Hell Unltd - rare screening of film by Helen Biggar and Norman McLaren

Glasgow Film Theatre is hosting a really exciting event to mark International Women’s Day to highlight the importance of women artists based in Glasgow to protest movements.  They will be screening Hell Unltd, a film by Helen Biggar and Norman McLaren, with a specially commissioned live score performed by Kim Moore (Zoey van Goey) and Gareth Griffiths.  In addition they’re showing Traces Left (1983) ‘a documentary about the Glasgow art and political scene in the 1930s and 40s’. I only wish I could get up to Glasgow to see it!

Their focus is on Helen Biggar (1909 – 1953), a Glasgow School of Art graduate who in 1936 created the important anti-war film Hell Unltd with Norman McLaren.  The film is a real call-to-action to everyone to actively oppose war and is as effective now, in my view, as it was then.  I know we see images of the horror of war every day and you could say that we’ve become anaesthetised or immune to it but for me this film reminds us all that we can play a part in opposing war, and it brings home the disparities between Government spending on armaments versus education, health, culture etc.  

In childhood Helen Biggar suffered from a number of illnesses but she succeeded in gaining admission to Glasgow School of Art at the age of 16 in 1925.  She worked in filmmaking, sculpture and theatre design and was very involved in politics.  She was part of Glasgow Kino, an organisation I hadn’t heard of before, who toured films to raise funds for the Spanish Republican cause.  From 1938 onwards she designed stage shows for the Glasgow Workers’ Theatre Group. She moved to London in 1945 and from 1950 she was wardrobe mistress and costume designer for Ballet Rambert.  She died, young, of a brain haemorrhage in 1953.* 

Helen Biggar sounds like a fascinating individual and I wish there were more resources about her online. Where is her archive? Why isn’t she better known? Annoyingly some references I’ve found to Hell Unltd refer to it as a ‘Norman McLaren’ film completely ignoring the fact that it was made as one of many collaborations between McLaren and Biggar.  There is a good biography of her on the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography but if you don’t have a subscription for that there is a shortened biography on IMDB.

If you end up going to this event at the GFT I‘d love to hear how it went!

Related archives:

I can’t find any information online about the papers of Helen Biggar, maybe they are at Glasgow School of Art, maybe they are in London somewhere, or maybe they are still with family?

Norman McLaren archive at the University of Stirling Archives

Norman McLaren archive material at The National Film Board of Canada

The National Film Board of Canada also has some of Norman McLaren’s films available to watch online  

*Biographical information taken from the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography.

Finding Norman

Staying on the subject of Norman McLaren. I just remembered about a Student Radio Broadcast project which my colleagues and friends Karl Magee and Sarah Neely had been part of whilst I was at Stirling, called 'Finding Norman'.  You can listen to the broadcast on the Stirling Film, Media and Journalism YouTube page. The narrator, a student at Stirling Uni is talking about 'Norman' a show I was lucky enough to see at the MacRobert Arts Centre in Stirling - I wrote a wee preview of the show here. 



Karl Magee gives some background about Norman McLaren and does a bit of promotion for the archive!  There is an excerpt of Norman McLaren talking in the radio broadcast and he says that 'if all his films had to be destroyed except one I would choose Neighbours'.  Of course, I wouldn't want any of his films to be destroyed but I think it's interesting he chose Neighbours.  It's a superb film and the anti-war message is put across so brilliantly - maybe they should show this film to world leaders who are all too eager to start fights and wars with each other!

Watch Me Move

This is me playing a bit of catch up again but I was thinking about it this morning when I woke up so thought it was time to post about 'Watch me Move: the Animation Show' - an exhibition currently showing at the Barbican in London. It's on until the 11th September and I'm really hoping I'll have time to go back and see it again as I found out after that there were things I missed, and lots I'd like to see again.



Although the first section downstairs was maybe a bit too busy in terms of the number and proximity of the screens at the same time I think it was necessary to give an overview of the development of animation over time.  As a few of the reviews mentioned, I too liked that equal space was given to many of the early pioneers as to the biggies like Pixar, Studio Ghibli, Steven Spielberg etc.  Then upstairs, oh wow, upstairs is just a complete treat for the senses! So many amazing artists are represented - one's that stick out in my memory were: -

