Reaction to Norman McLaren's 'Begone Dull Care'

As a student who has watched several different experimental films for class, it came as no surprise to me that it was very hard for me to understand Norman McLaren's Begone Dull Care. At first, like most experimental films, I found the film to be a bit disorienting and dizzying. After a couple of seconds of adjustment however, I was able to see that the film was just that- film. It was a developed film strip that had been distressed by coloring, scratching, and maybe bleaching. It was accompanied with a jazz score that made the piece easier to watch. Within a couple of minutes, it felt like I was watching a choreographed dance number where there were two lead dancers and about five backup dancers. The lead dancers would move about the screen and then the backups would follow. It actually turned out to be surprisingly pleasant. With the way the film looked, the distressed strip, it reminded me of another experimental film that I saw in one of my introductory film classes. I can’t remember the name of it, but the director took some found footage of a very old western film and ran it through a projector. Because it was so old and had been damaged from exposure to the elements, the film ran with color problems, hold in the film and scratches everywhere. The way that these new damages looked to the film itself allowed for the film to create a new theme. It completely changed the original tone. It’s crazy to think that just by adding some color, or distressing the emulsion to a piece of film, you can create a work of art that is totally original.