WILLIAM C.

WEES

Codes (1972), in which he appears in a variety of costumes and acts out what
appears to be a search (or clues (or codes) that. in his words, "could enable a
human being to help make transformations and connections from his inner
world of feeling, to the world of day to day reality systems."4 The film remains
undistributed and virtually unseen, and it brought his filmmaking career to an
enigmatic and inconclusive end.

FROM, COMPILATION TO COLLAGE:

The Found-Footage Films of Arthur Lipsett
The Martin Walsh Memorial Lecture 2007

UPSElT AND THE AMERICAN AVANT-GAIlDE

Regarded by some as the Film Board's -boy genius during his early yean; at the
l\TfB.s Upsetl was able to make "experimental.. films that were Widely distributed
by the Board and shown-and awarded prizes-at American and European festi
vals. In 1964, for example. 21-87 was voted "most popular film" at the Midwest
Film Festival in Chicago. In the same year, at the Independent Film-Makers
Festival in Palo Alto, California, 21-87 was awarded second prize, with first prize
going to Kenneth Anger's Scorpio Rising. and third prize to Bruce Conner's
Cosmic Ray. lWo years earlier, Very Nice. Very Nia had been nominated for an
Academy Award in the Best Live Action Shott category (an odd category ror a
film with almost no live action). By the time of his death by suicide in 1986,
however, Upsett was vinuaUy (orgotten and his films relegated to classroom
screenings in high schools, colleges and universities. In the late eighties and early
nineties his work was "re-discovered" by a few American critics, film programmers and filmmakers. In October 1998. Upseu retrospectives in New York and
Chicago expanded interest in his work within the American avant-garde film
community and produced extensive discussion of his films on Frameworks, the
electronic Experimental Film Discussion Ust. 6 Of the filmmakers insnumental in
preparing the groWld ior this revival of interest in Upseu's films, rhe most promiDenl was Stan Brakhage. In a lecture at the University of Regina in 1988 he had
exclaimed, "If I had known of Arthur Upset! in the '60s! So many people would
have cared in the United States to see his work, and they would have felt it
vibrantly. He would have been imponant."7
Upsett's films were "impottant, but with the exception of Ve1]! Nice. Ve1]! Nia.
they did not circulate widely in the upper echeloos of the American avant-garde
film scene of the 1960s. That was likely the result of the NfB's lack of connections with American avant-garde film co-ops and screening venues and, on the
American side, a suspicion of the avant-garde credentials of a filmmaker employed
by a governmental film agency. Of the filmmakers who were recognized as
imponant in that scene, the Americans Bruce Conner and Stan Vanderbeek had
the most in common with lJpsett. All three were making found-footage films-or
,ecollage films," as they were usually called at the time. Wee documentary compilation films. found foolage films are composed of pre-exisrem footage. such as
stock shots, archival materials. and extracts from previously released films, but
unlike conventional compilation films. they are not designed-for the most pan,

These fragments Thave slwred againsr my ruin ....

T. S. Eliot, The Waste LaruJ

Resume: OelMant ~ l'Office national du film du Canada pendant les ann~ 50,
Arthur Lipsett a transforme Ie documentaire de compilation-illustre par les series
Canada Carries On et'World in Action produites pendant la guerre-en films de collage modemistes qui critiquent les valeurs et mCEurs de 1a societe nord-americaine
des annees 50 et 60. Une lecture attentive de certains passages de Vety Nice. very
Nice, A Trip Down Memory Lane et F1uxes nous permet de voir ses methodes en

action. Ces methodes partagent certaines premisses ttu~oriques etablies par Walter
Benjamin pour son projet inacheve sur Les Arcades, en particulier Ie potentiel
revelateur des .. rebus. et I: ded1ets. extrarts de leurs contextes originaux et juxtaposes selon les prindpes du montage.

