
still improvising

1433
01:50:19,279 --> 01:50:20,678
for the camera.

1434
01:50:40,767 --> 01:50:41,825
action!

1435
01:54:17,217 --> 01:54:19,583
in a conversation
with his friends

1436
01:54:19,719 --> 01:54:23,086
Guy Glover and Claude Jutra,
Mclaren observed:

1437
01:54:23,223 --> 01:54:26,090
"an artist may be like a person

1438
01:54:26,226 --> 01:54:29,127
"who hears music
and starts to dance.

1439
01:54:29,262 --> 01:54:32,595
"he may be dancing
for his own satisfaction,

1440
01:54:32,732 --> 01:54:35,599
"but what motivates him to dance

1441
01:54:35,735 --> 01:54:39,102
"also motivates hundreds
of other people to dance.

1442
01:54:39,239 --> 01:54:43,608
"the artist is only speaking
some kind of common language,

1443
01:54:43,743 --> 01:54:46,109
"speaking to himself,
expressing something.

1444
01:54:46,246 --> 01:54:48,612
"yet, other people recognize it

1445
01:54:48,748 --> 01:54:52,115
"and realize that,
in this person's dancing,

1446
01:54:52,252 --> 01:54:55,653
there is something
new and different."

1447
01:55:12,205 --> 01:55:18,075
captions performed by
cnst, montreal