Begone Dull Care (1949) dir. Norman McLaren & Evelyn Lambart
Could this be the most “pure” example of cinema? McLaren and Lambart painted, sprinkled, stenciled, and collaged this short directly onto strips of film giving it a lively hands-on quality, even more than usual in an era where all animation was directly “hands-on” by necessity. This project comes almost a decade after Disney’s merging of animation and sound in Fantasia, though a half-century before that series incorporated jazz. The score is by renowned composer and performer Oscar Peterson, once called “the maharaja of the keyboard” by Duke Ellington.
Peterson and McLaren worked out the music and images in tandem before animation began and McLaren and Lambart came up with ways to visualize the final recording (like an oscilloscope) to give them cues when animating. You can really feel the interplay between the audio and visual, each informing the other to the point where it doesn’t feel like the audio is leading the picture so much as they’re playing with each other. For some sections the animators painted on or scratched the film in real time as it spooled past in front of them and allowing them to improvise, a common tool in jazz usually denied an animator.
This is one of many projects made via the National Film Board of Canada, and the link points to their YouTube channel where you can find many other wonderful works they commissioned over the years. They also had a hand in developing technical innovations that led to “direct cinema” and docudrama, and they more or less founded the IMAX film format. It’s possible for a government to have a positive hand in developing the arts when innovative human beings are hired and retained and grants and research are properly funded. Just throwing that out there.
Beyond that, it’s an experiential thing, tough to talk about it when it’s made to wash over you and transfer the joy and energy from the artists’ fingertips to your eyes and ears.
About the writer
C. D. Ploughman
The weary Ploughman is a writer and filmmaker, focusing these days on documentary and educational projects. He obsesses over movies with his very patient wife and children.
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What did we watch?
Always Sunny’s “Mac’s Mom Burns Her House Down” in honor of Lynne Marie Stewart as Charlie’s mom Bonnie. The best gag might be at the commercial break with the most rage-filled, cringe version of the Golden Girls theme possible. “LOOK AT HER!”
YouTube – Josh Johnson talking about the two astronauts stuck in space, which then led to some great standup about his time spent working in a grocery store in not just a BAD neighborhood, he emphasizes, but a truly weird one.
Doctor Who, “The War Games,” parts five to eight – A bit more padding in this section of the serial, but not all that much given what a typical Pertwee six parter was like. And the portrayal of 19th century Mexican “bandits” leaves a bit to be desired. But overall things really keep moving as there is dissension in the bad guys’ ranks, as the good guys’ plans become ever more elaborate, and as viewers way back when hear the words “Time Lords” for the first time. Good stuff. Oh, and the Doctor briefly dawns a gas mask, which naturally leads me to say “are you my mummy?”
Frasier, “Fool Me Once, Shame on Me, Fool Me Twice…” – Frasier’s briefcase is stolen, and the thief then tricks Frasier so he can steal Frasier’s car, too! The overall theme of this is that Frasier really wants to believe people are not inherently bad, but the final act where he confronts the thief finally sets him straight. A messy if funny half hour, with a delightful Sideshow Bob level rant to close things. And with Nathan Lane as the thief, giving a wonderful Nathan Lane sort of performance.
I’m Still Here – A gripping drama about perseverance during a government bent on punishing its own people and keeping them fearful to speak out. Did I say drama? Maybe an instructional video. Its best section is the set-up showing a sometimes contentious but loving family without weighing down the good times while foreshadowing the bad. And there’s a cameo by a Brazilian luminary at the end that seems ridiculous to talk about in terms of awards – but maybe should be.
But the highlight is a fantastic performance throughout by Fernanda Torres as real-life figure Eunice Paula, a mother who chooses determination when the circumstances say roll over. Her inclination to resist feels so natural, in fact, it maybe robs the movie of some dramatic tension when not portraying immediate threats. Still, a good portrait of the courage in smiling when the powers that be say to frown.
St. Denis Medical, “Some Famous Internet Guy”
I wrote a lot about this one because I left a long comment on Caroline Siede’s writeup at Episodic Medium (she’s done a good job covering the show), so I just mostly transposed that here.
