One of a series of French-Canadian folk songs, this film was illustrated by Norman McLaren for the Chants populaires series. White gouache drawings on black cards were photographed with overlapping ‘zooms’ to suggest the forward movement of a canoe along rivers and lakes. This film appears in Chants populaires no. 5 and in Chants populaires no. 6.

This exhilarating animation by Norman McLaren will leave you breathless, as a simple image of a stick figure posting a letter becomes a frenzy of split second images, as the characters morph from man to woman to apple to mouth to bee to butterfly to candle to... well, you'll lose count quickly enough. This animated advertisement for the GPO rewards - and necessitates - repeated viewings, and some of the imagery proved too Freudian for the Post Office, who banned the film. This short film follows McLaren's ethos that animation was not the art of drawings which move, but of movements which are drawn. The wonderful score by Jacques Ibert adds to the ecstatic effect. (Alex Davidson)

The film's soundtrack is an original musical composition produced with synthetic sound - through photographing unusual geometric shapes and running them through an optical sound head. The images are an artistic rendering of this soundtrack.

8 min

3 min

1960 film

The surreal story of a bird and its cage with both their conflict and union.

英语中自恋（Narcissism）这个词，直译成汉语是水仙花。这来自一个美丽的古希腊神话：美少年那西斯在水中看到了自己的倒影，便爱上了自己，每天茶饭不思，憔悴而死，变成了一朵花，后人称之为水仙花。心理学家借用这个词，用以描绘一个人爱上自己的现象。弗洛伊德：对于自体（自我内在影像）投注里比多兴奋的状态。从里比多的方式来说，也就是他将本来应该投注于自我的对象客体的里比多，反向投注到自己身上，这样病人就无法和别人建立有效和融入的亲密人际关系，并且经常沉浸在自己不切实际的幻想中。同时由于自恋的人专注对象是自己，所以无法发展出移情，所以无法分析。

An experimental film in which both sound and visuals were created entirely by Norman McLaren drawing directly upon the film with ordinary pen and ink. The main title is in eight languages. Rereleased with multilingual titles in 1949.

To the tune of a classic French-Canadian nonsense song, surreal blackbird made of lines loses body parts and gets them back threefold.

An ordinary-looking chair refuses to be sat upon.

1968 dance film by Norman McLaren

1952 film directed by Norman McLaren