Ryan Larkin; filmmaker & derelict (GREAT)
Hyfler/Rosner
March 12, 2007 Monday
RYAN LARKIN, FILMMAKER AND DERELICT 1943-2007;
An animator who received an Oscar nomination at 26, he fell
into a life of panhandling on the streets of Montreal
BYLINE: M. J. STONE, Special to The Globe and Mail
Ryan Larkin and I were neighbours, of a sort. One day I was
strolling up St. Laurent Boulevard with a friend when I
spotted him in front of Schwartz's delicatessen. He thrust
out his hat and stammered, "Sp-pare any change?"
I dropped a few coins into his hat and we exchanged
pleasantries.
"Why did you do that?" my friend whispered, as we continued
on our way. "He's only going to waste the money on drugs and
alcohol."
"Right, but it's not every day that I get the chance to help
out an Academy Award nominee," I answered, which wasn't
quite true. I passed Ryan daily and he was always begging
for money.
My friend regarded me with disbelief, "I've seen that man
scream at people when they refuse to give him money. He was
nominated for an academy award?" She shook her head: "I
don't believe it."
He was an enigmatic genius with a Dionysian soul. Sometimes
tragic, sometimes glorious, Ryan Larkin was a man of
extremes. A protégé of both the Group of Seven painter
Arthur Lismer and of the iconic animator, Norman McLaren, he
was a shooting star brought down by cocaine.
To Robert Verrall, former boss of the National Film Board,
it is not useful to lament what Mr. Larkin might have
achieved.
"We should just be grateful for the films he did make," he
said. "The extraordinary result of thousands of drawings,
Walking is a potent example of how animated filmmaking
rewards the kind of compulsive behaviour that is so
destructive when directed into other areas of life."
Ryan Larkin grew up in Montreal beside Dorval airport, now
called Pierre Elliott Trudeau International. His father, an
airplane engineer, had the family home built just beyond the
end of the runway so that he could listen to the roar of
airplane engines as they passed just 30 metres overhead.
Although Mr. Larkin claimed to have had a typical
rock-'n-roll adolescence, his teenage years were anything
but ordinary. A frail child, he had developed a fondness for
beer at the age of 10 after a doctor recommended he drink a
pint of hearty stout daily to improve his constitution.
He soon developed more than a fondness for alcohol, said his
long-time friend, France Cooper. "By the age of 12, Ryan was
seeking homosexual encounters, meeting men while hitchhiking
from Dorval to Montreal."
In 1958, tragedy struck the Larkin family when his older
brother was killed in a boating accident. The boys had been
out on a boat which sank from under them. Young Ryan had
never learned to swim. "I was on the boat and was physically
unable to save his life."
Mr. Larkin had idolized his brother and described him as the
epitome of cool. "He drove a convertible and always had
girls around him. I looked like a greaser punk and was the
typical younger brother, always hanging out with him."
Sadly, the hero worship turned to guilt. "His death has
deeply scarred me . . . We were very close. It hit me very
hard."
Two years later, Mr. Larkin completed his studies with
Arthur Lismer at L'École des Beaux Arts and was hired by the
NFB. The impressionistic 19-year-old was apprenticed to the
master animator, Norman McLaren. While gathering hands-on
experience tracing story-boards for army and navy
educational films, Mr. Larkin developed a unique stop-frame
action technique involving charcoal drawings. He decided to
make a one-minute test film he called Cityscape.
Mr. McLaren, a 1952 Academy Award winner, was so impressed
by the film that Mr. Larkin was given a budget to make any
film he wanted.
Mr. Larkin said he spent a week wondering what he was going
to do. "Then one of Norman's friends presented me with a
solo flute piece called Syrinx by Claude Debussy and I knew
exactly what I wanted to do."
The result was an animated story of the god Pan and his
obsessive stalking of the wood nymph Syrinx. The film, which
Mr. Larkin naturally enough titled Syrinx, won awards all
over the world, including the grand prize at a children's
film festival in Iran.