Colby Twill, apparently popular musician with the children, is playing a free concert for the pediatric ward of St. Denis, and a reporter from the Portland paper is attending. Joyce is determined to get the hospital some good coverage, so she tries to make sure it goes off without a hitch. Meanwhile, Alex’s daughter Ella is a big Colby Twill fan too, so Alex uses her day off to bring Ella to the concert to show she’s still the cool, fun mom who has a good relationship with her daughter even as her daughter is growing up and becoming more independent. However… Ron notices a lump on Colby’s neck that might be thyroid cancer, and he insists they inform him; Colby can’t play with that on his mind, so while he’s getting a CT scan and MRI, Joyce desperately tries anything she can think of to keep the crowd engaged and keep the reporter from leaving before Colby goes on.
“Colby Twill, baby. Yeah, my niece got me into him. She has a bunch of emotional problems, so she’s really into the internet. And now I’m actually meeting him, and she’s so pissed. …Should I have invited her? Eh, she’s a lot.”
Bruce being such a big Colby Twill fan and roasting his niece there was one of the funniest moments of the episode. That also plays great into this whole side of the story, both with Bruce fanning out over and trying to monopolize Colby, and later when on stage Colby thanks Ron instead of Bruce.
And I really liked Ron this episode– feels like we see a different side of him here, a moral dimension maybe we didn’t before. That being that he does prioritize his real work, patient care, to the point of insisting Colby get the tests right away *and* using Joyce’s fanning out for Colby to get a bunch of people care they need but can’t afford. Also, a couple of very funny reaction-shot moments from Ron, first when Joyce says “This isn’t an ordinary day. Today what you do matters,” and second when Joyce changes her tune on Colby’s care once she realizes the cameras are watching… and Ron looks where she’s looking to see if that is, in fact, why she changed her mind.
Oddly, one of the plots that didn’t work for me that well was one of the most grounded– Alex and Ella, probably because the story felt so much like it’s been done before. Maybe sitcom parents all need a seminar on how kids growing into teenagers start to pull away from their parents. This even felt like it had been done quite frequently before on a Justin Spitzer show– this same conflict was the driving force of so many of the Amy-Emma plots on that show. (Geez, even the names are similar.)
Joyce going nuts after Serena and the journalist get the crowd going was funny. The Portland-guys joke was pretty easy, but it was funny to see it play out exactly as Serena predicted. BTW, great freeze-frame headline on the newspaper Joyce holds up at the beginning when she mentions the last time they were in the paper was on page 19– “Another Twin Mix-Up at St. Denis.”
As an erstwhile standup (which is to say I performed a lot more when I was younger and had the kind of lack of responsibilities that made it easy), as soon as someone, anyone, brought up their standup set, I knew that wasn’t going to go well. I mean, look, I can do a pretty solid 10, maybe even stretch it to 15 with some crowd work or fleshing out a couple of bits a little more. And none of it would’ve been appropriate for children. And from what I know of standups by experience, I can think of very few who would be.
And while I wasn’t sure what to expect from Colby Twill’s music, the reveal was a bit of a hilarious penny drop, because I was like– oh, yeah, he’s popular with children, of course this is what his songs are like.
Shoresy, “Go Where You’re Needed”
Season finale, I assume. (Hey, Americans can now legitimately catch season 4 on Hulu as of yesterday!) Dolo, Gordy, and Hitch get into Weird Sudbury… and it’s the same night as some dance for the Sudbury Lakers (the junior team they’ve been working with this summer), that they’ve coordinated a group dance with them and everything. So they have to choose, with some pressure from Nat to stick by the Lakers, that they’ve celebrated their victory long enough. And maybe Shoresy’s work with both his Blueberry Bulldogs and the Lakers has revealed to him what the next step in his career should be. Anyway, good episode; ultimately, the final plot turns are unsurprising, but it’s still very funny along the way.
Mythic Quest, “The Fish and the Whale”
The poker in this episode seemed reasonable as far as these things go. Brad and David’s meta-chess game adds a fun element to it, especially since David so rarely gets one over on Brad (or anyone). Fun to see David more in his element with his new guy friends.
Meanwhile, as part of Brad’s master plan, the ladies at the office throw Poppy a baby shower, and David gets her a “surprise” gift by inviting her sister… who totally sucks. Seeing the rest of the MQ team stand up to her was one of the more heartwarming moments of this show. I totally get it, Poppy (both on the shitty-sibling front and how much it means when people stick up for you when nobody ever does).
She has a bunch of emotional problems, so she’s really into the internet.
