Movies: Norman McLaren

A portrait of John Grierson, the first Canadian Government Film Commissioner and founder of the National Film Board in 1939. Interweaving archival footage, interviews with people who knew him and footage of Grierson himself, this film is a sensitive ...

A compilation of seven shorts made for the National Film Board of Canada. Features the NFBC shorts, "Nahanni," "Le Merle," "A Chairy Tale," "The Cars in Your Life," "Corral," "Wrestling," and "Neighbors."...

On a blue background, a series of numbers (1 to 5) begin to appear, forming simple arithmetic equations that create a pattern. Numbers and symbols move as the pattern grows, to a soundtrack of simple beats....

In this short film by Norman McLaren, dancers enact the Greek tragedy of Narcissus, the beautiful youth whose excessive self-love condemned him to a trapped existence. Skilfully merging film, dance and music, the film is a compendium of the technique...

An experiment in pure design by film artists Norman McLaren and Evelyn Lambart. Lines, ruled directly on film, move with precision and grace against a background of changing colors, in response to music specially composed for the films....

A man sets a ping-pong ball into motion and it becomes fruitful and multiplies....

A brisk GPO Film Unit promo for the Post Office Savings Bank: pub talk and daydream vignettes tout penny-by-penny thrift, peaking in a playful Norman McLaren passage where household furniture springs to life—selling the idea that “many a little makes...

An experiment in pure design by film artists Norman McLaren and Evelyn Lambart. Lines, ruled directly on film, move with precision and grace against a background of changing colors, in response to music specially composed for the films....

In this Oscar-winning short film, Norman McLaren employs the principles normally used to put drawings or puppets into motion to animate live actors. The story is a parable about two people who come to blows over the possession of a flower....

"Fly too high and you will burn, go too low and you won't breathe." A 7 day vlog during the summer of 2023, a story of dreamers and drowners....

This animated short is a play on motion set against a background of multi-hued sky. Spheres of translucent pearl float weightlessly in the unlimited panorama of the sky, grouping, regrouping or colliding like the stylized burst of some atomic chain r...

The fifth thematic mini documentary about revolutionary filmmaker Norman McLaren; this time with a focus on his collaborator Evelyn Lambart....

Norman McLaren was a cinematic genius who made films without cameras, and music without instruments. He produced sixty films in a stunning range of styles and techniques, collecting over 200 international awards, and world recognition. In Creative Pr...

Three separate sequences related to Christmas, animated in different styles: cutout animation of children dancing in the snow to "Jingle Bells," stop-motion animation of toys come to life, and cel animation of a man who seeks the ideal star to top hi...

This 1967 footage shows McLaren at a computer with Evelyn Lambart, Rene Pardo and two other technicians, followed by the animation test some call Birdlings. McLaren found computers still too primitive for his needs and continued to explored the optic...

In this extraordinary short animation, Evelyn Lambart and Norman McLaren painted colours, shapes, and transformations directly onto their filmstrip. The result is a vivid interpretation, in fluid lines and colour, of jazz music played by the Oscar Pe...

Pinscreen animation makes use of a screen filled with movable pins, which can be moved in or out by pressing an object onto the screen. The screen is lit from the side so that the pins cast shadows....

For all who enjoy ballet, this English-language film presents an insight into the dance that only dancers ordinarily see. It is an engaging film portrait of the famous Canadian husband-and-wife team, Anna Marie and David Holmes. We see their busy liv...

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

Early abstract 3D film by animation master Norman McLaren....