Film title:
Norman McLaren: The Master's Edition
Release date:
Out now.
Norman McLaren is one of Scotland's great artistic exports. The protégé of John Grierson, he expanded the boundaries of cinema - specifically animation - with his work for the GPO Film Unit and then more famously with the National Film Board of Canada. This new Master's Edition (to be followed up by a theatrical tour of some of his films) is the most comprehensive collection of an artist's work this reviewer has ever seen, comprising seven discs collating fifty years of work into themes inspired by his styles and collaborators. The accompanying handbook further indexes the films alphabetically and chronologically, and the DVD menus are a joy to behold. As for the films themselves, they are nothing less than a meeting point of the histories of art and film - from documentaries of a day at the Art School to experiments in literally painting music onto film. In short, what DVD was invented for. [Alec McLeod]
Release Date: Out now.