fiddybop

Yes, this is one of the great Canadian shorts, etc. etc.

I'm more interested in why someone could find this film boring, insisting that one had to have an interest in the dance and/or music in order to find something to like about it.

I'm not a "dance person" myself and in fact admittedly rarely have anything to do with dance performance, dance films, etc. This film is not about the dancing, though.

It's about human movement in particular, with the form of this dance being used as a means to a much more imaginative end. By utilizing dance as a mode of discovering the beauty of human grace and movement, McLaren can explore these movements in fascinating ways, using optical printing to trail print or multiple-expose their movements, using still imagery as well.

The result is an effect of three-dimensionalizing the movements (not the dancers, who are obviously already 3-D) - giving substance and shape to otherwise intangible, time-sensitive events. This film is just as incredible and breathtaking as the chrono-photographs of Etienne Jules-Marey, and in fact Pas de Deux is very much a brother of Marey's work. McLaren even lit his dancers similarly to Marey's subjects, to get an almost line-drawing effect from his subjects.

To dwell on the dance itself and whether or not you "like it" is completely missing the point of McLaren's filmmaking and artistry here. He had an incredible sense of the potential for movement and beauty, often to be found in unique and unlikely places.

See this film at all costs and try to look beyond the dance content/music content (if that bothers you), and you will hopefully find that Norman McLaren created a masterpiece in his exploration of time and motion, mined entirely from the particularly graceful movements of ballet dancers.

The user who commented that Lucas's LOOK AT LIFE film pioneered rapid montage obviously hasn't seen the films of Bruce Conner or Joseph Cornell. These were the true pioneers. Check their films out instead. Lucas has in interviews given huge credit to and cited great influence from the actual pioneering American independent and experimental filmmakers like James Broughton, Sidney Peterson, Stan Brakhage, Bruce Conner, and Kenneth Anger. These films were shown/taught to him in his school days at USC and he had been exposed to them as a part of the vibrant '60s San Francisco independent film scene.

George is no slouch of a filmmaker, certainly, and pioneered things in his own right that are big parts of today's film and pop culture, but let's not give him credit that's not due him, especially when people like Broughton and the others I've mentioned have consistently been ignored by mainstream film enthusiasts.

Sorry folks, this one's a big loser in my opinion. It's apparently making the festival circuit, which is where I saw it (SFIFF), and I wanted to speak out against this unfortunate phenomenon: the really bad but slickly made festival short.

These films tend to get attention because of their surfacey, superficial flashiness. For instance, this film is in 35mm 'Scope, with a multi-layered stereo soundtrack, and visuals that practically scream at you that they're trying to be artsy and provocative.

Well, hopefully the thin veneer of "creativity" in the guise of skin-deep filmmaking tricks doesn't work on everybody, although it disturbed me that the film seemed to get some enthusiastic applause from portions of the audience.

Back to this film, "Inside".

The film depicts a man suffering multiple personality disorder being interviewed by a nurse who's trying to reach him behind all of his intrusive personalities. I can just imagine the director saying to himself one day, "Wouldn't it be cool if we made a film about a guy with multiple personality disorder, but we actually have characters portraying the respective personalities that only he and the audience can see?!!" Is it just me, or is that the most obvious gimmick that comes to mind? Plus, didn't A BEAUTIFUL MIND do the same thing? (By the way, I'm sure this film was conceived before the Ron Howard movie even came out, but it makes my point that this device is a sadly predictable one). Or does anyone remember a show years back called "Herman's Head" ??

The film is loaded with cliches (padded room, each personality is just a broadly defined archetype, a twist ending that makes us all groan and think of Sixth Sense or any Twilight Zone episode, etc.) The filmmaking is really ostentatious, super-self-important, and inflated way beyond its wafer-thin concept. It looked like one of those commercials or music videos that take on a faux-"cinematic" look but end up being more amusing for their pretensions than cinematically artistic or even dynamic.

Sorry to come down so hard, but criticism keeps the quality up, I hope. I'm anxious to see what others have thought who may have seen this film (as well as the filmmaker(s), perhaps?)