Norman McLaren Movies

"Fly too high and you will burn, go too low and you won't breathe." Daedalus weaves a tale of ambition and caution through an ancient myth, set in a...

In this Oscar-winning short film, Norman McLaren employs the principles normally used to put drawings or puppets into motion to animate live actors....

Three separate sequences related to Christmas, animated in different styles: cutout animation of children dancing in the snow to "Jingle Bells,"...

So is this what the kids of today are into? Well, as long as it’s safe.

Norman McLaren instructs Grant Munro on the movements he is to make. The film technique for Two Bagatelles is pixillation, where the actor is...

An ordinary-looking chair refuses to be sat upon.

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...

A color cocktail by Norman McLaren and Evelyn Lambart, translating into moving patterns of color and light the moods of music written for a jazz...

An animated film drawn entirely in pastels. Various fantastical plant-like things "grow" from the ground, eventually launching five spheres. The...

In this extraordinary short animation, Evelyn Lambart and Norman McLaren painted colours, shapes, and transformations directly onto their filmstrip....

This animated short from Norman McLaren features a human skull cautioning Canadians to “keep their mouths shut” in an effort to end...

This cinematic travelogue consists of three parts. In the first part, texts and small maps are our guides through Madrid in 1936. We see pictures of...

Early abstract 3D film by animation master Norman McLaren.

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...

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

Animation featuring dancing black and white shadows.

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

An experiment in pure design by film artists Norman McLaren and Evelyn Lambart. Lines, ruled directly on film, move with precision and grace against...

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...

Norman McLaren made Scherzo early after his arrival in North America in 1939, but the film was subsequently lost. In 1984 the original materials were...