"Recently, I've had this tiny little problem," says Ryan Larkin, for whom being a media celebrity comes with a particular set of misunderstandings. "My interviewers run up to me and say, 'How does it feel to be nominated for an Oscar again?' And I have to explain to them that I am not nominated. Christopher Landreth is nominated, for a beautiful film that he did named Ryan. I agreed to work with him as a model, for a concept of his that is based on compassion. I am just one of many people who are struggling to stand on our feet."
Larkin, the former NFB animation wunderkind, was at the height of his talents when his famous short, Walking, was nominated for an Oscar in 1969. Since then, he has found a secondary vocation as a street panhandler, and can be found most days where Landreth's Oscar-nominated portrait finds him: hustling for change in front of Schwartz's Deli on St-Laurent, or at home at the Old Brewery Mission. Larkin has been back in the limelight since a retrospective of his work ran at the FCMM last October alongside the premiere of Landreth's animated short, Ryan, and Laurence Green's Alter Egos, a companion making-of documentary. Landreth's excruciatingly lovely Ryan is a groundbreaking 14-minute 3-D animation in which characters, many of them on the downside of their luck, are visually rendered to reflect that stretch of the Main between Napoléon and Bagg.
"I wanted Ryan to open up a whole range of conversations," says Landreth, who was back in Toronto last week after a whirlwind Oscar publicity tour in Los Angeles. "Among other things, it opens up questions about truth, fiction, interpretation... I am hoping that Ryan takes subjectivity to a different level. I hope, anyway, that I'm using animation tools not to try to stylize and make cool images, but to tell another layer of truth."
Though Landreth, somewhat differently from Larkin, considers Ryan to be a documentary, he also points out that it is more than merely an altruistic portrait of his friend.
"I was inspired because Ryan's story is such a powerful story; it relates not only to Ryan's life, but things we all face: fear, insecurity, psychological damage, and, yes, substance abuse. I wanted to make that story come across as well as I possibly could. I am certainly happy to hear, as I am hearing, that Ryan is helping Ryan to be inspired to do some creative stuff again. That's great. At the same time, helping Ryan was not my main reason for doing the film."
Landreth is referring to many journalists' tendency, in recent profiles, to highlight a cheery human-interest angle Larkin himself promotes, in which his second-hand Oscar boost has enabled him to start working on a new, secret project that will bring him back on top. "People are always obsessed with an artist's ability to keep up with the work they had done previously. Past a certain point, it would make a great ending to the story if, after a 30-year absence, Ryan suddenly started doing films again. It's really a question of what does that artist owe the world? I don't know whether Ryan is going to have the wherewithal to do something again. Initial signs look encouraging for that, but [this] is an extremely disciplined field. Animation requires commitment and mundane dedication. I would not be able to do it if I was seriously drinking."
