Interacting with McLaren

The handling of Norm McLaren's interview in Cinema de Notre Temps was entirely appropriate to what we've been discussing and looking at these past few weeks. It was my first time seeing it and I was really blown away with how they incorporated intervals of McLaren's own imagery and sounds into the piece. The filmmakers decision to abandon the traditional sound format and framing engaged my senses on both a conscious and a subconscious level. For most of the film McLaren's head is framed within a circle that floats around almost as if it is enticing other colors and images to interact with him. In some parts it looked to me like a cell or microorganism under a microscope growing and reacting to the other particles around it. The movement of McLaren's bubble then triggered an exterior action that the viewer is forced to process while still paying attention to the interview within the bubble. Another plateau intersects when little animated circles begin to dance around McLaren's head, and these tiny circles of motion explore the space and playfully interact with McLaren as our levels of perception continue to be challenged. This happens again when the outline of McLaren's shape freezes and the image of the man is replaced by dancing animations and sounds, while the library interview room remains as if to reassure us we haven't completely lost our sense of normality within this spectrum. Suddenly a title will confront us, "CAMERA MAKES WHOOPEE" and its forceful interruption demands we take it seriously (much like a Godard film). I thought the way the filmmakers constantly toyed with our senses was quite effective and engaging. Sound also played an enormous role in this film and it is also worth discussing in its own right. At one point in the interview McLaren says, "emotion has to be expressed through the quality of motion" and I think both Cinema de Notre Temps and McLaren's entire body of work are active representations of this statement.