Arthur Lipsett.. watch them all... Lipsett has played a huge part in the way i see and hear things.....i don't really have a favourite Lipsett film..... Very Nice, Very Nice and 21-87 have probably stayed with me more than the others, but there is something about each film that i love.....

Arthur Lipsett somehow distills these tiny fragments of truth....both harsh and beautiful......and like a great magician, i have no idea how he does it......Lipsett has gotten some attention in the last few years....but more people need to see his films.......he also doesn't get enough credit for his ear....the gathering/editing/manipulation of sound in his films is staggering....i often listen to his films, rather than watch them.....i wish i had all his unused reels of audio collage to sift through.....i hope that in one of the many clearances that happen when recording formats change, they weren't thrown in a dumpster.....

Free Fall is an interesting departure....with him actively behind the camera, gathering images.....Lipsett has this heartbreaking ability to make the invisible, visible.....this devastating alchemy.....the speed-up/slow-down of time.....the collision of sound/image.....the precision in his editing......all serve to to cut through the numbing and the noise of being alive...of being in the world of people.....

Remembering Arthur by Martin Lavut is also a great documentary about Lipsett's work/life from the perspective of people who were closest to him...

...heartbreaking and beautiful...perfect really....with an understated soundtrack by Tim Hecker...

...a little bit of light to ward off the darkness...amazing documentary...

...i saw this film in a primary school gymnasium in the early seventies...i had just moved to Canada from Scotland...it was the first time i had seen an actual reel of film projected onto a screen...i remember the slow meditation of the film...and the flickering light...

...great document of Leonard Cohen as a younger man...as a poet...Montreal is the real star in this film though...fragmented ghost transmissions from a city that no longer exists...