Arthur Lipsett, Date of Birth, Place of Birth, Date of Death
TweetArthur Lipsett
Canadian collage filmmaker
Date of Birth: 
Place of Birth: Montreal, Quebec, Canada
About Arthur Lipsett
- Arthur Lipsett (May 13, 1936 – May 1, 1986) was a Canadian avant-garde director of short collage films. Born in Montreal into a Jewish family, Lipsett saw his mother, an immigrant from Kiev, commit suicide when he was 10 years of age.
- His father remarried without consulting Arthur and his daughter, Marian.
- Despite his difficult past, Lipsett excelled as a student at the École des beaux-arts de Montréal, where his mentor, Arthur Lismer, recommended him to the National Film Board of Canada (NFB).
- Lipsett joined the NFB in 1958 as an editor.Lipsett's particular passion was sound.
- He collected pieces of sound from a variety of sources and fit them together to create an interesting auditory sensation.
- After playing one of these creations to friends, they suggested that Lipsett combine images with the sound collage.
- The result is a 7-minute-long film Very Nice, Very Nice which was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Short Subject, Live Action Subjects in 1962.
- Despite not winning the Oscar, this film brought Lipsett considerable praise from critics and directors.
- Stanley Kubrick was one of Lipsett's fans, writing him to say that the film was "the most imaginative and brilliant uses of the movie screen and soundtrack that I have ever seen." Kubrick also asked him to create a trailer for his upcoming movie Dr.
- Strangelove.
- Lipsett declined Kubrick's offer.
- Kubrick went on to direct the trailer himself; however, Lipsett's influence on Kubrick is clearly visible in the released trailer.In 1965, Lipsett completed A Trip Down Memory Lane, utilizing newsreel footage from over a fifty-year period, and intended as a kind of cinematic time capsule.Lipsett's success allowed him some freedom at the NFB, but as his films became more bizarre, this freedom quickly disappeared.
- In his later years, he suffered from psychological problems that progressed in severity.
- Lipsett committed suicide in 1986, two weeks before his 50th birthday.
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