hen John Grierson returned to the National Film Board in 1964 to help

celebrate its rwenty-fifth anniversary, he reportedly remarked with characteristic bluntness, "'It has come to my attention recently that the Film Board
more and more is becoming infiltrated with <any-tarty' types who intend to use
the facilities which it offers fo( their own private purposes." 1 Grierson did not
name names, apparently, but Arthur Upsert cou.ld easily have been one of the
"arty-tarty types" he had in mind.
Born and raised in Montreal, Upsett joined the Film Board in 19S8, after
three yean; of study at the Montreal Museum School of IIrt and Design, where
he was twice named "best student."2 At the NFB, he worked as animation artist,
photographer, cinematographer, sound and picture editor. postproduction can
sultant, and direclor. In one capacity or another. he contributed to more than
twenty films over a dozen years, but his reputation as an innovative filmmaker
re51S on five short films: Very Nice, Very Nia (1961), 21-87 (1964), Free Fall
(1964), A 1Hp Down Memory Lane (1965), and Fluxes (1968). His last film for
the NFB, N-ZOne, appeared in 1970. It is also his longest (at forty-five minutes)
and generally regarded as his least successful, though the film does have its
defenders' Alter resigning from the Film Board in 1970, Upsett made Strange

CANADIAN JOURMAl Of RLM STUDIU .IWI CAMADllNNl D'truDU CINtMATOCIlAPHIQUlS

~OLUMl11li NO.1: fALL AUTOMNl 1:. ., . pp :l-U

FIIOM COMPIUO'lOfil TO C'OI.l.ACl

at least-to infonn, educate or persuade; nor do most of them attempt to establish

logical, coherent reJationsrups between shots or use an authoritative voice-over
to tell us what we are seeing and why we are seeing it. Instead, their juxtaposition
of images and, frequently, of sounds and images has more in common with the
arbitrary relationships and dream-logic of Surrealism, the irony and iconoclasm
of Dadaism, and the disjunctive conjunctions of collage and photomontage-in
shon, the techniques and intentions charact~ri.stic of prominent developments in
modernist avant-garde an. a
While the makers of documentary compilation films draw. principaUy upon
the resources oi archives and stock shot libraries, avantgarde foundfootage
filmmakers range much fanher afield to find their raw material in the bargain
bins of camera shops. thrift shops, ilea markets, and yard sales; in piles of films
discarded by film libraries and other institutions; in dumpsters behind film pro
du~tion houses. labs, and television studios. As anist archeologists of the film
world, found-footage filmmakers sift througb the accumulated audio-visual detrituS
of modern culture in search of artiJacts that will reveal more about their origins and
uses than their original makers consciously intended. Then they bring their findings together in image-sound relationships that offer both aesthetic pleasure and
the opportunity to interpret and evaluate old material in new ways.
. By the 1980s, found footage films had become one of the dominant forms
of experimental/avan1-garde film in Europe and North America, and, thanks to
Brakhage and others in the avant-garde film world, Lipsett posthumously joined
Conner and Vanderbeek as recognized early masters of the form, to which A Trip
Down. MelTWT)' Lane and Fluxes WeIe Upselt's principal contributions.' Of course,
Conner, Vanderbeek aod upsett mixed and matched their found materials differently. Conner gives particular anention 10 graphic. rhythmic. and metaphorical
relationships among disparate, discontinuous images. His montage creates a formal
uniry that is frequently missing in Vanderbeek's mor~ chaotic. scrapbook-like
collages of images and sounds. While Conner's films are influenced by the potpourri of cartoons, serials, trailers. newsreels, short subjects. and features that
constituted a typical saturday afternoon at the movies during the years he was
growing up, VandeIbeek's seem more in tune with Marshall McLuhan's elec
tronically fabricated "global village. " particularly when he applies videographic
effects to newsreel and television images and brings together a profusion of
.. found sounds" on the sound track.
In form and content, Lipsett's found-footage films fall somewhere between
those of Vanderbeek an.d Conner. At its best, his manipulation of images
approaches the formal complexity and metaphorical density of Conner's work.
but like Vanderbeek he takes advantage of the sound track to reproduce the heteroglossia of contemporary, urban life and the mass media. All three filmmakers
address the melange of grandeur and inconsequence, disaster aod frivolity, heroism
4

and foolishness that constituted the human condition in the t\venlieth cemury-or.
more precisely. the audio-visual records of that condition discovered by the filmmakers and appropriated for their own films.
Tbe one thing that most clearly distinguishes Lipsett's found-foolage films
from Conner's and Vanderbeek's is the institutional context of their production.
While Conner and Vanderbeek had to make do with what they could find and
produce on their own, Lipsett had at his disposal the technical services of the
NFB and its international network of film archives and stock shot Iibraries.1O
Consequently, while the NFB may have harboured other 'arty-tany" types making
films that raised Grierson's ire, Upsett was arguably the most subversive because
he used the facilities 0'1 the Board to ~adically revise and implidlly critique the
documentary compilation film, a form Grierson had energetically promoted during his tenure as Government Film Commissioner at the NFB.

