Norman McLaren

Born in Stirling, Scotland in 1914, Norman McLaren fell in love with cinema at an early age thanks to the work of the great Russian filmmakers Sergueï Eisenstein and Vsevolod Pudovkin, and the German animated filmmaker Oskar Fischinger. After studying at Glasgow’s Art School, he soon joined the General Post Office Film Unit (GPOFU) in London, where he worked for John Grierson. As the founder the animation studio at Canada’s National Film Board in 1941, which he remained connected to until his death in 1987, he was a key figure in animated films. A tireless experimenter, McLaren defended an artisanal conception of animated film according to which the filmmaker, a little like a painter in the studio, supervises every step of the film’s making: painting, scraperboard, sound scratched onto the film’s optical soundtrack itself, cut-outs, etc. Close to the American independent filmmakers with his research into the cinematographic medium, he nonetheless always remained attentive to his audience and made accessible, entertaining movies. He was awarded more than 200 prizes for his work, including an Oscar in 1953 for “Neighbours” and the Palme d'Or for short films at the 1955 Cannes Film Festival for “Blinkity Blank”.