E-Paper
Oscar animated by Ryan
Ryan Larkin, a homeless man watching the Academy Awards ceremony in his favourite bar, jumped out of his seat and pumped his fist in the air when the film about his life won the best animated short category.
Ryan Larkin, a homeless man watching the Academy Awards ceremony in his favourite bar, jumped out of his seat and pumped his fist in the air when the film about his life won the best animated short category.
“I heard it but I couldn’t quite believe it,” Larkin, 61, said as he was mobbed by friends.
The cheering in the bar was so loud Larkin couldn’t hear Chris Landreth’s acceptance speech for best short animation film, Ryan, in which the filmmaker said he won because of “the grace and humility of one guy watching in Montreal. Ryan Larkin, I dedicate this award to you.”
Larkin, who lives in a Montreal shelter for the homeless, nursed brandy shots as he watched the Oscar broadcast at the tiny Copacabana Bar.
Larkin was an animation pioneer who created groundbreaking films for the National Film Board of Canada in the 1960s and ’70s. He was also a one-time Oscar nominee in the animated short film category in 1968 for Walking.
But he later succumbed to a combination of creative block, alcohol and cocaine and is now a panhandler on the streets of Montreal. Ryan, only 14 minutes long, tells the story of Larkin’s career and tragic decline using 3-D computer animation to create a cast of skeletal-like characters.
Ryan, a Copper Heart-National Film Board co-production, was three years in the making and has already won more than 30 international awards, from Cannes to Canada.
