Begone Dull Care

Begone Dull Care

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In this extraordinary short animation, Evelyn Lambart and Norman McLaren painted colours, shapes, and transformations directly on to their filmstrip. The result is a vivid interpretation, in fluid lines and colour, of jazz music played by the Oscar Peterson Trio.

As a teenager, McLaren became interested in Colour-Music, an art form in which moving patterns of coloured lights were projected. When he was at art school, McLaren and fellow student Stuart McAllister tried to create colour-music by painting abstractions directly onto 35 mm movie film. McAllister would later become a great editor of documentary films. McLaren was delighted with the experience but knew the results were primitive. Then, in London in 1936, he saw Len Lye’s revolutionary hand-painted-on-film Colour Box. It did not influence McLaren but it gave him the confidence to continue drawing directly on film. He had to wait ten years, however, before he would have access to a three-colour film printing stock, which would allow him to copy a multi-hued hand-painted original. And what an original it is! For me, it is hard to imagine a more satisfying jazz film – in this case, a marriage of hand-painted improvisations to the piano improvisations of a young Oscar Peterson.

Donald McWilliams
From the playlist: Norman McLaren: Hands-on Animation

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Begone Dull Care , Norman McLaren & Evelyn Lambart, provided by the National Film Board of Canada

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Credits
  • director
    Norman McLaren
    Evelyn Lambart
  • animation
    Norman McLaren
    Evelyn Lambart
  • editing
    Norman McLaren
    Evelyn Lambart
  • producer
    Norman McLaren
  • music
    Oscar Peterson Trio

  • McLaren’s Muse

    I wonder if Peterson had composed the score first, and Lambart & McLaren had built the film around it. It seems to me that the score just falls into place with the animation sequences perfectly. Of course, there were 3 amazing geniuses working on this wonderful piece.

    McLaren’s Muse, 18 Feb 2021
  • Rintintin

    byzance : it's an original score!

    Rintintin, 7 Mar 2019
  • byzance

    I have loved this one for years, but have always wondered which Oscar Peterson numbers they used? I've got a few LP's of the artist, but assume this would have been very early material, and I have no clue.

    byzance, 24 Nov 2012

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