The Short Films of Canada, O Canada

Short films — say, 40 minutes maximum, tops — remain one of the great blind spots of most American audiences. After all, shorts don’t fit into the format of movies (80- or 90-minute features and up) or television (30-minute multiples on PBS, 20-some minutes elsewhere to allow for the paid filler). You can see animation and short-film festivals in larger cities or the art cinemas in smaller ones, but you’ve got to know what you’re going to spend ten bucks on or you won’t spend it, eh?

Aside: Yes, of course Pixar does wonderful short animations, and packages many of them to be released with feature-length films in theaters and/or on DVD. I’m just saying that in general, short films — those by film-school students aside — don’t have much of a noticeable profile here.

So our understanding here of what to expect from short films is shaped by what’s delivered in cartoons, or in fill-in-the-gap documentaries like those on Turner Classic Movies — keeping the audience in their seats until the next feature rolls around at the top of the hour. It’s as though short stories had very few outlets (well, okay, that’s not much of a stretch) — and for the outlets which existed, all stories had to be exact multiples of 3,000 words in length.

Naturally, since American audiences won’t ask for something they scarcely know exists, media outlets don’t provide it, so audiences remain ignorant, and then those audiences won’t… and so on. Less a vicious cycle, than a pernicious one.

Elsewhere, short-film traditions (like other kinds) have evolved differently. Which kinda makes sense, from a story-teller’s perspective: you tell the story completely, and when it’s done you stop, hmm?

I’ve read about the history of the National Film Board of Canada, both at Wikipedia and at the NFB’s own site, and must confess I still don’t know how, quite, the Board managed to “happen” as it did. Okay, I get that it was originally established as a propaganda unit, in 1939. In 1941, they brought in the Scot Norman McLaren to start an animation division, and given McLaren’s influence over the years — decades, really — I can see how animation became the bedrock of the NFB program. But why’d they want to establish an animation division in the first place? And how did establishing an animation division lead to the huge breadth of documentary and experimental films the NFB has produced over the years?

Mysteries, mysteries.

Anyway, I first learned of the NFB in college, in the early 1970s, as a result of one college’s award-winning film series and another’s film-appreciation courses. It was like one of those old manual can openers had been used to peel open my brain. Especially in those pre-CGI days, I’d never seen films like this:

A Chairy Tale (1957; 9:53 long): Norman McLaren directed, using pixilation to craft the story of a sitter and a reluctant seat.

Now, given McLaren’s involvement, even though the “cast” of the above is photographed and not drawn, you may understand that it’s considered animation. Of course, this doesn’t square with the movie-going US audience’s understanding of animation. But the NFB has done plenty of that sort, too.

Below, an Oscar-nominated animation by NFB of the “cartoon” sort. (Not exactly the stuff of, say, Popeye or Tom & Jerry — forewarned, forearmed, all that.)

The Big Snit (1985; 9:54 long): A couple has an argument, but finally reconciles in the best way possible: irreversibly, permanently, for good.

Now comes the news that the NFB has put its entire archives online for viewing. While I haven’t yet, for some reason, been able to view any of the films there, note that they’ve also opened up a more limited YouTube channel. (The sample above, however, come from the general public’s YouTube collection.)

[Thanks to BoingBoing and Nuts & Mutton for the news tidbit.]

Update, 2009-02-04: Here’s a recent Oscar-nominated animation from the NFB, at 17+ minutes apparently in its entirety: 2007′s Madame Tutli-Putli.