New short film features work by renowned animator Ryan Larkin

From the Canadian Press - Oct 8, 2008

(Find the the Ryan Larkin website here and 'Walking' one of my favourite Ryan Larkin creations is here a clip from the Chris Landreth documentary 'Ryan' is here at the NFB and the full film is here on You Tube)

MONTREAL -- Laurie Gordon had originally wanted acclaimed National Film Board animator Ryan Larkin to contribute a few drawings to the music video for her rock band Chiwawa.

What she ended up with was a good friend and a six-minute film that showcases some of the last work by Larkin, who died of lung cancer last year.

"Spare Change" will screen in Vancouver, Toronto, Quebec City and Sherbrooke, Que., on Friday and also open the Focus section on Sunday at Montreal's Festival du Nouveau Cinema.

The film, which was completed by Gordon and a team of young animators after Larkin's death, is a poetic - and surreal - trip through Larkin's imagination.

"I think he would have hoped it would have been his first in a new series," Gordon said wistfully over coffee at Larkin's favourite bar, sitting next to his regular chair.

The drawings, which range from beautiful charcoal renderings to the cartoonish, tell the story of Astral Pan, a panhandler who takes the viewer from the wintry streets of Montreal to hell and back and up to the gates of heaven, where there's a meeting with St. Peter.

Chiwawa's song "Do It For Me" is featured in the movie.

Larkin's voice is also heard in the film and several of his own paintings and character drawings appear.

"I also got some circa-1967 stuff that came to me, magically - flip books that he did," Gordon says.

Gordon approached Larkin after seeing a news report which profiled him after personal problems put his flourishing filmmaking career into a 25-year stall.

Tapped by NFB legend Norman McLaren as a shining new talent, Larkin enjoyed a meteoric rise at the film board with his work in the 1960s, capping it off with an Oscar nomination in 1969 for his film "Walking."

He left the film board in 1978 and ended up bumming change on the street. But he gained new attention as the subject of the animated short "Ryan" directed by Chris Landreth, who won an Oscar for the movie in 2005.

Gordon said she approached Ryan in 2002 as he panhandled on St-Laurent Boulevard and pitched her idea. He was interested.

"I gave him some music and he chose a song and he started to make a few drawings," Gordon said. "Things were slow moving. There was no big rush."

Until one of Larkin's buddies pressed them.

"It's Ryan's time," Gordon says the fellow panhandler told them.

"That gave us both a rush and a push and we really started to seriously conceive and think and meet regularly on this yet-to-be-named film," says Gordon, who owns MusiVision, a film and music production company.

"One day Ryan called me up and said, 'I got the name, I got the name. It's 'Spare Change."'

That added another dimension to the film, Gordon says with a smile.

"We were sitting right over there," she says indicating a table in the bar, which has Larkin's picture on the wall. "He said to me, 'Now that we're making a movie together, we're going to need official titles. I'm the director and you're the producer'."

She made business cards.

"That was the beginning of hell and back but a good hell. It was a great ride for Ryan and I on many levels.

"It was wonderful. I really loved working with Ryan. I miss him a lot," she added, tears welling in her eyes.

She compared their friendship to that of a couple of mischievous teenagers and said a real connection developed. He was a diligent worker, she got the money together.

"He didn't boss people around," she said. "He didn't have time to boss people around."

The project took on added urgency when doctors discovered a small tumour on Larkin's lung in 2005. He was in generally good health aside from the tumour and Gordon got the impression he was comforted by the fact she had survived breast cancer.

Larkin came to live with Gordon and her husband in nearby St-Hyacinthe, Que., where he was cared for by them and her sister until he had to go into a hospice. He died a week later, just two hours after Gordon had left his bedside.

Larkin had been experiencing a comeback with the attention garnered by Landreth's film and had done some work for MTV. When "Spare Change" is shown at the Montreal Festival du Nouveau Cinema, it will open for Adrian Wills' "All Together Now."

That documentary tells the story behind the collaboration between the Beatles and Cirque du soleil that resulted in the creation and 2006 launch of the "Love" stage production which launched in 2006.

Gordon says the lyrical "Spare Change" is a fitting tribute to Larkin, who always insisted he didn't want to be remembered for his past.

"He was always looking to the future."