• Chuck Jones Duck Amuck, 1953 - this was so funny! Everyone in the room watching it when I was there were laughing the whole way through, it left you with a nice warm fuzzy feeling.  It also reminded me of the anticipation as a small child of watching the Disney show at the weekends, or knowing that when we went to stay over at our Gran's house she would have compilations tapes of cartoons for us to watch, which we would watch and laugh at, over and over again.
• Len Lye (I can't remember which one it was sorry)
• Tim Burton - a fantastic short called 'Vincent' which I watched through twice, it was so good
• Stan Brakhage The Dante Quartet, 1987 - shown on 16mm - always a treat in itself to see!
• And last, but by no means least, Neighbours by Normal McLaren.  I feel so privileged to have had the opportunity to look through his archive when I was working at Stirling University Archive.  To see his paintings and print work and his beautiful handwritten and sometimes hand illustrated letters home to his parents was a real treat.  I know I could watch Neighbours on YouTube whenever I want but it doesn't compare to seeing it for real, even when it is shown on a scereen in the corridor, as it was here.

There was a Harry Smith film too but I managed to miss that somehow - definetly need to try and squeeze in another visit to this before it finishes!

4D performance using an Archive setting

'4D' was a term which confused me slightly - I wasn't quite sure what it meant in the context of a dance-based performance piece. What it meant was a quite breathtaking show which was a wonderful and very fitting tribute to the Scots-born film director Norman McLaren.

The dancer/choreographer of the show Peter Trosztmer is on stage for pretty much the entire length of the performance (running at 1 hour 40 minutes) which is impressive in itself - well it certainly seems it to a non-dance expert like myself! The show is his tribute to Norman McLaren and the performance is based around a narrative set in the Archives of the National Film Board of Canada. Through this we see and hear the impact that the work of Norman McLaren had on Trosztmer. I'm not sure how it's done but the effect we get is of Trosztmer dancing within and in perfect time with the films, of him talking to people he interviewed about Mclaren (but the people are projected images rather than actual presences). I don't think my description of it are doing justice to the effect of the performance - it's definitely something to see if you get the chance.

The music is amazing throughout, particular favourites of mine remain 'Begone Dull Care', 'Boogie Doodle' and 'Lines Horizontal' (the original music from 'Lines Horizontal', by Pete Seeger wasn't used in the performance but the music that was used fitted the scenario better I think - although I do love the Seeger score!). Having just looked at some letters which McLaren sent home to his parents which are in our Archive here at Stirling I was struck by references to events discussed in the letters. For example the film 'A Phantasy' which is very surrealist in style, reminding me of Dali and also of De Chirico, was explained as being a reaction to McLaren's experience of the Spanish Civil War. I had just read a letter he sent home to his parents in which he discussed the hardships of life for the people in the Spanish countryside where he was staying, he discussed the lack of food and the need for change to the system. However nowhere does he indicate the traumatic affect which the brutality of Franco's soldiers was having on him. He obviously didn't want to worry his parents - a natural instinct we all share! Instead the trauma came out through this work 'A Phantasy' - this was the first time I'd thought of it in this light and it made it even more moving. Likewise 'Neighbours' is a statement against war, I had picked this up, it would be hard not to, but I didn't know it was to do with him having experience the Spanish Civil War, then his experiences of China when the Korea War broke out. The more I watch the film the more moving it is. Here's a promotional sheet for 'Neighbours' from the Norman McLaren Archive at the National Film Board of Canada, taken from their 'Focus on Animation' webpages.

Neighbors : An Academy Award Film. 1952. One-sheet : 1 page : 28 x 21.5 cm
© National Film Board of Canada. Reproduced with permission of the NFB

I feel so lucky to have seen this show at it's only Scottish venue at the MacRobert Arts Centre here at Stirling University.

'Norman' - show combining dance, performance and film returns to the MacRobert Arts Centre

I missed this show the first time it came to Stirling so I'm really looking forward to seeing it next month. On a recent trip to Stirling Council Archives (where our Norman McLaren Archive is being stored whilst the University library refurbishment continues) I was lucky to get the chance to look through his letters home from Canada to his parents in Stirling. I only got a chance to read a few but it's whetted my appetite for more. The ones I read were from 1939 and talk about the long journey on the boat from the UK to New York, and then the excitement of his first few months in New York. I'll need to go back for another look (once I get my conference paper for Los Angeles written, it could be my reward - well, in addition to a night out and some nice wine of course!). Anyhoo - to get back to the point of my blog post and off my ramblings - Norman! The whole concept of the show sounds really intriguing. The dancer/choreographer Peter Trosztmer interacts with the films of Norman McLaren on a visit to the offices of the National Film Board of Canada (where McLaren worked).




