Street Musique

Street Musique is an animated short film by Ryan Larkin produced by the National Film Board of Canada (NFB) and released in 1972. It is a line animation of "music as performance",[1] in which actions of the film's characters are choreographed to the music of street musicians.[2]

Street Musique
DVD cover for the film
Directed byRyan Larkin
Produced byRyan Larkin
Music byRick Scott, Dick Tarnoff, Rick Stone, Rick Watson, Jim Colby, Jon Van Arsdell
Production
company
Release date
  • 1972 (1972)
Running time
8 min. 45 sec.
CountryCanada

Soon after returning from the 42nd Academy Awards in 1970, for which his animated short film Walking had been nominated, Larkin was loaned by the NFB to a Vancouver art school, where he stayed for eight months conducting animation workshops.[3] He would travel to each student's studio to direct them, one of which was a group of street musicians.[3] These street musicians were the origin of the idea for the film, as Larkin had stated that "they would make a great focal point for my abstract images".[3]

One of the figures in the film

The film consists of five or six vaguely defined segments whose animation matches the pace of the music to which it is set.[3] It begins with a photograph of a musician that is replaced by a line drawing of that photograph.[4] A transition leads to images of a man's body transforming into abstract improvisational forms using line shading and watercolours.[5][6] The figures undergo a continuous metamorphosis throughout the film.[3] Chris Robinson stated that the film's awkward ending is indicative of Larkin's creative hesitancy, as the last image is a figure waiting for music.[3] Larkin said that he "ran out of ideas" and "didn't know how to end the film".[3]

Street Musique won the Grand Prize at the Melbourne International Film Festival in 1973, which included a cash prize of A$2,500 from the Government of Victoria in Australia.[7] The film also received the Jury's First Prize at the Berlin Film Festival of Animated Films.[8][9] Larkin was fond of the Melbourne International Film Festival award because Street Musique "was a ten minute film up against all kinds of complicated feature films".[3] He used the prize money to support young artists in Montreal, to whom he rented his nine-room apartment for C$100.[10]

In 2000, after having lived on the streets in Montreal and spending his nights at the Old Brewery Mission, Larkin met Chris Robinson.[11][12] During a discussion, Larkin told Robinson that after creating Street Musique, he was bereft of ideas for new projects.[13] Robinson invited Larkin to be a member of the selection committee for the Ottawa International Animation Festival.[14] The other three members were Chris Landreth, Pjotr Sapegin, and Andrei Svislotksi,[15] none of whom were aware of Larkin's identity.[16] After reviewing selections, they screened each other's films.[17] Larkin was last, showing Walking, Street Musique, and Syrinx.[17] Landreth was immediately inspired to create a documentary film about Larkin's life, which became Ryan.[18] The animated documentary incorporated in their entirety Street Musique and Walking.[19] Larkin's character in Ryan is animated to dance with characters from Street Musique.[20]

Notes
  1. Evans 1991, p. 197.
  2. Pillon 1983, p. 236.
  3. Robinson 2005, p. 101.
  4. Armitage 2011, p. 77.
  5. Armitage 2011, p. 78.
  6. Previews 1976.
  7. The Age 1973, p. 2.
  8. Cinémathèque québécoise 1971, p. 14.
  9. Cowie 1974, p. 387.
  10. Robinson 2005, p. 102.
  11. Dixon 2005.
  12. Robinson 2009, p. 105.
  13. Robinson 2009, p. 106.
  14. Robinson 2007, p. 259.
  15. Teninge 2000.
  16. Stone 2007.
  17. Robertson 2004.
  18. Singer 2004.
  19. Martinelli 2012, p. 62.
  20. Robinson 2007, p. 262.

References
  • Armitage, John, ed. (2011). Virilio Now: Current Perspectives in Virilio Studies. Polity. ISBN 9780745648781.
  • Cowie, Peter (1974). International Film Guide 1974.
  • Dixon, Guy (25 February 2005). "NFB hopefuls clutch hot tickets". The Globe and Mail. Retrieved 2 February 2014.
  • Evans, Gary (1991). In the National Interest: A Chronicle of the National Film Board of Canada from 1949 to 1989. University of Toronto Press. ISBN 0802068332.
  • Martinelli, Lawrence Thomas (July 2012). Il documentario animato. Un nuovo genere di racconto del reale e i suoi protagonisti internazionali [The animated documentary. A new kind of account of the real and its international protagonists] (in Italian). Latina: Tunué. ISBN 9788897165446.
  • Pillon, Nancy Bach (1983). Reaching Young People Through Media. Libraries Unlimited. ISBN 0872873692.
  • Robertson, Barbara (July 2004). "Psychorealism". Computer Graphics World. 27 (7).
  • Robinson, Chris (2005). Unsung Heroes of Animation. John Libbey Publishers. ISBN 0861966651.
  • Robinson, Chris (2007). The Animation Pimp. Cengage Learning. ISBN 9781435457935.
  • Robinson, Chris (2009). Ballad of a Thin Man: In Search of Ryan Larkin. Cengage Learning. ISBN 9781598639087.
  • Singer, Gregory (4 June 2004). "Landreth on 'Ryan'". Animation World Network. Retrieved 4 January 2014.
  • Stone, M.J. (12 March 2007). "Ryan Larkin, filmmaker and derelict, 1943-2007". The Globe and Mail. Retrieved 4 January 2014.
  • Teninge, Annick (18 July 2000). "Canadian Animators Lead The Pack At Ottawa 00". Animation World Network. Retrieved 4 January 2014.
  • New Canadian Film. 3. Cinémathèque québécoise, Cinémathèque canadienne. Cinémathèque québécoise. 1971.CS1 maint: others (link)
  • Previews. R. R. Bowker Company. 5. 1976. Missing or empty |title= (help)
  • "Canadian film tops festival". The Age. 11 June 1973. p. 2.
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