WILUM\ C. WED

THE NFII'S COMPILATlON AlMS

The compilation films in the two series Canada Carries On and World in Action
have been criticized as simplistic in their treatment of complex social, political
and economic issues. propagandistic, and sometimes intentionally misleading
about the sources and significance of images illustrating the film's narrative and
argument. Compounding those problems-by helping 10 bide them-was the
authoritative "voice of God'" commentary by Lome Greene with a basso-profundo
solemnity that precluded doubts or counter-arguments. D.E. Jones's stern judgement is typical of the criticism directed at the films. In his history of the Film
Board, Movies and Memoranda., Jones writes, "The sound tracks in Canada.
c.arrtes On and 'World in Action overwhelm the images. The commentary is
shouted, the music shrilly dramatic. Artful the films may have been; an. no.
They were tracts." u

Nevertheless. the NFB's compilation films were. in Zoe Druick's judgement,

"one of the NFB's greatest achievements during the war. -" Certainly, they
received widespread distribution and critical acclaim, inclucting a special Academy
Award for CIuuchil/'s Island in the Canada Carries On series. As Richard Griffith
notes, Grierson "shamelessly stole" the fwmat and production methods of the
March of Time, but under his leadership, aod with Stuart Legg and Stanley
Hawes as the prindpal supervisors of production, "The form...developed into
something far in advance of the March of Time, or of any other contemporary
informational film medium."13 In an essay wrinen in 1945. but published many
years lateI, Ernst Borneman, who oversaw the production of instructional films
at the Board. recognized in the films "a sense for the symbolic in the topical, and
for the most highly condensed meaning within the shonest possible footage. ''14
Of their dependence on verbal commentary, Borneman observed, "Aside from
active verbs and pseudo-quotations ('Th.e experts say thal ..:) the most important

F'IOM COMPII..AIION TO COUAGE 5

innovation here was the use of metaphors and similes created by the juxtaposition
of an incidental aspect of the visual and an incidental aspect of the commentary

in such a way that they became meaningfully, though to the spectator imperceptibly. welded together.... "15 Borneman's examples include, from Balkan
Powder Keg (1944):

produced the UN.

The process of metaphor-making in these and other examples ollered by

,Carom: "Hungary, the country whose rulers have gazed irritably backward

Borneman is fairly straightforward. as one would expect of films aimed at a mass

audience. For Grierson and his colleagues, subtlery and thought-provoking complexity were aesthetic luxuries the wartime situation did not allow. As Grierson
wrote at the time. "If we bang them out one a fortnight and no misses. instead of
sitting six months on our fannies cuddling them to sweet smotheroo, it's because
a lot of bravos in Russia and Japan and Germany are banging out things too...... 18
Clearly. years later, no comparable sense of urgency motivated Arthur upsett,
whose films depend on a comparable i.nterplay of picture and commentary, vehicle
and tenor, but with the significant difference that Lipsett's films confront viewers
with ironic. ambiguous, even contradictory associations of sound and image that
challenge them to make sense ou( of what they are seeing and hearing. but without

at the pas!.. ....

the help of a commentary specifically linking vehicle and tenor.

Pix; Peasant lying down in field and covering self in cloak.

Carom: {Hungary's aristocratsl still wrapping themselves and their people

in a cloak of injured pride.
From the same film:
Pix: Ox scratching ass with hom.

From Now- The Peace (1945):

Pix: Marching massed rroops dissolve to VHS [Very High Shot] San

Francisco and bridge (Horizon shot).

Comm: "... that when-this time-the men come marching back, it may be to
a world on the march itself to new horizons of adventure."

From John Bull's Own ls/muJ (1945):

Pix: Surf against breakwaters; aerial shots of dark skies followed by shot of

parting clouds and long shot of bright English.landscape.

