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Directors: Norman McLaren & Evelyn Lambart
Release date: 1965
Rating: ★★★★
Review:
‘Mosaic’ starts with Norman McLaren himself entering an empty stage with a ball, while whistling. When he places the ball in empty air, it soon turns into a dot, which quickly splits into four dots, then nine, then sixteen and so on, until very complex patterns of dots fill the screen. The result is somewhat like a moving Piet Mondriaan painting, with the dots forming endless patterns, which change color over time.
It’s thanks to McLaren’s and Evelyn Lambart’s geniuses that this highly abstract film remains entertaining throughout, and seems to follow some inner logic. Indeed, McLaren himself said that ‘Mosaic’, like ‘Lines Vertical‘ and ‘Lines Horizontal‘ followed the structure of Hindu classical music, which also start with an easy pattern (a raga), which becomes increasingly complex and fast moving.
Watch ‘Mosaic’ yourself and tell me what you think:
‘Mosaic’ is available on the DVD-box ‘Norman McLaren – The Master’s Edition’
Directors: Norman McLaren & Evelyn Lambart
Release date: 1962
Rating: ★★★
Review:
‘Lines Horizontal’ is essentially ‘Lines Vertical‘ from 1960, but turned 90 degrees, re-colored and with a new, rather folky soundtrack by Peter Seeger. Even though the patterns are essentially the same, the result feels like a new film, especially because the horizontal lines cause some different effects to the eye, like creating non-existent triangles.
‘Lines Vertical’ and ‘Lines Horizontal’ both are extreme films in that they only use parallel lines, but Norman McLaren and Evelyn Lambart are able to turn this extreme concepts into intriguing films, thanks to their timing and overall structure, which follows an inner logic.
Watch ‘Lines Horizontal’ yourself and tell me what you think:
‘Lines Horizontal’ is available on the DVD-box ‘Norman McLaren – The Master’s Edition’
Director: Ernest Pintoff
Release date: May 20, 1963
Rating: ★★★★
Review:
Conceived by Mel Brooks, and directed by UPA alumnus Ernest Pintoff, ‘The Critic’ is a short little unpretentious gem.
The film starts as an abstract animation film (designed and animated by Bob Heath), with several shapes appearing and moving to the baroque harpsichord music of Johann Sebastian Bach’s French Suite. But then suddenly a man starts commenting what he sees with us. The 71-year old Yiddish man of Russian decent certainly disapproves what he sees, but at the same time he seems immersed in the images on the screen, trying to make head and tale of the abstract forms.
Mel Brooks, who voices the critic, is in top form from the man’s first utterance “what the hell is this?” to his final verdict: “I don’t know much about psychoanalysis, but I’d say this is a dirty picture”. The animation seems to be a parody of the work of Norman McLaren of the time: the use of baroque music, choreography of shapes, monochrome background art. the sometimes organic forms, and the sense of narrative elements all point to that direction.Indeed, according to Wikipedia the short was inspired by a screening of a Norman McLaren film Mel Brooks attended, where he overheard a man mumbling to himself during the entire cartoon.
‘The Critic’ is an excellent bit of fun. More people must have thought so, because the short won the Academy Award for best animated short in 1964.
Watch ‘The Critic’ yourself and tell me what you think:
Dr. Grob's Animation Review 