by RAF KATIGBAK

Animation film pioneer Ryan Larkin is one of Montreal's forgotten geniuses. Actually, scratch that. Ryan Larkin was one of Montreal's forgotten geniuses. Now, thanks to two new fascinating bio pics that will screen at the Festival du nouveau cinéma as part of a fundraising tribute to help get Larkin off the streets, the eccentric artist is about to be thrust back into the spotlight.

The first homage, Chris Landreth's Ryan, is a highly original 14-minute CGI animation that explores Larkin's rise and fall from a 20-year-old animation prodigy to his current life as a panhandler on St-Laurent. The other film, Alter Egos, is an expansive documentary that delves into the making of Ryan, including Larkin's reaction to the finished product. It also takes an in-depth look at his life as a homeless person.

Rebellious work of a stuttering genius

When I first meet Larkin, I'm sitting at the Copacabana on the Main. He walks in as he does almost every day: sporting his iconic tortoise shell glasses, trademark cane and toting a backpack filled with all his worldly possessions. He's an hour late. Of course given that he runs on a different schedule than most of the world, I don't care. We decide to escape the tinny acid rock version of "Summertime Blues" blaring overhead and covertly take our brews "to go." As we walk to a nearby park, he points out the different places he's lived in, prior to his current stint at the Old Brewery Mission.

As he speaks, the fragile, sensitive man stutters. It's the halting speech of someone whose mouth cannot catch up with the steady stream of thoughts and ideas running through his mind. It was this brilliant steady flow of ideas that he used to create one of his last films, Street Musique, where scenarios and images warp and twist into themselves and each other. This 1972 short serves as a worthy testament to Larkin's endless imagination and mastery of movement and composition.

We eventually plunk ourselves down on a park bench and start to talk about his past. He excitedly describes the electric atmosphere that his mentor Norman McLaren created with the after-hour experimental animation sessions at the NFB in the '60s. That's where, as a teenager, Larkin developed the unique charcoal animation technique that evolved into his impressive 1967 debut Cityscape. He also speaks about his father who, as an airplane engineer, built a house at the end of the Dorval airport runway so that he could check the engines as they passed 100 feet overhead. As he talks, it becomes apparent that the years of experience and hard lessons have calmed the rebellious young man who in 1975 - when asked to paint a tribute for a women's rights conference - defiantly painted a 9-by-20-foot mural of a teenage boy with a huge erection.

"I was just trying to shake up this grave seriousness," he laughs. "I think everybody was too serious, so it was supposed to be a joke."

Vagabond fundraising

Although Larkin is an excellent storyteller and has many tales to share - like the time he was mistakenly introduced to the senator of New Mexico as Tiny Tim - the truth is, the past doesn't really interest Larkin that much.

"I really like the idea of new experiences," he says. "But if it's all dependant on emotions that are 30 or 40 years old, I say, ‘Fuck that.' I'm here, I'm good, y' know? Next year is more interesting to me than the past. Although I appreciate learning from history, I don't appreciate agonizing over past sorrows or even past successes." His voice rises defiantly. "I was good back in the '60s, '70s and '90s. I'm also good in the 21st century, damn it. And as long as I live, I'll do the best I can. I'm not saying I'm the best. I'm just one of many good artists and that's what I am - an artist."

Larkin still spends a lot of time painting, sculpting and drawing. But right now he's most excited about his next project, a return to animation with a film simply titled Spare Change.

"Everyone's demanding that I make another animation film and that's exactly what I'm doing," he says. "I've been doing some drawings and concepts. It's based on some of my recent poems. I write poems, you know. My friend Laurei 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."

After years of living what he calls a "happy-go-lucky" life in the streets, Larkin - who now jokingly refers to his vagabond fundraising as "research and development" - is excited, re-energized and ready to return to the industry that once caused him so much frustration.

"As a panhandler looking for spare change, I was just going for a few art supplies, a few beers and a few books," he says. "Now things have changed and I'm panhandling for hundreds of thousands of dollars for my next film."

Ryan, Alter Egos and four Ryan Larkin shorts will screen at Ex-Centris Friday, Oct. 15 at 7:10 p.m.

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