ANIM ATrOTT NARCISSUS

Norman McLaren Reflections on a life

''So I'm for Norman McLaren. I don't think we can appreciate tiim enougii"

- British artist and filmmaker Len Lye

September 1983 - Cinema Canada / 21 AMIMAiroW with the sparse resources of the time by Gordon Martin They established McLaren's Mrell-deser ved reputation for economy both mate­ Learned volumes have been written in rially and creatively. dozens of languages about Canada's In 1944 McLaren formed an animation best-known filmmaker, Noniian McLa­ studio at NFB and worked with other ren. Yet it Is in the simple but elegant young artists such as Grant Munro, Ren6 tribute of his friend and colleague Guy Jodoin, Evelyn Lambert, George Dun­ Glover, that both the most succinct and ning, and Jim McKay, as well as musi­ the most poetic description of the artist- cians Maurice Blackburn and Louis Ap- animator's work is to be found : plebaum. It was a period during which "Far from the talking picture - that enduring principles of animated film­ vast province of the Cinema that making were established. McLaren perspectives borders, indeed overlaps, on the Chief amongst these is McLaren's pre­ Realm of Language - there exists yet occupation with movement rather than another province of the Cinema the slick static imagery and story line where talk is limited and which tou­ which characterize popular cartoons. The task ot the filmmaker ches on the frontiers of Music and Perhaps because he has created directly Dance. with pen and ink on film stock, his total "/ahva_v.s have the audience in the back of my mind. Very oflen an ill-defined 'In a corner of that province is to be grasp of the essence of cinema, or "mo­ audience. (Sometimes) as a more clearly defined audience. When making found the little garden of Norman vies" as he prefers to say, is uncluttered Hythmetic / thought about children and hoped it would help children be McLaren whose films talk only with sophistication and armchair rea­ interested in numbers. But even in any film, no matter how abstract it is, or through image and movement." soning. Writing for Sequences in 1975 concrete, 1 have an audience in mind I think, I keep thinking, of a group of McLaren's mentor, John Grierson, he said, "The animator, more than any people watching that film and I keep looking out for the possibility of them once said "If there is such a thing as other filmmaker, realizes most that what getting bored. I thinti this is the task of the filmmaker - you're given this amount of time, and you've got a captured audience and you must keep them interested throughout that whole space of time and not let their interest flag. I'm terrified of letting an audience get bored." — Norman McLaren (1969) The quaiities of tragedy

