Module 10: Canada

"Really, Canada?" you ask, but it's true. Canada has had a surprisingly rich history of animation, beginning with the hiring of visionary director Norman McLaren by the National Film Board of Canada. McLaren had many experimental animation efforts, but really put Canada on the map with his Oscar winning film Neighbours, which revolutionized the pixilation technique. The NFB continued to attract talented animators from around the world, leading to great success at the Academy Awards.

Of course NFB is not the only animation studio in Canada. Radio Canada also made a mark in the world of animation, especially with its flagship animator Frederic Back. And there's also Studio DHX, which contributed...well, you'll see in due time. ;)

The module also included some things about South American animation, which is quite memorable as Argentinean animator Quirino Cristiani made the first full length animated film 95 years ago, but the film was eventually lost. They didn't do much after that except Mafalda, and I didn't include it in the discussion.

1. What are the most successful films in this module, and why.
All of the films chosen in this module were successful in some way in the history of Canadian animation. They broke new grounds in the styles of animation, or had they had a lot of success in film awards. For example, The Sand Castle, Special Delivery, Every Child, Crac, Charade, Bob's Birthday,and The Danish Poet won Oscars for Best Animated Short. However, there were a few that stood out.

Neighbours may be one of the most influential film in Canadian history. Norman McLaren was a visionary director that tried new techniques whenever possible, including drawing directly on film. With Neighbours he reached new heights in terms of technique and theme. Pixilation is the technique where stop motion animation is created using live images. It had been used in prior films, but McLaren used it in ways rarely seen before 1952. He used the technique to create the illusion of the men flying or rolling around in the grass when high on the flower. Such impossible feats made the film quite dynamic visually. More important is the film's depiction of human savagery from a seemingly innocent cause. The men fight to the death, killing each other's family all over a flower. And yet the film ends with a plea for peace. It was a shocking film made even more so by its proximity to World War II, which ended just seven years earlier, and the Korean War which was at a standstill at the time. The film made enough of an impact that it was nominated in both the Best Documentary Short and Best Short Subject categories, winning the former award. (Almost 20 years later Sentinels of Silence was nominated for both, and eventually won both.)

The Big Snit and The Cat Came Back were successful in establishing a new and bizarre type of humor. The films were quite different in theme, with the former being an exploration of how we may value our own troubles over the troubles of the world, while the latter film is an amusing song set to animation. Yet both are similar in that they leaned heavily on visual, situational, and non-sequitur humor. They were filled to the brim with hilarious details that made them entertaining for viewers, but at the same time dealt with serious themes such as marital difficulties, death, and nuclear apocalypse. Richard Condie and Cordell Barker haven't made many films since these two masterpieces, but they firmly establish these men as great directors.

And finally there is Frederic Back's own masterpiece, The Man Who Planted Trees. The film is an adaptation of the short story by French author Jean Giono. It is a triumphant tale of how the actions of one perseverant man can completely change a situational in despair. While part of the film's success is derived from the strength of the original source material, much of it comes from Back's beautiful art. His soft lines blend together with the narration by Christopher Plummer perfectly to show the depth of despair and the beauty of the world changed by Bouffier. It is a tale that can lift the spirits of anybody that watches it. While Giono has admitted that the story is fictional, but there have been many tales of people that have followed Bouffier's lead and have planted thousands to millions of trees, leading to reforestation of many arid lands. This sort of impact is a much better marker of the film's success than the Oscar that it won.

One Canadian piece of animation that was not mentioned in the module but has reached unexpected levels of success is the television series My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic. The series is a co-production between the United States of America and Canada, with American writers contributing the scripts and the Canadian studio DHX Media providing the animation and voice acting. It was meant to promote Hasbro's latest line of My Little Pony toys but has unexpectedly became an international sensation, appealing to fans outside of the target demographic, mainly with its well developed characters, deep storylines, and appealing Flash animation. It is just another success story in the history of Canadian animation.

2. Are Neighbors and Pas de Deux live films or animated?
Neighbours and Pas de Deux were two of Norman McLaren's greatest films, but there is a bit of confusion about how to classify them, especially at the Oscars. They were both left out of the Best Animated Short Oscar race, having been nominated instead in the Best Live Action Short category (or in the case of Neighbours, Best Short Subject, One Reel.)However, Neighbours is definitely an animated film. Animation is defined as the process of making something appear to be moving, and Neighbours does that using real life as a medium. There are many scenes in Neighbours that wouldn't be possible without the help of stop motion animation, from the actions of the men when high on the flower or the movement of the broken fence at the end. Five years after Neighbours, McLaren made A Chairy Tale which featured similar use of pixilation, but that was also nominated in the Best Live Action Short category. It wasn't until 1975 that the Academy finally nominated a pixilation film in the Best Animated Short category with Monsieur Pointu.

Pas de Deux is a little bit harder to categorize. It is most definitely a visual work. The movement of ballet dancers are held frozen in ways that highlight the fluidity of their movements, creating a mesmerizing effect that at moments look completely foreign. It is fantastic use of exposures. However, as the dancers are filmed live with the effects created using post-production techniques, I consider it more of a live action film with extensive special effects than a piece of animation, but it is wonderful to watch.

3. Which ones should have been left out, or excerpted, and why? Do you have any suggestions for new inclusions?
While most of the great Canadian films not included in this module were included in other modules, one film that I was surprised to see left out of any of the modules was Co Hoedeman's The Sand Castle. It was the National Film Board of Canada's first win in the Best Animated Short category, and featured some amazing stop motion animation, even if it was a little bit on the boring side. Similarly, Frederic Back's first Oscar winning film Crac should be included, as it is very different thematically from The Man Who Planted Trees. I'm also partial to his first nominated film All Nothing (Tout rien), but it is probably a bit excessive to include three films from the same director. Speaking of films from the same director, I like The Danish Poet more than My Grandmother Ironed the King's Shirts among Torill Kove's films and would much rather see that represented.