Maurice Blackburn

Creative Process: Norman McLaren (1990)

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 Process, ...

Narcissus (1983)

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 techniques McLa ...

'E' (1981)

A giant statue of the letter "E" arrives in the park. One man sees it as "B"; they are preparing to cart him off to the looney bin when a doctor arrives and determines the man needs glasses. Then the king arrives... ...

Cordélia (1980)

In a little village at the end of the 1890's, a young woman offends all the 'right-thinking' villagers by allowing men in her house in the absence of her husband. When he is found dead, all of the suspicion is directed towards the liberal woman. She is jud ...

A Scream from Silence (1979)

A director and an editor, both women, cannot work on a movie presenting the rape of a nurse without reacting on the scenes they're working on, the situation of womanhood in general, and the way the 'Justice' handle those cases of rape. ...

J.A. Martin Photographer (1977)

At the turn of the century, Rose-Aimée, the hard working wife of photographer J.A. Martin, decides to leave her children with an aunt to go with him on his annual tour of the Québec countryside. She hopes the intimacy will rekindle their marriage. ...

The Lion and the Mouse (1976)

This animated short by Evelyn Lambart is a visual adaptation of the famous Aesop fable "The Lion and the Mouse," in which a mouse proves to a lion that the weak and small may be of help to those much mightier than themselves. ...

Before the Time Comes (1975)

Hélène is a woman who already has, in her view, quite enough children. For some time she has secretly been taking birth control pills, but now she is too old to use them safely. When her husband Gabriel discovers the pills, he is distressed, since he wan ...

They Called Us "Les Filles du Roy" (1974)

The history of the roles of women in Quebec society, beginning with the women shipped from France to the New World by the King to populate the colony with the men already there, and ending with the modern career woman. ...

Balablok (1973)

Blocks and balls fight simply because they are different, until their battle reduces everyone to the same shape. ...

Metadata (1971)

This short experimental film from Peter Foldès hails from the very early days of computer animation. Created entirely on a computer belonging to the National Research Council of Canada, it registered hundreds of movements to produce a fluid, evolving effe ...

Cesar's Bark Canoe (1971)

"This documentary depicts a canoe being built in the traditional manner. Cesar Newashish, a 67-year-old Attikamek of the Manawan Reserve North of Montréal, uses only birchbark, cedar splints, spruce roots, and gum. With a sure hand he works methodically t ...

Paradise Lost (1970)

This short animation by artist and animator Evelyn Lambart offers a wordless plea for the right of all living creatures to a clean, unpolluted environment. With rich colour and intricate animated motion, the film features birds, butterflies and other woodl ...

The Hoarder (1969)

A greedy little blue jay carries away whatever his beak can grasp. Berries, birds' eggs (nests and all), and even the sun in the sky go into his secret cache. ...

Pas de Deux (1968)

Two ballet dancers perform a dance enhanced with surreal after-image visuals. ...

Fine Feathers (1968)

Two duelling birds get the urge to change their plumage. A blue jay wants to be decked out in the green of cedar, and a loon dons the burnished red of oak leaves, but neither bird foresees the consequences of vanity. ...

Notes on a Triangle (1966)

In this short animation film the triangle achieves the distinction of principal dancer in a geometric ballet. The triangle is shown splitting into some three hundred transformations, dividing and sub-dividing with grace and symmetry to the music of a waltz ...

The Snow Has Melted on the Manicouagan (1965)

An atmospheric mood piece photographed in the winter at the giant dam built by Hydro Quebec in the northern wilds of the province. The story concerns a worker's wife, who is bored with her dreary existence in the wilderness. She walks around in the snow ...

Mission of Fear (1965)

A young Jesuit missionary reflects on his life and his faith while awaiting his execution at the hands of the Native Americans he came to convert. ...

Geneviève (1964)

Two teenage girls go to winter carnival in Quebec City for the first time. Their ambiguous, tentative relation with a young boy brings both of them the sweet intensity and disillusionment of first love. One of four film sketches on the problems of adolesce ...

Percé on the Rocks (1964)

This quirky little short by Gilles Carle was filmed on the pierced rock that stands near Quebec's Gaspé peninsula. It is perhaps the most photographed natural phenomenon on Canada's East Coast. Shot in the 1960s, the film has a very psychedelic feel to it ...

Huit témoins (1964)

Filmed in 1964, this feature-length documentary by Jacques Godbout explores the world of delinquency through the stories of eight young people who have already committed offenses. With a touch of humor, the filmmaker paints a portrait of these youths from ...

Alexander Mackenzie: The Lord of the North (1964)

Filmed on the great Mackenzie River, this short fiction film recreates the amazing voyage of the man who gave his name to it. Following the path outlined in Mackenzie's journal, the film depicts his arduous journey by canoe all the way to the salt water of ...

Take It All (1963)

A man struggles with his identity, his life choices, his interracial relationship, and his latent homosexuality. A portrait of some young intellectuals in early sixties Montreal. ...

Christmas Cracker (1963)

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 his Chri ...

30 Minutes, Mister Plummer (1963)

This film profiles Canadian actor Christopher Plummer of the Shakespearean Theatre, Stratford, Ontario. As the minutes tick by, cameras register the transformation as he dons his make-up for the title role in Cyrano de Bergerac. We also see Toronto actress ...

Les bacheliers de la cinquième (1962)

The film follows two young men from the Côte-Nord in Quebec who fall on hard times due to an economic crisis raging in the region. Between staging and song, the movie deals with the importance of work in the construction of identity. ...