"McLaren says a weakness of animated films is thgir inability to ejipress tragedy. But many people find qualities of tragedy in his films; in his use of comedy to stave off conflict in the suppressed terror behind the beauty of such films as A Phantasy and C'est I'aviron, in the lonely search through space, for what ? 'Space to me is a kinetic experience,' he says, and watching his films, one often feels oneself being drawn into that great infinity against one's will Struggles between his characters never end in the kind of fights that are a clichd afU.S.-made cartoons; their aggression at the point of crisis is turned back upon themselves through metamorphosis, perhapsashe turns his own aggressive tendencies back upon himself. Neighbours is the significant exception to this; in it the violence became so strong thai both Italian and U.S. distributors asked that it be edited. So complex is McLaren that people who have worked with him for decades say frankly ihey don't understand htm. The symbolism of his movies offers a fertile field for psychoanalytic interpretations. His humanitarianism, which pure movie, be sure that McLaren has lies on each frame is never as important led one writer to call him 'a saint,' has a touching child-like quality to it, of been one of its greatest exponents." as what has happened between each one reaching out to be loved as well as to love. He dresses like a college boy, Indeed it was Grierson who sensed the frame." For McLaren eveiy film, or looks twenty years younger than his age, and has kept the youthful young Scot's genius when he saw Colour almost every film, was a kind of dance. innocence and enthusiasm common to great artists. Far from taking Cocktail in 1935 at the Scottish Amateur There were exceptions of course, but seriously any thought he might express about gi\ing up filmmaking, one Film Festival. At the time McLaren was these occurred early in his career and shudders to think of what life would be for him without it; the neces.sity brings hitn in to work sometimes when he is so mentally depressed and 21 years old and a student at the Glasgow only serve to illustrate his amazing physically ill that he frightens those around him." School of Art. He had already completed versatility and his continuing role as two films as well as numerous exerci­ teacher. In 1937 while working for the — May Ebbitt Cutler ses. post office film unit, he made Book The Grierson connection which saw Bargain, a straightforward documenta­ The McLaren process McLaren first join the General Post Office tion of the production of the London "When / see a painting on the wall I don't think of all the stages that led up to Film Unit in London in 1936, also ac­ telephone directory. In the role of came­ that No, ifs a complete work in itself, but in my own experience of doing counted for this country's good fortune raman, he shot Ivor Montagu's Defence paintings, I've bpen very conscious of the fact that they slowly evolve. That in providing a home and workplace of Madrid which was a front-line docu­ process seemed to me to be more important than the final result. When I do a from him for the past 42 years. In 1941, mentation of the struggle against fascism painting - I'm not a good painter at all, I don't know when to stop. The whole shortly after his appointment as head of during the Spanish Civil War. thing is a process ofchopping and changing around, lam more fascinated by the National Film Board, Grierson pluck­ McLaren's absorbing interest in the the chopping and changing around than the final thing. This naturally ted to ed McLaren from a short-lived yet pro­ form has allowed him to move freely trying to channel this into filmmaking." ductive period in New York, and brou^t from drawing directly on film stock, to — Norman McLaren (1969) him to Ottawa to inject a little fantasy creating cutouts and pastel drawings, to into the sober images being produced using the live-action image at varying by Canada's wartime propaganda film speeds ranging from single-frame pixil- The modern artist studio. lation in Neighbours to a mix of slow Although he had been given a free motion and standard speed filming in "And let there be no mistake- McLaren is a modern artist, working within the hand in this setting, McLaren, an instinc­ his most recent film. Narcissus. same psychic framework as Picasso, as Stockhausen, as Joyce; it would be tive pacifist and a gentle spirit, chose to Ever-present in his work is technical futile to compare him with Ford orBunuelor Von Stroheim,forheis not a film contribute to the priorities which history challenge. "It triggers me off," he has director in ttie Hollywood tradition. demanded of Canada's filmmakers at said. "Often I have to investigate the He is a man who, by pixillation, transforms bis actors into puppets pulled the time. There followed a series of technique first and then find the subject by the invisible strings of the camera and then has his puppets stand in for short films and clips. Mail Early for matter afterwards." Yet he refuses to humanity. A heightening of artistic process to enlarge the human senses. Christmas, Vfor Victory, Hen Hop, Five leave his technical trials as unfinished He is a man who dares make a film using a single line (Lines Vertical, 1960). for Four, Dollar Dance, and Keep Your exercises. Discussing the difference bet­ And then, he turns the very same film sideways to produce a new and very Mouth Shut, which are glorious expres­ ween experiment and art he says"an different film (Lineis Horizontal 19S2}. With the senses still reeling from the sions of the advertising art and definitive experimenter will get interested iii a sheer brilliance of his achievement, he then deBvers a knock-out blow with examples of the possible harmony bet­ technique, shoot a lot of material using Mosaic (1965), the combination of these two films at their points of ween form and function. The first five of it, and assemble it in some kind of order intersection. these were done without a camera and which may be interesting to look at - He is a man who has spent his adult life in a constant attempt to bits of it will be interesting to look al- communicate his love of harmony and gentleness, and his repugnance of Montreal writer/producer Gordon but for an artist, shooting the material is violence and hatred." Martin is directing an animated docu­ just the first stage. He has to weld it into — Mavnard Collins mentary about British animator Lotte a unity so that it is a complete experience Reiniger. with consistency as well as vanety.

