THE SCREEN

Norman McLaren. It's commendable that Currier House has put up-front about this thing and announced that they're showing a program of this guy's films, which usually have a way of sneaking up and ambushing unsuspecting movie bills.

Norman McLaren made short films for the Canadian National Film Board for many years, films with names like Fiddie-De-Dee and Hoppity-Pop and Blinkety Blank. He is highly acclaimed by some as a pioneer in experimental cinema--particularly of the stop-motion technique. Other titles by McLaren include Dots and Loops, Boogie Doodie and A Chairy Tale. I've only seen one of these little nightmares, the one most commonly shown in this country, something called Pas de Deux. In fact, I must have seen it 300 times--it seems like everytime I settle back for some good light feature the distant toot of panpipes (Panpipes!) is heard and this "short" comes on for what seems like days. The content of this vicious bummer is two silouetted dancers--white tights moving slowly in the darkness. The man-figure tippy-toes over to the woman-figure, who keeps darting away and eluding him at the last moment. Several years later, the dancers get together while the "haunting" sounds continue, and eventually their white shadows begin to blur their outlines and unfold in streaks of light that look like tungsten trickles. And this goes on and on and on...

Gone With The Wind. Unlike Birth of A Nation, Gone With The Wind had the advantage of sound to make its point about blacks: "QUITTIN' TIME!" "Who dat say 'Quittin time'? I'se de boss; I tells yawl when's quittin' time--QUITTIN' TIME!"

Cheisea Girls, or the first part of it, will be shown tonight at Carpenter Center, accompanied by a lecture by New York film critic Stephen Koch, on Warhol, Filmmaker. An interesting question.