Canadian animator Norman McLaren just blew my mind

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so my good friend Jesse was staying with me when she had a film in the New York Underground Film Festival and we were talking about certain kinds of old experimental film that we both like, stuff that's accesible and verging on kitschy due to it's sincerity, or something, I was mostly obsessing over the films of Charles and Ray Eames. So she goes home and sends me this DVD, the films of Norman Mclaren.

http://www.nfb.ca/e/highlights/norman_mclaren.html

Some of it is cute, some is hand drawn doodles(with good reason) some is Brackhage-esque brilliance, and some I just can't explain, including this short called Neighbors from 1952, a "live action" movie using animation and stop motion effects to the extreme, about two suburban neighbors who fight over who owns the flower that sits on the border of their yards. I don't want to go into what happens because I'd ruin it for anyone who hasn't seen it, but it's really fun a quirky and neat and turns really intense and scary and managed to shock the hell out of me with this one image which is a little bit funny but mostly brutally scary and dark by todays standards, not to mention 1952.

Has anyone seen these?

― Dan Selzer (Dan Selzer), Thursday, 25 March 2004 06:29 (twenty-two years ago)

he's totally amazing! i love him

― s1ocki (slutsky), Thursday, 25 March 2004 06:32 (twenty-two years ago)

i've only seen "neighbours", which i liked a lot.

― m., Thursday, 25 March 2004 09:28 (twenty-two years ago)

i must see

― stevem (blueski), Thursday, 25 March 2004 12:48 (twenty-two years ago)

you really should stevem! such great stuff. i like him so much more than brakhage

― s1ocki (slutsky), Thursday, 25 March 2004 15:06 (twenty-two years ago)

"neighbours" is fantastic. we saw it for the first time at a YMCA daycamp program when i was 6 or 7. they were always showing us National Fim Board cartoons. we all went to the park and had a "neighbours"-inspired war afterwards.

― Fritz Wollner (Fritz), Thursday, 25 March 2004 15:58 (twenty-two years ago)

they showed neighbors to little kids? It's so fun untill it get's so brutal! The guy picks up a baby and smashes it to the ground!

― Dan Selzer (Dan Selzer), Thursday, 25 March 2004 16:58 (twenty-two years ago)

yes! i think it was a mistake.

― Fritz Wollner (Fritz), Thursday, 25 March 2004 17:00 (twenty-two years ago)

no, he definitely meant to smash the kid.

― s1ocki (slutsky), Thursday, 25 March 2004 17:05 (twenty-two years ago)

yeah, he smashes one then the neighbor kicks or throws the first guys, and when their faces start to get painted in that combo battle-scarred/war paint look, again, it's funny at first, then it just gets scary. Really, it's just a brilliant thing, and mind-boggling considering the year it was made.

― Dan Selzer (Dan Selzer), Thursday, 25 March 2004 18:31 (twenty-two years ago)

two weeks pass...

There's some stuff of his on channel 25 right now!

― tokyo rosemary (rosemary), Wednesday, 14 April 2004 23:54 (twenty-one years ago)

http://cmm.onf.ca/E/titleinfo/index.epl?id=18011&expr=&sid=f0c69ceb2f5b83b5870ad6a4ec440945&coll=&type=

― tokyo rosemary (rosemary), Wednesday, 14 April 2004 23:56 (twenty-one years ago)

two years pass...

just got the SEVEN DISC complete works delivered to me. so so awesome. i'm getting chills just looking through it. can't wait to get home!

― and smoke a doob (slutsky), Friday, 13 October 2006 19:43 (nineteen years ago)

they showed neighbors to little kids? It's so fun untill it get's so brutal! The guy picks up a baby and smashes it to the ground!

-- Dan Selzer (danselze...), March 25th, 2004 11:58 AM. (Dan Selzer)

my friend & i were just reminiscing about being freaked out by neighbours as kids! it's a canadian rite of passage

― s1ocki (slutsky), Friday, 13 October 2006 19:44 (nineteen years ago)

is Slutsky a common last name in canada?

― Dan Selzer (Dan Selzer), Friday, 13 October 2006 20:01 (nineteen years ago)

it's like being canadian content overrides freaky factor - i remember being shown all kinds of weird nfb stuff as a kid - burned into brain bizarre images kinda stuff. like neighbours and documentaries about native rituals and eerie industrial fishing stuff.

mclaren box set sounds awesome
xpost

no!

― rrrobyn, the situation (rrrobyn), Friday, 13 October 2006 20:07 (nineteen years ago)

they're going to be showing a bunch of Norman McLaren stuff at the Cinemateque in Montreal in collaboration with the Festival Nouveau Cinema next week.

― alex in montreal (alex in montreal), Friday, 13 October 2006 21:20 (nineteen years ago)

yeah... 11 programs oct 20-26... plus some paris VJ "remixing" mclaren, for what that's worth. can you tell i've been working on an article

― s1ocki (slutsky), Saturday, 14 October 2006 02:27 (nineteen years ago)

and yeah dan, it's not a common name, despite the fact that a slutsky lives in the apartment next to mine, and there's another one around the corner

― s1ocki (slutsky), Saturday, 14 October 2006 02:30 (nineteen years ago)

better than the canadian animator who did 'the man who planted trees'?

― mookieproof (mookieproof), Saturday, 14 October 2006 02:53 (nineteen years ago)

I was asking because my first "girlfriend", who I met at summer camp, and who was, naturally from Canada (because all dork jewish kids from NJ have cute girlfriend's in summer camp who are from canada) has the last name Slutsken I think, but earlier today I was thinking it was Slutsky. Sorry, pretty off-topic.

― Dan Selzer (Dan Selzer), Saturday, 14 October 2006 03:09 (nineteen years ago)

no way!!

maybe it is the same name--i've never heard of slutsken.

― s1ocki (slutsky), Saturday, 14 October 2006 03:32 (nineteen years ago)

anyway back on topic, i am loving this set so much. pure pleasure.

― s1ocki (slutsky), Saturday, 14 October 2006 03:33 (nineteen years ago)

two years pass...

just watched neighbors for the first time. hahahahaha!

― scott seward, Sunday, 30 November 2008 01:22 (seventeen years ago)

five years pass...

Neighbours is superb! It's his centenary this year, events happening in mid-April apparently.

― ineloquentwow (Craigo Boingo), Sunday, 19 January 2014 02:47 (twelve years ago)

His ballet films are so beautiful

http://www.nfb.ca/film/pas_de_deux_en

http://www.nfb.ca/film/narcissus

― jmm, Sunday, 19 January 2014 03:14 (twelve years ago)

wow thanks for posting that, jmm

― Did I make sotto voce comments to entertain ILX? (weatheringdaleson), Sunday, 19 January 2014 04:46 (twelve years ago)

The DVD box set is really incredible.

― Emperor Cos Dashit (Adam Bruneau), Sunday, 19 January 2014 07:03 (twelve years ago)

saw Pas De Deux at the BFI once, think there was a John Smith and Beckett's 'Film' as well. good screening

― lovely cuddly fluffy dope (imago), Sunday, 19 January 2014 19:33 (twelve years ago)

John Smith's 'The Black Tower', full 20-minute version. fucking brilliant it was too

― lovely cuddly fluffy dope (imago), Sunday, 19 January 2014 19:34 (twelve years ago)

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