22/Cinema Canada - September 1983 ANIMATrgy What distinguishes a film as a work of art is that source of unity and single aim and purpose of mind." Norman McLaren's McLaren has often described how he sets technical and artistic limits for Narcissus himself which become the challenge and direct his efforts and energy. In the words of author Peter Drucker, "Every problem can be seen as an opportunity." Unity of form despite diversity of technique is not the only search for After screening Norman McLaren's S9th oneness in McLaren's work. Cest I'avi­ film, Narcissus, a small group of us met ron, one of several films which he made over coffee in the NFB cafeteria with based on French-Canadian folksongs, is producer David Verrall and assistant a magic journey which draws the viewer director Don McWilliams. Our discussion inexorably into a uniorowith the infini­ centred on the film's aesthetic impact, te. The Oscar-winning Neighbours with and how various techniques were em­ its powerful personal/social message ployed to achieve certain modulations concludes with unity, albeit in death. of motion, timing or colour density. Whether the movement is animal as in McWilliams, who had been up all night Pas de deux, or geometric as in Spheres, cutting the test prints for this almost- there is always a yearning for imification, but-not-quite final picture version, ex­ a kind of magnetic and orgasmic attrac­ plained to us largely technique-ignorant tion of one object or body for another. critics the painstaking technical process This is ofi'set always by the elusive involved in the composition of the film. dance of separation, perhaps best seen We were duly impressed. But I was in Chairy Tale, which is a subtle and (secretly) delighted that I had just viewed artist form of the chase sequence. a McLaren film in which the strength of McLaren has also been a teacher of its narrative content overwhelms its great talent. His imprint is to be found own devices. Not that this is the first of throughout the world and particularly his films to achieve this: Neighbours in the National Film Board's two main (1952) and A C/iairyra/e(19S7) also carry animation studios. Here, especially in clear moral messages. But most assess­ the French-language studio, animation ments of McLaren's work have (under­ is pursued in the style of the studio standably) tended to concentrate on his artist. No trace and paint sections ai^ to technical innovations and achieve­ be found here, in antithesis to Disney or ments to the exclusion of his ideas. Hanna-Barbera. Emphasis is on form, Maurice Yacowar pointed to this regret­ movement, and exploration of technique table bias in his 1977 paper, "Norman rather than story line. Although much of McLaren ; the Narrative and Contem­ McLaren's influence as a teacher has plative Modes," saying how McLaren come through his relationship with col­ works seems to have generated more leagues such as Rene Jodoin, he has also interest than what he is trying to express. written articles, patiently submitted to Narcissus is perhaps McLaren's most countless interviews, and shared his significant film in that it is a catalogue of techniques and vision in very deliberate his previous work, both technically and ways. thematically. Like many of his previous In 1949 he was sent by UNESCO to films, it is concerned with human rela­ China to instruct artists in the prepara­ tionships - both personal (self-to-self) tion of simple audio-visual images which and interpersonal (self-to-others). The portray the relationship of self-to-image surfaces, of a youth who failed to distin­ were used to encourage tree-planting first of McLaren's "relationship" films and self-to-others. Each film opens with guish effect from content, and who improve community sanitation, and ins­ had him establishing a one-to-one rap­ the dancer-character slowly arising from mistook the superficial for reality. As a truct villagers in health care. During this port with the medium, drawing painting a prone position, awakening as if to first dance film, it succeeds in capturing the period he witnessed the change of politi­ and scratching directly onto film stock. consciousness of their own bodies. And magic of motion, while, at the same cal regimes and felt personally the In his later films, he allowed himself the for each, the first dawning of image- time, transmitting a strange, conflictual stressful times which it brought for the use of a camera, and experimented with consciousness comes from seeing a re­ tension and sterility. The ancient Greek ordinary people with whom he lived a variety of optical effects to portray the flection of their separate images in a Narcissus myth is probably more poi­ and worked. No doubt that experience fragile, mutable permutations of human pool. Each dances alone for a while, gnant today than it ever was. In an era was the stimulus for Neighbours, com­ relationships. His most obviously narra­ fascinated with the beauty and grace of where people are turning in droves pleted in 19S2. tive film. Neighbours, employs the pro­ their limbs. The young woman in Pas- toward ritualistic self-improvement as In order to create even greater access cess of pixilation (figures are "animated" de-Deux learns to project her image a means of staying their underlying to his basic understanding of animation, into movement by filming one frame at outward, gradually allowing it to em­ profound sense of despair, this "image McLaren made five didactic yet beauti­ a time, then moving the objects between brace another person. Although she perfecting" only intensifies the isola­ ful films. Animated Motion, during the frames) to tell the tale of two neighbours thrice retreats from the image of herself, tion of the self. The warning implicit in years 1976-78. These have been followed who come to wholesale mutual destruc­ and thrice from the male, ultimately the the myth, and in much of McLaren's by Narcissus, just completed, which is tion over the possession of one delicate man's attraction prevails and her life is later work, is that a sense of community purported to be his final work in cinema. flower. The pixilation process allowed enriched through harmonizing with is essential to one's well-being. Norman Perhaps the most autobiographical of for a limitless range of human move­ him. But the male youth in Narcissus McLaren has chosen to end his artistic all his films, it harmonizes art with ment, carrying the characters to delibei^ (Jean-Louis Morin) projects his image career with a bleak prognosis for huma­ personal and social statement. In it, the ately exaggerated lengths in order to outward, only to reflect and dance with nity. eternal dance of Blinkity Blank, Lines drive home the film's strong anti-war himself He is, at first, perplexedly com­ Vertical, and Ballet Adagio comes to an statement. A Chairy Tale is a live-action pelled by the joyous, playful nymph abrupt end. The metamorphosis and parable employing some pixilation (Sylvie Kinal), then the unself-conscious Lyn Martin • impressionistic imagery which are the techniques and manipulation of a chair hunting companion (Sylvain Lafortune). hallmarks of McLaren films resolve into (by invisible threads) to explore the But he ends up spuming each in favour arbitrary nature of interpersonal roles. NARCISSUS conceived and ilirecled by : a cold external reality. of dancing alone. As in Pas-de-Deux, the Norman McUiTsn asst d. Don McWilliams choreo­ But the film which most closely resem­ blur-sequences of flurried limbs suggest graphy Femand Nault music comp. Maurice Whether Narcissus is his swan song bles Narcissus in both form and narrative or not, McLaren has spawned too many wings. This occurs when he dances Blackburn dancei-s Jean.Louts Morin iNaixissusI, content is Pas-de-Deux (1967). with his companions, implying that har­ Sylvie Kinal (NymphI Sylvain Lafortune lA friend! "children", inspired too many collea­ soloists Margot Morris Iharp), John Newmark gues, shared his vision with too many Both ballet films use a variety of mony with others frees one from the Ipiano], Robert Langevin (flutel. Maureen Forester viewers, for there ever to be an end. In optical effects, such as multiple expo­ prison of the self In the end. Narcissus (voice! assl. to d. Lorna Brown cinematography finds himself imprisoned behind red­ David De Volpi, Jacques Fogel cam. assta. Andrew his 59 films one finds the entire history sure, to extend and emphasize the dance Kitzanuk. Nash Read optical cam. Jimmv Chin sp. of motion picture experiences, a delicate moveinents and create a new choreo­ brick walls and bars, where he will pine cam. des. Eric Miller eiecL Guy Remillard. Waller quest for the Holy Grail and one senses a graphy based on film time. The stunning away for love of himself. Klymkiw. Claude Derasp, Roger Martin music rec. Louis Hone sound mixing Jean-Pierre loutel reverence for the living and a respect for sensual effect gives the dance even Texturally, Narcissus is the more artistic cons. Grant Munro, Vincent Warren, Tom the inanimate. more beauty than it would have if pei^ seductive film. Its technical wizardry is Daly make-up Brigitte McCaughry set const Jean So thank you, Norman ! And, with a formed live on stage, and draws us less pronounced than that of Pas-de- Parisien loc. man. Marcel Malacket unit admin. closer to the dancer-character's inner Diane Bergeron p. David Verrall exec. p. Derek touch of nationalistic self-interest, Deux, but it has a "prettier" surface, Umb. Douglas MacUonald p.c. National Film Board thanks too to John Grierson for the conflict. Both films tell a similar story, basked in golden glows and rich, deep of Canada, 1983 running lime: 22 min. 8 sec, phone call to New York in 1941. with the same moral implications. Both blue tones. It is, after all, the story of 35mm, color.

September 1983 - Cinema Canada / 23