Produced by Tom DalyRoman Kroitor Initial release 1967 | Release date 1967 Music director Eldon Rathburn | |
Directed by Roman KroitorColin LowHugh O'Connor Production company National Film Board of Canada Similar City of Gold, The Romance, Universe, Lonely Boy, Corral | ||
In the labyrinth expo 67 labyrinth pavilion movie part 1
In the Labyrinth (French: Dans le labyrinthe) was a groundbreaking multi-screen presentation at the Labyrinth pavilion at Expo 67 in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. It used 35 mm and 70 mm film projected simultaneously on multiple screens and was the precursor of today's IMAX format.
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The film split elements across the five screens and also combined them for a mosaic of a single image. It was hailed as a "stunning visual display" by Time magazine, which concludes: "such visual delights as Labyrinth ... suggest that cinema—the most typical of 20th century arts—has just begun to explore its boundaries and possibilities."
In the Labyrinth was co-directed by Roman Kroitor, Colin Low and Hugh O'Connor and produced by the National Film Board of Canada. Kroitor left the NFB shortly after to co-found Multi-Screen Corporation, which later became IMAX Corporation.
NFB animator Ryan Larkin also designed animated sequences for the film.
It inspired Canadian filmmaker Norman Jewison to apply similar techniques to his film The Thomas Crown Affair.
Labyrinth pavilion
The Labyrinth consisted of three main chambers: Theatre One, which ran two 70 mm projectors in a unique floor-and-end-wall combination; The Maze, an apparently limitless series of mirrors and red "grain-of-wheat" bulbs; and Theatre Three, which projected five simultaneous 35 mm projections in a cross formation. The pavilion cost $4.5 million and attracted over 1.3 million visitors in 1967.
Post-1967
In 1979, the NFB re-issued In the Labyrinth in a single-screen format. In May 2007, the NFB and the Cinémathèque québécoise presented an exhibition on the Labyrinth pavilion, marking the 40th anniversary of Expo 67.