Very Nice, Very Nice

Very Nice, Very Nice


                                Very Nice, Very Nice
| 6 min
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The NFB's 16th Oscar®-nominated film.

Arthur Lipsett's first film is an avant-garde blend of photography and sound. It looks behind the business-as-usual face we put on life and shows anxieties we want to forget. It is made of dozens of pictures that seem familiar, with fragments of speech heard in passing and, between times, a voice saying, "Very nice, very nice." It was critically acclaimed and plays frequently in festivals and film schools around the world.

Arthur Lipsett was an artist in the animation studio who eventually started making live action films – but live action with a difference. The sensibility is that of an animator – cut with extraordinary precision, not one frame too long or too short. Very Nice, Very Nice is composed with still images and is a wickedly funny and terrifying examination of modern life. When teaching in Norway in recent years, I always showed it to my film students. Its impact was tangible. Although made in 1961, it has not dated at all. Lipsett was a true original, and much of the sound and imagery for his films was found in the trim bins of the NFB. Trim bins were the receptacles where one put one’s outtakes. Following Grierson’s dictum, Lipsett found the extraordinary in the ordinary.

Donald McWilliams
From the playlist: Norman McLaren: Hands-on Animation

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.....

David Bryant
From the playlist: David Bryant (Godspeed You! Black Emperor)

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Very Nice, Very Nice, Arthur Lipsett, provided by the National Film Board of Canada

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Credits
  • director
    Arthur Lipsett
  • producer
    Colin Low
    Tom Daly

  • Abon

    I love this film and do not understand why it entertains me as it does. What is more, its themes continue to be relevant in the 21st century.

    Abon, 3 Mar 2016
  • sixam

    I think I have deciphered most of the voices on the sound track. I wonder if people seeing this film in 1961 were aware of these inside jokes by NFB staff.

    sixam, 13 Mar 2015
  • Felipe_Carrelli

    worthy of the name: Very nice indeed! love the "gost" fusion between faces at the end.

    Felipe_Carrelli, 12 Dec 2011
  • mstradiotto

    Love it.

    mstradiotto, 4 Apr 2011
  • thelovemovement

    This makes me happy to know that this type of art was being created in 1961. I feel less alone!

    thelovemovement, 10 Mar 2011
  • MetisYeti

    one of the best NFB films ever made

    MetisYeti, 19 Dec 2010

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