Maurice Blackburn

101

B: May 22, 1914 in Québec City, Québec
D: March 29, 1988 in Montréal, Québec

One of three staff composers at the National Film Board of Canada — the others being Eldon Rathburn and Robert Fleming — whose work dominated the musical tracks of post-war NFB productions, Maurice Blackburn studied music at l’Université Laval and Boston’s New England Conservatory before Louis Applebaum brought him to the Board in 1941 where he stayed until his retirement in 1978. He worked extensively with Norman Mclaren on such celebrated animated shorts as Blinkity Blank, A Phantasy and the Oscar-nominated A Chairy Tale, as well as features including Gretien Gélinas’s Tit-coq, Claude Jutra’s À tout prendre and Jean Beaudin’s J.A. Martin, photographe. His music, which was very diversified, drew from Québec folklore, classical and experimental source and he understood that his scores were there to compliment the images of the filmmaker.

Features & TV Movies:
VR indicates Direct-to-Video Release

Maple Sugar Time (1941, short)
Alexis Tremblay, habitant (1943, short)
Prince Edward Island (1943, short)
Grand Manan (1943, short)
Painters of Québec (1944, short)
Land of Pioneers (1944, short)
Psychological First Aid (1945, short)
Newfoundland, Sentinel of the Atlantic (1945, short)
Fishing Partners (1945, short)
Science Goes Fishing (1946, short)
Land for Men (1946, short)
Klee Wyck (1946, short)
Science at Your Service (1949, short)
Passport to Canada (1949, short)
Le Gros Bill (1949)

North Shore (1950, short)
The Unadulterated Truth (1950, short)
Know Your Resources (1950, short)
Sur le pont d’Avignon (1951, short)
St. Lawrence Coaster (1951, short)
Monastery (1951, short)
From Father to Son (1951, short)
Caribou Hunters (1951, short)
Breakdown (1951, short)
Twirllgig (1952, short)
A Phantasy (1952, short)
L’Homme aux oiseaux (1952, short)
Lismer (1952, short)
Angotee: Story of a Eskimo Boy (1953, short)
Backstage (1953, short)
Citizen Varek (1953, short)
Canadian Notebook (1953, short)
Yoho: Wonder Valley (1953, short)
Tit-coq (1953)
La Voleur des rêves (1954, short)
Lumberjack (1955, short)
Farm Calendar (1955, short)
Chantier cooperative (1955, short)
Blinkity Blank (1955, short)
A Chairy Tale (1957, short)
Eye Witness No. 90 (directed, 1957, short)
Eye Witness No. 91 (directed, 1957, short)
Eye Witness No. 94 (directed, 1957, short)
Wolfe and Montcalm (1957, short)
They Called It White Man’s Burden (1957, short)
The Invisible Keystone (1957, short)
The Colonies Look Ahead (1957, short)
Ten Days That Shook the Commonwealth (1957, short)
Storm Clouds over the Colonies (1957, short)
Portrait of a Family (1957, short)
L’Année à la ferme (1957, short)
Four Centuries of Growing Pains (1957, short)
Crisis in Asia (1957, short)
Colonialism: Ogre or Angel (1957, short)
Can It Hold It Together? (1957, short)
Black and White in South Africa (1957, short)
Street to the World (1958, short)
The World on Show (1958, short)
High Artic: Life on the Land (1958, short)
The Living Stone (1958, short)
Au bout de ma rue (1958, short)
Les Mains nettes (1958)
The Little Sisters (1959, short)
The Chairmaker and the Boys (1959, short)
Radiation (1959, short)
High Artic (1959, short)
Blackbird (1959, short)
La Canne à pêche (1959)

Lines: Vertical (1960, short)
Saint-Denys Garneau (1960, short)
Normetal (1960, short)
Life in the Woodlot (1960, short)
Life and Radiation (1960, short)
Wayward River (1961, short)
Trout Stream (1961, short)
Le Jeu d’hiver (1961, short)
Journey from the Zoo (1961, short)
Danse carée (1961, short)
Year of the Siege (1962, short)
Visit a Foreign Country (1962, short)
Les Enfants de silence (1962, short)
Blitzkrieg (1962, short)
Dusk (1962, short)
Days of Infamy (1962, short)
Jour après jour (1962, short)
Louis-Hippolyte Lafrontaine (music editor, 1962, short)
Québec-U.S.A. ou l’invasion pacifique (1962)
Bûcherons de la Manouane (1962, documentary)
Christmas Cracker (1963, with Eldon Rathburn, short))
Petit discours de la method (1963, short)
De Montréal à Manicouagan (1963, short)
30 Minutes, Mr. Plummer (1963, short)
Caroline (1964, short)
Villeneuve, peintre-barbier (1964, short)
Paul-Émile Borduas: 1905–1960 (1964, short)
Magic Molecule (1964, short)
Percé on the Rocks (1964, short)
Down through the Years (sound, 1964, short)
Alexander Mackenzie: The Lord of the North (1964, short)
An Essay on Science (1964, short)
À tout prendre (1964)
La Fleur de l’âge: Geneviève (1965, short)
Test 0558 (1965, short)
Sire le Roy n’a plus rien dit (1965, short)
Le Festin de morts (1965)
Notes on a Triangle (1966, short)
L’Eau (1967, short)
Pas de deux (sound editor, 1968, short)
Fine Feathers (1968, short)
Ciné-crime (produced, directed, animated, 1969, short)
To See or Not to See (sound, 1969, short)
The Hoarder (1969, short)

Paradise Lost (1970, short)
Points de suspension (1970, short)
The Egg (1971, short)
Cycle (1971, short)
Metadata (1971, short)
The Little Men of Chromagnon (1971, short)
Eye (1972, short)
Balablok (1972, short)
À qui apparetient ce gage? (1973)
Trois exercices sur l’écran de’épingles d’Alexeleff (1974, short)
Histoire de pêche (1974, documentary)
Les Filles c’est pas pareil (1974, documentary)
Les Filles du roi (Co-writer, 1974, documentary)
Les Temps de l’avant (1975)
Horizon (1975, short)
The Lion and the Mouse (1976, short)
J.A. Martin, photographe (1977)
Le Paige (1978, short)
Mourir à tue-tête (1979)
La Toile d’araignée (1979, documentary)