Next up was the widely heralded Walking. An animated film
born out of Mr. Larkin's desire to capture human movement
with line drawing and colour wash, it was nominated for an
Academy Award in 1970, but lost to the Walt Disney short,
It's Tough to Be a Bird.
In 1972, he made Street Musique. More accolades followed and
with them developed Mr. Larkin's growing dependency on
cocaine.
"I had difficulty handling my ego when I was famous," he
said years later. "I've made a fool of myself. I chose to
deal with whatever psychological problems I had by using
cocaine. I had sexual proclivities, too - I was doing coke
and getting hard-ons instead of what I should have been
doing, which was making interesting, comical, beautiful
animation films."
Mr. Larkin's relationship with the NFB began to unravel. In
1975, he was asked to paint a huge mural on the wall of the
entrance foyer at NFB headquarters in Montreal. The
illustration of an adolescent boy with an erection wasn't
exactly what the film board had in mind and it was
immediately obliterated.
He said that the mural was meant to be a satirical
commentary on masculinity. "At the time there was a
year-long festival going on about women's rights. It was
supposed to be a comical relief from all their terrible,
self-conscious seriousness."
Lacking the focus and stamina to see a film through to its
completion, his tenure at the film board ended in 1977. Mr.
Larkin assumed that he could make a living as a painter, but
his life had begun to spiral out of control. By the
late-1980s he was a homeless vagabond seeking refuge at The
Old Brewery Mission on Rue Clark. Although he often joked
that his new life as a panhandler was performance art, the
bruises and black eyes he sometimes sported spoke otherwise.
Like Pan in his film Syrinx, Mr. Larkin had become lost to
his obsessions.
In 2000, he was thrust back into the public eye shortly
after he was invited to serve as a member of the
pre-selection committee for the Ottawa International
Animation festival.
Also on the committee was Chris Landreth, but neither he nor
the other members knew anything about the strange little man
from Montreal. Later, after Mr. Landreth discovered he was
the same filmmaker who had made Street Musique and Walking,
he was inspired to tell the Larkin story.
Using recorded interviews with Mr. Larkin as the basis for
an animated film, he made a computer-generated NFB
documentary called Ryan that is renowned for its astonishing
imagery.
The touching and emotionally wrenching film collected about
30 international prizes, including the 2005 Academy Award
for best animated short. In his acceptance speech, Mr.
Landreth dedicated the award to Mr. Larkin and said he would
never have received the award if it wasn't for "the grace
and humility of one guy watching in Montreal."
As it happened, Mr. Larkin watched the ceremonies at his
favourite bar. He was surrounded by friends and
well-wishers, and their cheering drowned out Mr. Landreth's
speech.
David Verrall, the executive producer of the film, said Mr.
Larkin possessed an amazing natural instinct for depicting
movement. "The works that he created here in his time at the
NFB are, I think, considered still to this day important
references for the art of animating."
After that, Mr. Larkin's work developed new interest. In
2006, he moved in with his manager-producer, Laurie Gordon,
and her husband. Work offers began to come his way and he
was hired by MTV Canada to animate a series of branded
station-identification "bumpers." He received full artistic
control to create several three- to five-second spots, and
was thrilled to be back at work. "I had fun and I'm proud to
be a part of the MTV creative team," he said.
With Ms. Gordon's help he began working on Spare Change, a
film about the vicissitudes of panhandling on the street. In
an interview in December, he allowed that everyone he knew
was demanding he make another animation film. "And that's
exactly what I'm doing," he said. "I've been doing some
drawings and concepts. It's based on some of my recent poems
. . . Laurie Gordon will provide the music and voices, and I
am hopefully going to be working with a good creative team
of computer graphic animators. It'll be anything but spare
change, I can tell you that."
The last time I saw Ryan Larkin was at Welch's used
bookstore on St. Laurent. It was one of his favourite
places. If he wasn't panhandling in front of Schwartz's, or
eating a much-loved meal of chicken wings at Mondo Frites,
he could always be found drinking beer at the Copacabana or
reclining on a sofa at the bookstore, reading a book and
stroking Welch's cat.
