by McLaren again
(Still: Norman McLaren’s La Merle via NFB)
Back in May, I wrote about Canada’s great animator Norman McLaren who had a long film-making career with the National Film Board of Canada.
NFB is celebrating 65 years of Animation and I discovered that we can view four of McLaren’s films on the Focus on Animation pages, small scale or full screen size.
Blinkity Blank and Hen Hop are delightful and lively – don’t forget these were done by hand in 1955 and 1942 respectively, long before the digital era. Le Merle is a simple and delightful animation based on an old French-Canadian nonsense song, Mon Merle. I plan to show these to my grand-daughter sometime soon.
The Oscar-winning fourth film Neighbours/Voisins (1952) is disturbing and a powerful parable on how easily humans can go into battle! Still very timely viewing but not for young children. (Maybe some world leaders we know should watch it!)
You may learn more about McLaren’s work at this overview.
I look forward to browsing though the other film-makers’ works as well, as time permits, but to me McLaren was THE master and his films were a part of many happy hours in my childhood.
August 16, 2006 in Canada and BC, Films by Marja-Leena
Amen: pure genius.
National Film Board of Canada -films that we saw in Finland in the 1970’s were one of the reasons we moved to Canada. We lived nine years in Canada in the 1980’s. Thank you, NFB!
Peter, we are in total agreement!
Anna, that’s interesting how NFB films influenced you. What kind were they – were they about Canada?
I remember especially the films about Inuits. I am still very interested in Inuit art.
Anna, the Inuit art films would have been very fascinating and compelling, especially in those very early years. Kiitos kun kävit!