Created by Michel Lemieux and Victor Pilon of lemieux.pilon 4d with Peter Trosztmer. here's some information from the lemieux.pilon 4d website about the show.

"This production bridges the gap between performance and documentary filmmaking. Peter screens interviews made with people who knew McLaren and his work; these witnesses materialize out of thin air and appear onstage to guide Peter in his exploration, sharing their knowledge and feelings about the filmmaker. A selection of about thirty works from McLaren’s corpus, some of them never released, underline the testimonies and allow Peter to communicate what he's learned, sometimes verbally, sometimes simply through the dance that links him to the films. McLaren once said that if he hadn't been a filmmaker, he would have been a choreographer; this show uses movement (of light, of images, of the body) as a way to access his creative world.

As I haven't seen the show yet here's a link to a review from Peter Dickinson's blog 'Performance, Place and Politics' from a performance of Norman in Montreal May 2009.

Below are some images of the corridor outside my office where a number of drawings, prints, photographs and paintings from the Norman McLaren Collection are on display (sorry they're pretty poor quality photos as the light isn't great, and I'm not that good a photographer!)

For information on how to book for the shows see the MacRobert Arts Centre.

Exhibition at the Changing Room, Stirling

Art is not a mirror, its a hammer!

An exploration of the John Grierson and Norman McLaren Archives.
11 July - 5 September 2009

The result of a collaborative project, this exhibition will feature film and archival material selected by artists Katy Dove, Luke Fowler and archivist Karl Magee.

Grierson and McLaren film screening

4 September 2009, 7.00pm

Featuring Hitchcock on Grierson

Please join us for the screening of Hitchcock on Grierson Alfred Hitchcocks tribute to the famous documentary maker John Grierson televised in 1965. Courtesy of STV

Refreshments will be served. This event is free but please call Tolbooth Box Office on 01786 27 4000 to book tickets, as space is limited.

Art and Archives

There is a two-day conference coming up at the Monash Centre in Prato, Italy, 'Archive/Counter Archive', which sounds really interesting. The aim of the conference is to offer "fresh thinking and dialogues on the current relations between contemporary art and the archive. The focus of the conference has been shaped by the ways artists are responding to the archive, but also by the histories - and future possibilities - of practices of collecting and drawing" (quote from the announcement about the conference on Art & Education, link as above). It's not something that is really a part of my current job, hence the reason I'll be in Scotland in July and not Italy, but it's a use of Archives that seems to be increasingly common - or maybe it's always been there and it's just that I'm looking for it now. If anyone is going I'd love to hear about it!

Although I said it's not part of my job, working with artists is something that has been going on for some time now at Stirling University Archives. The Archivist Karl Magee has worked with The Changing Rooms Gallery in Stirling in the past and there is another exhibition coming up which I'm pretty excited about. It is an exhibition about John Grierson and Norman McLaren entitled 'Art is not a mirror, it's a hammer!' (an oft-quoted line by John Grierson). The exhibition is still in the planning stages but going by the information below it is going to be a great show

"Launching a long-term project with artists Katy Dove, Simon Yuill and Luke Fowler The Changing Room is working with the University of Stirling to investigate their Grierson and McLaren archives and develop new work in web, music and film. The exhibition presents an exploration of the lives of Stirling born filmmakers Norman McLaren and John Grierson as a starting point for the contemporary artists’ new works.
John Grierson, the ‘father of documentary’ and Norman McLaren, an Oscar-winning experimental filmmaker, animator and artist were brought up in Stirling and both attended Stirling High School. Grierson’s contribution to the development of film is well documented but he also had an important role in shaping McLaren’s career. In 1935, when McLaren was a student at the Glasgow School of Art, he won first prize at the Scottish Amateur Film Festival from a jury led by Grierson. The following year Grierson invited him to London to work in the creative hothouse that was the GPO film unit. Several years later Grierson brought McLaren to Canada and set him up with his own studio and full artistic freedom at the National Film Board, which Grierson had established in 1941. A string of international awards for McLaren’s pioneering, experimental work followed including an Oscar for his film Neighbours in 1953."

Both the John Grierson Archive and the Norman McLaren Archive are held at the University of Stirling. I have included an image below from the Norman McLaren Archive as it's such a beautiful letter, and a wonderful example of the wealth of material in the Archives. I love how he finishes the letter "P.S. the fighting is nowhere near this place" - I wonder if his reassurances to his mother worked, probably not!

Letter from Norman McLaren to his mother whilst he was in China, 1949
© Norman McLaren Collection, University of Stirling