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, director Donald McWilliams demystifies the process of artistic creation. Drawing on McLaren's private film vaults, a gold mine of experimental footage and uncompleted films, McWilliams explores McLaren's methods, including his celebrated "pixillation" technique, and his daring forays into animated surrealism.
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Better Late Then Never
Blistering performances.
Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable
The best films of this genre always show a path and provide a takeaway for being a better person.
I found this documentary to be a captivating look at the art of Norman McLaren. While another comment notes that we don't learn where the artistic impulse or creativity comes from, that's too high an expectation from a film such as this, and not really a valid criticism. Some things I did learn about Norman McLaren are: (1) I've seen a lot less of his work than I thought (2) He had a male "lifetime companion" (how times have changed...) (3) What "chain of mixes" means, including a demonstration (4) He also created geometric models, and made paintingsMy only criticism of the film is that (as almost all film retrospectives do) it should have captioned all the clips so the viewer would know which film the clip is from. Shamefully, these weren't even included in the credits.
Look at his movies, instead.Our age has somehow gotten the idea that the artist is more important than the art. I don't feel that way. If it weren't for the art, we wouldn't care about the artist more than any random stranger, so let the art be worthwhile. Sometimes these documentaries offer you insight in technique, but according to this film, there's nothing mysterious about McLaren's technique. He just seems to have done things that no one had thought of before, with beauty and good humor. Where did he get that talent and good humor? I didn't know before I saw this documentary and I don't know now.So all you're going to learn is about where McLaren was on several particular days and the fact that he loved what he did. Which is less than you can pick up from his movies.