Corom: "Against the walls of Britain, the tempests of the second war with
Germany have raged for nigh six years. And now-across the Island

Kingdom's darkened skies-the clouds are parting at long last, as though to

promote brighter times ahead.- I !>
One way to analyze the welding process at work in these cinematic
metaphors is to draw upon the distinction between "vehicle" and "tenor" in LA.
Richards's theorization of literary metaphoL I7 In Borneman's examples. the vehicle
is the actual image on the screen. and the tenor is the idea ascribed to the image
by the commentary. In John BuU's Own Island, for example, the commentary
turns the vehicle "surf against breakwaters" into a metaphor for England's
resistence to German aggression during the war. In the exam,ple from Now-The
Peoce, the vehicle. "San Francisco and bridge." directly represents the city where
the Charter of the United Nations was drawn up and signed by fifty countries
in 1945; the tenor arises from the commentary's evocation of a peaceful and

prosperous post-war world built upon the kind of international cooperation that

WlWAM C. WEES

FROM COMPILA1l0N TO COlLACiE: VERY NICE. VERY NICE

By radically revising the relationship of sound to image, Upsen makes that relationship less stable. more open to interpretation. Moreover. the confident tone
and moral certainties of the earlier films were designed for the morale-building
and collective action Grierson regarded as essential to the war effort and a new,
post-war internationalism. but in Lipsett's films confidence and certainties give
way to doubts, skepticism, relativism, expressions of rebellious individualism,
and radical challenges to the dominant culture's mores and values. like the
"'black humour" of such comedians of the time as Mort Sahl and Lenny Bruce,
his films dissected the characteristic attributes of a post-war "age of anxiety'"
dominated, on the one hand, by consumerism, conformism, and faith in scien-

tific and technologlcal "progress, and on the other hand by Cold War geopolitics and the ever-present threat of nuclear annihilation. I am arguing. in other
words. that Upsett renovated the format of the Film Board's 1940s compilation
films to accommodate a modernist, collage aesthetic and an artistic sensibility in
tune with the issues and attitudes of the 1950s and 1960s.
While Very Nice, Very Nice is not. strictly speaking. a found footage film. it
provides an instructive introduction to Upsett's tactics for juxtaposihg images
and sounds. Except for some archival footage of a nudear explosion and a rocket launching. it is composed of cut-out collages and photographs, many of which
were taken by Lipsett in New York, London, and Paris. 1'J Most of the sounds were
-found," but we are left to guess where Lipsett found them and what their original uses might have been. The film opens with the title superimposed 00 the
first of several photographs of the facades of nondescript city buildings taken
with the camera tilted up from street leveJ (with no human figures visible) and
continues with a quick. introductory collage of sounds and images:

ROM COMPILATION TO COLLAGE 1

F"tgllft!

motto

fiIu"' 3. A loud honI<I of an automobile hem.

"0 the city marches an army whose

is.....
2.

f1gures 6-7. Photos 0( face in a rapid series of dissotYes with the unidentified woKe of
MarshaJl Mcluhan: j)eopIe who have made no attempt to educate tl1emsetves live In a kind
of dissoMog phantasmagona of a world. That t5, they completejy forget what happened bst
Tuesday A pohtic:ian can promese them 6nything. and they wit! not t~m~f IItel' what he
/los promised. .nd uh, the....

Figure 4, Hootl

F"'Iure 5. Honk!
Ffgu~

As in tbe warome compilation films. the sound (rack evokes figuralive readings
of the pictures. The metaphorical (and lnvisiblel "army'" JS denied fulfilmem of
its desIres ("NO'"), trapped in an economy of obsolescence and waste (junked
eM) and heedless consumerism ("BUY"). This "anny" is a far cry from "the men
(whol come marching back at the end of the war with the prospect of JOIning
"a world on the march its.eU to new horizons of adventure. ~ so stirringly invoked
m Now-TM PeacE. The memods may be similar. bUI thejr audio~visuaJ slralegit"S
and intended effects are very different. as oJ few more examples from the same
film make abundantly clear

un.

&-11. A woman's ~: "'And 00, and

the game, it's re,)lly uh, really ut\. l1fCt to look
al for me though. I like footbaJI better than the: wtde.. uh, I mean, baseball 01 hodf!y or sklmg..
Of. 1 pt'efer football"

F'lOre 12. Over bi~round of Qowd noise$, c1

man's -..: 1<np rnoYW>a rigt>t ahead. please"

