21-87

This short film from Arthur Lipsett is an abstract succession of unrelated views of the passing crowd. A commentary on a machine-dominated society, it is often cited as an influence on George Lucas's Star Wars and his conceptualization of "The Force."
Arthur Lipsett and his experimental 21-87, a collage of seemingly unrelated snippets of film that offered a wry commentary on the machine age, would inspire young filmmakers of an entire generation. George Lucas would be so impressed with Lipsett and this film that he would refer to the film’s title in the first Star Wars film (It is Princess Leia’s prison cell number)!


From the playlist : The 1960s: An Explosion of Creativity

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Comments

  • mattblais

    mattblais

      “this man's work is genius ”

    31 Jan 2012
  • murraysiple

    murraysiple

      “Favorite film in the world. Thanks David Rimmer for showing this while I was at Emily Carr. It has inspired all my work in film/video.”

    9 Nov 2011
  • Shawn

    Shawn

      “BTW, I'm old enough to remember seeing Lipsett's work on celluloid in my high school AV class. I never thought of it as a mash up but that's exactly what it was, yeah: pre-digital mashup. ”

    31 Jan 2011
  • Shawn

    Shawn

      “When it's a "rights problem," it's certainly not something that the NFB wants to have happen to keep out of anyone's hands (grimy or otherwise). It's a problem for lots of older films that have become available online, I think. ”

    31 Jan 2011
  • MargaretDrive

    MargaretDrive

      “Ok, I signed up, I tried to buy this movie-- still I can't watch it.... please help!”

    2 Jan 2011
  • jmatlin

    jmatlin

      “Sorry, guys. We had to take the film down due to some rights issues, but we're working very hard to make it available again. If you want to be notified when it goes public, please send me an email at j.matlin@nfb.ca. Thanks.”

    13 Dec 2010
  • mubbazoot

    mubbazoot

      “give us permission please”

    12 Dec 2010
  • jahal002

    jahal002

      “I'm also gonna have to ask that question”

    11 Dec 2010
  • eastyoung

    eastyoung

      “good”

    18 Nov 2010
  • Khalm

    Khalm

      “Yes, how does one get permission?...”

    8 Nov 2010
  • OneDerBoy

    OneDerBoy

      “Exactly how does one go about gaining permission to view this? Is it such a relic you need to keep it from the grimy hands of the serfs?”

    4 Nov 2010
    4 people like this |

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