Visit to a Foreign Country (1962)

They come in high-powered convertibles, with cameras and curiosity, to look at French Canada and French-Canadians. Their usual objective is Québec City, where they can soak up a bit of French culture without a trip to France. With an eye for humour, VISIT ...

Children of Silence (1962)

This film looks at the world of children with hearing loss and the importance of early diagnosis. With its straightforward, rigorous cinematic style and intimate approach to the subject, the film focuses on the human rather than the technical side of the p ...

Magic Molecule (1962)

A film showing the new world created by the techniques and processes of the plastics industry. Transmuted from coal, oil or wood, synthetic substances can make thousands of new products, from silk threads to furniture. With a light and lively treatment, th ...

The Joy of Winter (1962)

How Canadians adjust to their long, snowbound season. Filmed with humour, 'The Joy of Winter' shows people making the best of what they cannot change. From tiny tots to human polar bears the film leaves no doubt that, in the eyes of many Canadians, winter ...

Dance Squared (1961)

Squares and other geometric shapes appear to "dance" along to music through their ever-changing movements. ...

Je (1960)

Pantomime evoking the history of movement in humans performed by Suzanne Rivest. ...

Lines: Vertical (1960)

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. ...

Normetal (1960)

Filmed in the town of Normétal in northern Québec, this short documentary provides a first-hand introduction to life in a frontier mining community where all roads lead to the pithead. Dweller of two worlds, the copper miner's life is one of contrasts. A ...

High Arctic (1959)

This film records the struggle for life within the Arctic Circle. It reveals flowers of startling beauty, whose entire life cycles last less than thirty days, and strange animals like the shaggy musk-ox, the shy lemming, and migrant water birds that surviv ...

Blackbird (1958)

To the tune of a classic French-Canadian nonsense song, surreal blackbird made of lines loses body parts and gets them back threefold. ...

The Living Stone (1958)

The Living Stone is a 1958 Canadian short documentary film directed by John Feeney about Inuit art. It shows the inspiration behind Inuit sculpture. The Inuit approach to the work is to release the image the artist sees imprisoned in the rough stone. The f ...

Washed Hands (1958)

An efficiency expert is called in to downsize a trucking company and the employees fight to establish a union to save their jobs. ...

A Chairy Tale (1957)

An ordinary-looking chair refuses to be sat upon. ...

Wolfe and Montcalm (1957)

Two generals prepare for battle at the Plains of Abraham. ...

Blinkity Blank (1955)

A playful exercise in intermittent animation and spasmodic imagery. Playing with the laws relating to persistence of vision and after-image on the retina of the eye, McLaren engraves pictures on blank film creating vivid, percussive effects. ...

Tit-Coq (1953)

After returning home from war, an ill-tempered young soldier must deal with his sweetheart having married another man. ...

Lismer (1952)

A short look at the world of artist Arthur Lismer. ...

A Phantasy (1952)

An animated film drawn entirely in pastels. Various fantastical plant-like things "grow" from the ground, eventually launching five spheres. The spheres drift in space while changing shapes and come back down to another setting, which eventually becomes mo ...

Twirligig (1952)

Early abstract 3d stereoscopic animation by Norman McLaren collaborator Gretta Ekman. ...

The Puppeteers (1952)

A glimpse behind the curtains of a puppet theatre is presented, showing the making of the marionettes and how they come to life in the hands of the puppeteer. ...

De père en fils (1951)

Le gros Bill (1949)

A tiny Quebec community is thrown into an uproar when a tall young Texan named Bill arrives to claim a farm he has inherited. Bill's inability to speak French, and his apparent unwillingness to learn the language, foments plenty of ill will in the communit ...

Passport to Canada (1949)

In the 1940s thousands of immigrants are coming from Europe to Canada offering strength and skills in exchange for hope and a new life. 'The long night is ended, the morning draws nigh,' sums up the feelings of those who are sped through immigration formal ...

La poulette grise (1947)

An experimental short film of images and music made by Norman McLaren. ...

Klee Wyck (1946)

This short documentary from the Canadian Artists series presents the art of Emily Carr, the Canadian painter who found exciting subject matter on British Columbia's Pacific Coast, with its giant trees and its Indigenous villages, totems and carvings. When ...

Fishing Partners (1945)

How a scientist helped the fishermen in a Gaspe fishing village. ...

Rock the Boat (1944)

One of a series of French-Canadian folk songs, this film was illustrated by Norman McLaren for the Chants populaires series. White gouache drawings on black cards were photographed with overlapping 'zooms' to suggest the forward movement of a canoe along r ...

Keep Your Mouth Shut (1944)

This animated short from Norman McLaren features a human skull cautioning Canadians to "keep their mouths shut" in an effort to end gossiping during World War II. ...

Prince Edward Island (1943)

A short documentary about a small province on the east coast of Canada. ...

Windbreaks on the Prairies (1943)

This short film serves as a cautionary tale to farmers who recklessly cut down trees on their land. When prairie farmers engaged in this practice to facilitate plowing, they discovered that the trees had served as windbreaks protecting top soil from erosio ...

Alexis Tremblay: Habitant (1943)

This short documentary illustrates rural French Canadian life in the early 1940s. The film follows Alexis Tremblay and his family through the busy autumn days as they bring in the harvest and help with bread baking and soap making. Winter sees the children ...

Maurice Blackburn (2006)

The seventh thematic mini documentary about revolutionary filmmaker Norman McLaren; this time with a focus on his collaborator Maurice Blackburn. ...