Movies: Norman McLaren

Taking "Isle of the Dead," a work by the Swiss symbolist painter Arnold Böcklin as his starting point, Norman McLaren creates a deeply disturbing surrealist dream....

Early abstract 3D film by animation master Norman McLaren and collaborator Evelyn Lambart....

An abstract animation by Norman McLaren, who was born in Scotland in 1914. His interest in filmmaking began early in life after he became acquainted with works by the great Russian filmmakers Eisenstein and Pudovkin and the German animator Oskar Fisc...

Russian artist Alexander Alexeieff illustrated the song "Et moi je m'enfouiyais" (En passant) using the pinscreen technique. Norman McLaren illustrated "C'est l'aviron" using cartoons on a fixed background; the characters were pasted in as they were ...

This animated short co-animated by René Jodoin and Norman McLaren was produced for inclusion in the Let's All Sing Together sing-along series. It illustrates the popular song Alouette, gentille alouette. The technique used is single-frame animation o...

This animated short by Norman McLaren serves as a wartime savings campaign. Symbolic figures, drawn directly on 35mm film stock, move and dance against a simple painted background. The score is "Pinetop's Boogie Woogie," by Albert Ammons....

An experimental film in which both sound and visuals were created entirely by Norman McLaren drawing directly upon the film with ordinary pen and ink. The main title is in eight languages. Rereleased with multilingual titles in 1949....

An hand drawn animation of Frogs....

This publicity clip for Canada Post is Norman McLaren's first film for the NFB. For this animated short, McLaren drew symbols by pen onto clear 35 mm stock, which was then superimposed on a photographed painted background. Benny Goodman's rendition o...

A documentary showing Norman McLaren working on the hand-drawn sound process he uses for his short film, Loops....

It's midnight in a graveyard. The principal characters are spooks, ghosts, bats, bells, and, at the end, the sun. As midnight strikes, 12 spooks appear, then two ghosts. They move to the music's rhythm. Against the black night, they are blue and yell...

Images supered on a revolving barrel....

An idea for backgrounds never used, late 1940s. Silent film....

The first thematic mini documentary about revolutionary filmmaker Norman McLaren....

This animated short by Norman McLaren is a publicity message for a war bond campaign. Symbols, a stick man and lettering are drawn directly on 35mm film stock and synchronized with a brass band rendition of Sousa's march "The Thunderer."...

In this fourth film, Norman McLaren explains and illustrates composite motion, where two of the categories of motion occur simultaneously in one action, such as the motions of jointed or pivoted parts (as occur in animal and human movements). Also sh...

Unfinished animated film, 1940s. Silent film....

This uncompleted film uses a technique invented by McLaren in the 1930s; the travelling zoom. McLaren's intention was to make the corridor gradually disappear so that the viewer's initial imprisonment would give way to the freedom of infinite space....

Amateur footage, probably filmed by Norman McLaren, of a group of his friends on a visit to his parents' home in Stirling....

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