Norman McLaren Movies

The film's soundtrack is an original musical composition produced with synthetic sound - through photographing unusual geometric shapes and running...

Norman McLaren attempts to give the opening speech for the first Montreal International Film Festival, but his microphone won't cooperate.

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

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 slow-motion study by Norman McLaren of the pas-de-deux adagio, one of the most exacting and difficult dances of classical ballet. A ballet...

A gay fantasia of patterned sound in which Norman McLaren salutes the West Indies, painting the spirit of fiesta on film to the lively beat of an...

A film fantasy of dancing music and dancing color. Listen to the Mocking Bird played by an oldtime fiddler, brilliant patterns ripple, flow, flicker...

Rythmetic is a 1956 Canadian short animated film directed by Norman McLaren and Evelyn Lambart where numbers are the main characters.

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

This joyful short animation features a dancing hen that transforms into an egg. The film was made without a camera by Norman McLaren, who drew...

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

"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...

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....

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...

An unfinished animated short by Norman McLaren.

A play on the theme of hearts. Two hearts cavort, change shape, shoot arrows at one another, give birth, and finally become one heart bearing the...

Norman McLaren was a cinematic genius who made films without cameras, and music without instruments. He produced sixty films in a stunning range of...

Animation featuring dancing black and white shadows.

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