That day, the bookstore was crowded and he was standing near
the counter thumbing through a novel. He smiled and I asked
him how he was doing. Always the panhandler, he complained
about the rain and how it was hurting his prospects. He
turned doe-like eyes on me: "Do you think you can help me
out?"
I regarded him with skepticism. He had made a little money
with the Landreth film, and rumours abounded about his MTV
deal and the funding he had received for Spare Change.
"Ryan," I protested. "You probably have more money in the
bank than I do."
Suddenly his face turned sour and he stamped the "sympathy"
cane he used when panhandling.
"I don't have any money," he hollered theatrically.
Initially, I thought he genuinely hysterical and then I
realized that he wasn't speaking to me: He was playing to
the cheap seats. Ever the performer, he began working the
customers in the store by ranting about his difficulties. At
first I felt a little put off by his performance, but then a
mischievous grin curled across his long, flat face. He
winked at me and I couldn't help but laugh.
Ryan Larkin was born
in Montreal on July 31, 1943.
He died on Feb. 14, 2007, in St. Hyacinthe, Que., after lung
cancer spread to his brain.
He is survived by his parents,
who had long been estranged from him.
Brad Ferguson
<rel...@rcn.com> wrote:
> Mr. McLaren, a 1952 Academy Award winner, was so impressed
> by the film that Mr. Larkin was given a budget to make any
> film he wanted.
>
> Mr. Larkin said he spent a week wondering what he was going
> to do. "Then one of Norman's friends presented me with a
> solo flute piece called Syrinx by Claude Debussy and I knew
> exactly what I wanted to do."
And here's what he did:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nfpwf4UdtL0
> The result was an animated story of the god Pan and his
> obsessive stalking of the wood nymph Syrinx. The film, which
> Mr. Larkin naturally enough titled Syrinx, won awards all
> over the world, including the grand prize at a children's
> film festival in Iran.
>
> Next up was the widely heralded Walking. An animated film
> born out of Mr. Larkin's desire to capture human movement
> with line drawing and colour wash, it was nominated for an
> Academy Award in 1970, but lost to the Walt Disney short,
> It's Tough to Be a Bird.
Walking:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RThil-84YRc
> Also on the committee was Chris Landreth, but neither he nor
> the other members knew anything about the strange little man
> from Montreal. Later, after Mr. Landreth discovered he was
> the same filmmaker who had made Street Musique and Walking,
> he was inspired to tell the Larkin story.
>
> Using recorded interviews with Mr. Larkin as the basis for
> an animated film, he made a computer-generated NFB
> documentary called Ryan that is renowned for its astonishing
> imagery.
Ryan, Part 1:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BXTLYJ-tGKo
Ryan, Part 2:
Brigid Nelson
Thank you.
b
Hyfler/Rosner
"Brad Ferguson"
>
> And here's what he did:
>
> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nfpwf4UdtL0
>
>> The result was an animated story of the god Pan and his
>> obsessive stalking of the wood nymph Syrinx. The film,
>> which
>> Mr. Larkin naturally enough titled Syrinx, won awards all
>> over the world, including the grand prize at a children's
>> film festival in Iran.
>>
>> Next up was the widely heralded Walking. An animated film
>> born out of Mr. Larkin's desire to capture human movement
>> with line drawing and colour wash, it was nominated for
>> an
>> Academy Award in 1970, but lost to the Walt Disney short,
>> It's Tough to Be a Bird.
>
> Walking:
>
> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RThil-84YRc
>>
Thanks, Brad. Beautiful stuff.
Hyfler/Rosner
"Brad Ferguson" <thir...@frXOXed.net> wrote in message
>> Using recorded interviews with Mr. Larkin as the basis
>> for
>> an animated film, he made a computer-generated NFB
>> documentary called Ryan that is renowned for its
>> astonishing
>> imagery.
>
> Ryan, Part 1:
>
> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BXTLYJ-tGKo
>
> Ryan, Part 2:
>
> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iliZ6TbdtQI
Also brilliant. Thanks again.
marilyn...@aol.com
the obituary, his short films, and the film about him --
M.