WIU.Wil

c.. wu.s

BOM CO""'I.A1IOH to COU4Cl 9

The tint \"'eJ'Sion of the soundtrack of Very Nice, Very Nice WdS d rolldge
Upsetl mdlle lor a sound workshop a' the Film Board. It combmed sound. Iba'
lJpselllOOk from trim billS at tbe Board and some be recorded rumsell. Worlung
scripts of tJlt! film's sound indiCdte that llpsett made some revisions in the ong
mal collage when it became the film's soundtrack. zo Nevenheless, it is generally
true lbat tbe him, images are ii,eraUy a \'1sualaccomparument [or tbe sound. If.
a. MIChael Baker bas argued. "the sound leads Ille unages:~ Ille same could be
said of the sound in the compilauon films of canada carnes On and World in
Aawn. as 0 B. Jones's cnticism of their soundtracks indicate The difference ht'"S
in how the sound leads and what It leads to. B.lkers concise description of the
50undim.ag~ relationshjp in lJpsett's film clearly indicat~ thf.l d.lfferent route
Upseu followed in selting sound and imagl: side by side: "Throughoul Very Nice,
Very NICe sound first operates as a narralOr to the image-track, only to become a
sub\'ersi\le agenl as the unage is deroumed: the Juxtaposiuo" of sound and image
producers) a critical renection \'1.1
imdge's inSistence to cominue upon a
course unendorsed by the- soundu3ck. wl~
WluJe McLuhan's -dissolving phantasmagoria of a world" Vlsudlized Hl a
senes of d.J.ssolves directly links ve.tucle and tenor, the met.lphorical uanSd<::uons
become more complex (in Ille spirit o[ tbe Ironic met.lpbors o[ modernist poelrJl)
when a traffic sign reqUlnng a left or right turn juxtaposed with a verbal command to "keep moving right ahead- yields an audio-V15ualtrope for the .:uuieues
produced by Ibe contradictory deroands imposed on a regimented. rna s sOCIety.
And the wOffim's barely articulate effort to express her preference for football
set against lrnages of the staged Violence of professional wrestling and a S.lCChanne tablf"au of romanticized nudes IDay be an exlfeme example of ..the Image's
insisteoc-f" to contmue upon a course unendorsed by the soundtrack." bUl it
is typical of Lipsett'S .subversion of the kind of close correspondence-whether
htfra,1 or metaphorical-between \loicR-over and accompanying image-s upon
which the Film Board's waItlme compilation films depended for Ibeir rhetoncal
and emouon.ll effects.
'otabJe. as well. lS 1.JPse1t'S radical depanure from the FB" prdcllce of
usmg d Single, lCained speaker for vOIce-over commemary. \-~ Nlce. Very NIa!
confronts us with a rneldnge of VOICes, some polished and profeSSional, some
clearly unuamed and belonging 10 ordinary people who .l Je not feoldJllg hom J.
scnpt and are not talking about what appears on the screen .is they speak.. In
place of a unifying commentary, diverse voices joslle each other. making unrelaled and frequently unfinished commenlS. This, in itself, 15 a comment on the
lack of genuine communJcanon and a shared set of values in comemporary sod
ely. The effect 15 not unlike the Juxlaposed fragments of diverse and dlscordam
-voices" TS EHOI employs in The Waste Land to make a compdrable comment
on tbe moral and mtellectua! disllllegration. sballowness. ennui. and desp.lir he

