Ryan Larkin was a Canadian animation film maker from Montreal. He started his career working for the National Film Board of Canada (NFB) in 1965. He is responsible for the Academy Award nominated film Walking (1968), as well as for some of Canada's most renowned animation films from the 60s and 70s such as: Cityscape (1966), Syrinx (1965), and Street Musique (1972). Larkin left the NFB in the early 1970s and went on to live in homeless shelters on the streets of Montreal with panhandling as his only mean for remuneration. His life on the streets of Montreal was occupied by his cocaine and alcohol addiction, which kept him from producing any creative work. He died of cancer in Montreal in 2007 while he was working on his latest animation film entitled Spare Change, released after his death in 2008. 

Although Larkin's downfall could be attributed to his addiction to drugs, it is most likely that an event from his youth emotionally shook him in an irreversible way, thus leading him into depression and homelessness. This event would be the death of his older brother whom he very much looked up to. While the two brothers were on a boat on a lake in 1958, Ryan, found himself unable to save his brother from drowning. This event is said to having deeply scarred Ryan Larkin and could very well be the cause of the early end to his career.

What can also be said of the turn of events Larkin's life took is that some of his work was not always gladly accepted by the NFB. In 1975, one of his work would lead, almost directly, to him being fired from the Film Board. At that time, he was asked to create a mural for the NFB, and what he came up with would not please the people at the Canadian film organisation. Ryan had created a mural depicting the image of an adolescent boy having an erection. "It was meant to be a satirical commentary on masculinity because at the time there was a year-long festival going on about women's rights. It was supposed to be a comical relief from all their terrible, self-conscious seriousness." After the mural was refused, Ryan stopped working for the National Film Board and the rest of his story is far from what you would expect from such a talented person. 
 

Although he was regularly confronted by people about his alcoholism and drug addiction, Ryan seemed to always assume those traits of his personality. According to Animation World Magazine’s Chris Robinson, he described himself as an alcoholic, and not a drunkard. He seemed have great knowledge of his abilities as well as his defects.  "I realized that even though I had made some good films, I was not a good filmmaker. I couldn't meet deadlines. Other people were pouring out bullshit. I was becoming disheartened with the whole process of films, I was getting paid a salary for junk films." Although many would disagree with his own view of himself, and would suggest that he was great filmmaker, Larkin was very down to earth, but clearly misunderstood. The National Film Board wanted him to create films, which he was great at, but he wanted to paint. This misunderstanding of the artist's true will is often seen in the artistic world, and it is something that often leads to depression and addictions.

 
Ryan Larkin still invokes questions in the Canadian artistic world of the 21st century. In 2004, a short animation film by Chris Landreth talked about Larkin's drug and alcohol problems, and that film won an Oscar. This shows that Canadian film makers did not forget Larkin's work, and that, to this day, he is still an important part of the Canadian film culture, and of heritage of Canadian art.