Ha. To quote a now-aged meme, I came here to have a good time and I’m honestly feeling so attacked right now.
Resident Alien, start of season 2. It’s very funny when a show has child actors and a day is supposed to pass between episodes but in actual life a year passes. It’s even funnier when you have two kid actors and one gets a big growth spurt and the other doesn’t, which is super predictable if you have a boy and a girl the same age. You got Max and Sahar, with Max being one of the only people who see Tudyk as an alien. Sahar was the same size as Max and now she’s a foot taller. They’re trying to hide it with perspective and making her slouch. The only thing funnier is when pregnant actresses have to always be holding something in front of their bellies. Frankly you should just roll with it. If something happens between seasons, like a growth spurt or pregnancy just keep going as if it didn’t. New scar? Amputation? Died and was recast? go with it.
The Shield did just that, which was pretty funny. The show is seven seasons, but the timeline of the story is only about three years or so. Autumn Chiklis (Michael Chiklis’ daughter) played Vic’s daughter Cassidy, and she was 7 when the show started and 14 when it ended. Not only that, but after hitting her growth spurt she was also very tall– I think she was taller than Chiklis in that final season. (She’s also talked on commentary about how she’s just a complete outlier from the rest of her family in that regard.)
So instead of just pretending Cassidy aged at the same rate of the show, in the final season they were just like “Well, I guess we can tell high school stories about Cassidy now.”
M*A*S*H, Season One, Episode Twelve, “Dear Dad”
As the name implies, this is the first real “character writes a letter home” episode, where Hawkeye’s narration serving as a connective tissue to a looser thread of themes rather than plot. This pulls on two big strengths of the show: memorable comic setpieces and a clear-eyed sense of their characters. In fact, I’m amused that this fills out time with a few scenes they generally use, like Margaret and Frank being, uh, together before discovering pranks left by Hawkeye and Trapper. I enjoy that it has a small arsenal of ideas to pull on whenever they need to fill space; weirdly, it feels ‘professional’.
One of the famous setpieces is when Henry has to give a lecture on sex, and faces the three problems of a) weak abstinence-heavy material, b) a crowd that is both hostile and already well-informed on the subject, give or take a Radar, and c) being a shy performer, so to speak. I’m especially intrigued by the weak material; it’s an easy potshot this show would absolutely take, to suggest the Standard Education is bad, but that’s absolutely based on a truth and works well with its anti-bureaucracy approach.
We also get a great moment where Father Mulcahey deliberately undermines the System to do good, when Klinger and Frank get into a conflict and Mulcahey has to talk down Klinger from using a, uh, grenade on him. Mulcahey, thinking fast, covers up Klinger’s initial king-hit and uses his status as priest to guilt an MP into looking the other way; inarguably a corrupt action and inarguably to good results.
A great kickoff to the “letter home” episodes. I’m always impressed by how clearly Hawkeye’s dad comes through as a character, just from Hawkeye’s letters to, anecdotes about, and obvious adoration of him.
Hawkeye’s complete, unconditional love for his dad is one of his most endearing traits in a man full of them.
Oh, that’s where Aaron Sorkin got the “letter home” idea from.
“For some sections the animators painted on or scratched the film in real time as it spooled past in front of them and allowing them to improvise, a common tool in jazz usually denied an animator.”
Fortunately Canada’s robust health care system was available to address the severe strain on the animators’ wrists.
And this looks great, will check out later!
Year of the Month update!
March is going to be Silent Era Month, where you can join these writers in examining your favorite silent movies and anything else from the 1910s and ’20s!
Mar. 4th: Lauren James: The Most Dangerous Game
Mar. 10th: Sam Scott: The Passion of Joan of Arc
Mar. 20th: Cori Domschot: Steamboat Bill, Jr.
Mar. 24th: Tristan J. Nankervis – Birth of a Nation
Mar. 26th: Sam Scott: Peter and Wendy by J.M. Barrie
Mar. 27th: Lauren James: The Well of Loneliness
Mar. 31st: John Anderson: The Lodger: A Story of the London Fog
And in April, we’ll be movin’ on up to 1999, so you can write about any of these movies, albums, books, et al!
Apr. 16th: Sam Scott: Spongebob Season 1, Wakko’s Wish, Elmo in Grouchland, and/or Bartok the Magnificent