Outsider Cinema

Arthur Lipsett

Arthur Lipsett. Lipsett in 1963.
  • 196321-87
  • 1961Very Nice, Very Nice
  • 1964Free Fall
Echoed in
  • Star Wars1977
  • Dr. Strangelove1964
OC 020 · 1936⁠–⁠1986 · Montreal, Quebec

He cut his films from the sound and footage the National Film Board threw away, and the first one was nominated for an Oscar.

Lipsett studied at the École des beaux-arts de Montréal, where his teacher, the painter Arthur Lismer, recommended him to the National Film Board of Canada. He joined its animation department as an editor in 1958 and spent about a decade there making short collage films.

He built them from what others discarded: documentary outtakes, stock footage and sound from the NFB's trim bins, mixed with his own still photographs and footage. Very Nice, Very Nice began as a sound collage on tape, and friends who heard it suggested he add pictures. His montage set unrelated images against overheard speech, often in a satirical or bleak tone.

Very Nice, Very Nice (1961) was nominated for the Academy Award for best live action short. 21-87 (1963) won first prize at the Ann Arbor Film Festival, and George Lucas has cited it as an influence. Lipsett left the NFB around 1970 and died in Montreal in 1986.

Films

Where to start with Arthur Lipsett, in the order they were made. Runtimes are approximate.

  1. A still from Very Nice, Very Nice.

    Very Nice, Very Nice

    1961 · 7 min · Black and white

    Snapshots and found sound that pick apart the cheerful surface of modern life. It was nominated for the Academy Award for best live action short.

  2. A still from 21-87.

    21-87

    1963 · 10 min · 16mm, black and white

    NFB discards and his own street footage from Montreal and New York, cut into a portrait of a society run by machines. It won first prize at Ann Arbor in 1964.

  3. A still from Free Fall.

    Free Fall

    1964 · 9 min

    Built from leftover film fragments. It began as a chance-based collaboration with John Cage, who withdrew.

  4. A still from A Trip Down Memory Lane.

    A Trip Down Memory Lane

    1965 · 13 min

    A time capsule cut from about fifty years of newsreels. It was his first collage made entirely from stock images and sound.

Echoed in

Where Lipsett's ideas turned up next.