Labyrinth (1967)

 
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Labyrinth (1967), dir. Roman Kroitor, Colin Low, et al.—prod. NFB

Labyrinth/Labyrinthe was an audacious multimedia and multi-sensory pavilion designed, executed, and hosted by the National Film Board of Canada for Montreal’s 1967 International and Universal Exposition, a.k.a. Expo 67. Its Brutalist form contained a number of multi-screen cinema chambers. One of them projected a series of moving images in a 5-screen cruciform arrangement. Though Labyrinth’s humanist perspective was also explicitly internationalist (hence the shots of the Sahara Desert that surround the first image), many of the featured images were of Montreal, where many of the filmmakers involved in this project lived and worked.

[snow; winter; commuters; gravedigger; traffic; public transportation; Dorchester Boulevard; Mary Queen of the World Cathedral; the Queen Elizabeth Hotel; camels; Sahara Desert]

Watch this film here.

And to learn much more about multi-screen experimentation at Expo 67, check out Reimagining Cinema: Film at Expo 67 (McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2014), edited by Janine Marchessault and Monika Kin Gagnon. Featuring essays by Seth Feldman, Gary Mediema, Aimée Mitchell, Johanne Sloan, Monika Kin Gagnon, Janine Marchessault, and Yours Truly.

aj

L'École des autres (1968)

 
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L’École des autres (1968), dir. Michel Régnier—prod. ONF

[children; the war on poverty; experimental school; crossing guards; Plateau Mont-Royal; avenue des Pins; snow; winter]

Watch this film here.

aj

The 80 Goes to Sparta (1969)

 
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Montreal, 1969: schoolchildren protest the redevelopment of a playground into a parking lot. They demand that the space be transformed back into a playground. Enthusiastic chanting of "We hate cars!" erupts, drowning out an interview with a community spokesperson.

The 80 Goes to Sparta (1969), dir. Davies—prod. NFB

[schoolchildren; protests; car culture; civil disobedience; Devonshire School; Plateau Mont-Royal]

Watch this film here.

aj

We Are Young! (1967)

 

We Are Young! (1967), dir. Hammid & Thompson

We Are Young! was a massive multi-screen film experiment produced for the Canadian Pacific Railway/COMINCO pavilion at Expo 67 by Alexander Hammid (né Hackenschmied) and Francis Thompson.

[skyscrapers; department stores; neon; new space; abstract space; working girls; architectural sublime; urban sublime; centre-ville; rue Ste-Catherine]

To learn much more about multi-screen experimentation at Expo 67, check out Reimagining Cinema: Film at Expo 67 (McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2014), edited by Janine Marchessault and Monika Kin Gagnon. Featuring essays by Seth Feldman, Gary Mediema, Aimée Mitchell, Johanne Sloan, Monika Kin Gagnon, Janine Marchessault, and Yours Truly.

aj

Lewis Mumford on the City (1963)

 

Lewis Mumford on the City (1963), prod. by MacNeill for the NFB

[bookstore; tavern]

Watch part one (“The City: Heaven and Hell”) here.

Watch part two (“The City: Cars or People?”) here.

Watch part three (“The City and Its Region”) here.

Watch part four (“The Heart of the City”) here.

Watch part five (“The City as Man's Home”) here.

Watch part six (“The City and the Future”) here.

aj