| Friday,
July 24 + Saturday, July 25
Remembering
Arthur Lipsett
Arthur
Lipsett (1936-1986) was
a visionary, a satirist and a creative thinker who manipulated
the elements of cinema to create a memorable and consistent
body of work. A film poet, Lipsett realized his vision through
creative mixing of footage discarded by other National Film
Board of Canada’s (NFB) directors and material that he shot
and recorded himself. His
perfectly judged film cuts, masterful control of sound collage
and acerbic wit brought him worldwide interest when his first
NFB effort Very Nice, Very Nice
(1961), was nominated for an Academy Award for Best
Live Action Short. His later films were increasingly metaphysical
and filled with elusive, even opaque cinematic poetry and demonstrate
a transcendental quality rare in Canadian cinema.
Introduced by Dr DB Jones, Professor of Film and
Interim Dean of Pennoni Honors College at Drexel University
Friday,
July 24 at 7pm
Remembering
Arthur
dir.
Martin Lavutt, Canada, 2006, DVD, 90 mins, color
Remembering
Arthur is a remarkably
intimate and in-depth documentary featuring extensive interviews
with many of those who were closest to Lipsett. It celebrates
his work while mourning the gradually encroaching mental illness
which ultimately led him to take his own life.
A
passionate, intimate and unflinching journey through the life
of one of Canada’s most innovative creative minds. Jesse Wente,
Toronto International Film Festival
Saturday,
July 25 at 7pm
Arthur
Lipsett Shorts Program
Very
Nice, Very Nice
dir.
Arthur Lipsett, Canada, 1961, 35mm, 7 mins, b/w
Lipsett’s
first film, nominated for an Academy Award, is a sardonic re-reading
of 1950s consumerism, mass media and popular culture.
Experimental
Film
dir.
Arthur Lipsett, Canada, 1963, 35mm, 28 mins, b/w
A television panel
discussion featuring the American film historian Herman Weinberg,
the film critics Clyde Gilmour and Fernand Cadieux and the NFB
producer Guy Glover. They debate the merit of experimental films
by George Dunning, Robert Breer, Jan Lenica, Walerian Borowczyk
and Lipsett, which are included intact, accompanied by commentary
from Breer and Norman McLaren. Although the film is conventional
by today's standards, Dancsok makes the important point that
“as early as 1962 Lipsett was trying to explain his practice
to an uninitiated audience”. Brett Kashmere,
Senses of Cinema
21-87
dir.
Arthur Lipsett, Canada, 1964, 35mm, 10 mins,
Few films are as movingly
bleak as Lipsett’s little-known 21-87. A stunning evocation
of dehumanization… Fred Camper, Chicago Reader
Free
Fall
dir.
Arthur Lipsett, Canada, 1964, 35mm, 9 mins, b/w
Free Fall is inspired in part by Dylan Thomas’ poem,
The Force that Through the
Green
Fuse Drives the Flower.
A
Trip Down Memory Lane
dir.
Arthur Lipsett, Canada, 1965, 35mm, 13 mins, b/w
A surrealist time capsule combining fifty years of newsreel
footage, this was Lipsett’s first pure collage film, composed
exclusively from stock image and sound from the NFB bins.
Fluxes
dir.
Arthur Lipsett, Canada, 1968, 35mm, 24 mins, b/w
Lipsett’s
most scathing, pessimistic work is a metaphorical emptying out
of the NFB trim bin.
N-Zone
dir.
Arthur Lipsett, Canada, 1970, 35mm, 43 mins, b/w
The longest, loosest and last of the collage films he produced
at the NFB. It marks the end-point of his trajectory from gifted
young genius to discarded problem child/eccentric… Dirk de Bruyn,
Senses of Cinema
Dr DB Jones has
authored two books and three book chapters on documentary film
and written numerous articles, essays and reviews on film and
literary subjects. He has writing, directing and/or producing
credits with such organizations as the National Film Board of
Canada, Film Australia, WNET-TV (PBS–New York), CBS–TV, Corporation
for Public Broadcasting and Dutch National Television. Several
of his films have won national or international awards.
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