mll

1. WIUJAM C. WlU

s.1W In Wt.>slcrn society 10 the years follo",ng World War 1-01 condition summ('l1
up in, ..... you know only! A heap of broken Images. -!.'
Imeresungly. The lVasle LaJuJs closlOg benedIction trum Ille Uparu had,.
"Shantih shaotlh shannh," has ,a counterpart In Lipseu's him: tile insertion 01
"ohmmm" imonE'd tWIce about twoIJurds of the way through Very Nice. \1?r)' Niet'.
More than an lOodtmtal echo. it indiCdti"S .a k>Y momem 10 thll tilm. Leadmg up
to 11 IS a senes of -photos taken at a peace demoDstrdtioO, lDduJmg one at .1
death's head on a long pole. As 11 concludes. a male \'OtCe as' , "What j:; the
me-amng of life: What IS a good~ What t5 a \"aJu~r The rtTly is. "Ohmmm
F'.:lImliar as .In aid ro medJtdllon. "ohmmm" is a proJongallon of tile sound Iha t ,
HI sevt>ra] branches of Hinduism, signifies the di\'tne' energy pt>rmedling mt.' um
\:erse and bindmg the physical J.nd spiritual dimenSIons of hie mto a perfect
unllY. Ch.mtll1g "ohmmm~ is a way of using lht' sound of one's vOIce to partaklt
of that energy .md deept"n d sense of the unity th.u It creat<>S. In LJpseu's hIm.
wohmmm" IS foUowe<1 by the sound of one person c1apPlOg dnd a man dedarmg
.1PJlff'CLlti\ely. "BrJvo! Very filef.'. very nice. The accompanrmg 101agi IS a phC'
cograph of a dark field, a Wide band of bright sky, and a few bigh, wIspy cloud:.,
offering. as 11 were, 3n open. deep space an whIch [he sound C.ln resonate. The
Image ch.angcs 10 .mother Wide open space: .an aerial photO 01 lower Manhaltan
surrounded by water, In the dislance, streaks of sunlight spread downw.:uu from
d bank of clouds ~Ohmmm" i repealed. followed ,tgaJn by cJ.lpping and "Br.wn!
\\:'ry nice, verv mce. At the fum's conclusion, a downward run on a Jazz s.a.x.ophonil:' rf'Cel\'~ [hi"
same appro\"lng applause, and the same man SJ)'S agam, Br.wo! Vi.'I)' nice. V~\'
nice" -3 re-sponse Ihal could apply [0 both the musIc and Iht?" tinal tmJ.ge of th~
film_ a phOto of J beautiful young woman lookmg pasl the- l'Jmera wilh .1 c.alm anti
5elf~po.ssessed expr.:>ssioo on ber r,.1<,"e. By implicitly equ.:1ting "ohmmm" ,md J..\U
through lhe common r~sponse the')' elicit, upsett suggests cull ural ,'J.s~oclatlons
spt"Cinc to [he ('ra in which Ihe- film was made. 1L was a lime wh~n crun>' dlSdI
feeted dl1'lStS .md mtellectudls regarded Jazz as perhaps lhe 0111)' ll:"t.1P<:'llItng te,
IUT' of Amencan culture. dnd some also turned toward the Edsl an search of mOItl
authentic forms of self-fulfilment and spuituaJIty, Among them \\efe lht> wnlE"Pi
o the Beat GeneralJOn. In an early plan for the conleJl1 .uld structure of Vt.:'}' NI(I'
VL."1)' Nic:e, Lipsen L:tbelled one part, "Leap of Grealest Imensuy lnvolv1Og 'Beat'
EJcmem of S0l1Cty, "H While no specifically "BeJI" elemeUls are menlJont?d, and
the film in Its hnJ.! (onn on.ly approximales thl? structure enviSioned by lJpSett .11
thiS stage, il IS signitJednt ,hat two cuIluraJ phenomena highly valued by lht:1
Beals-Eastern religions and American ,azz-mark. the two places 10 the him wht?f~
1lS tone changes from satine.,]) and iroruc to affinnauve and oflro ~ repnC'n~ from.
and a po5lO\'e ahemall\'e to, the in.:uuties, fragmentation, <1lUlet1t"S, and alien.Hlo.)
thai Olher\V1St' dominate the film's charaetfflzauon of modern liie. Comp.1fJblemoments of repose jn the blms that would follow Jre few dnd foU" betwc~n.
M

FIlOM COM... LAllOM TO COUA(;,I

11

CONSTRUcnNC A CINEMATIC nME CAPSULE: A TRIP _

MEMORY LANE
None of Lipsett's subsequent soundtracks coheres quite as tightly or propels the
film as forcefully as the soundtrack of Ve1)I !'{ice. Ve1)' Nice. But, as in LipseU's
first film, they generate something between a dialogue and a dialectic between
sound and image. As well, the editing tempos of the later films tend (0 be some-

what slower.lhe result is longer films (Very Nice. VeT)' Nice is seven minutes
long; A Thp Down Memory Lane. twelve and a half minutes; Fluxes. twenty-four
minutes) and films with a slightly looser structure and a comparatively slower
pace. Meanings are no less complex, but they may take longer 10 unfold.
A Trip Down Memory Lane begins with beauty Queen contestants parading
past the camera accompanied by the insistent beating of military drums. When

the winner. wearing a cape and holding a scepter, seats herself on her throne,
"TIlE NATIONAL FILM BOARD OF CANADA presents" appears in white Jelters
on a black background. After a few brief shots of the smiling winner and a crowd
of photographers taking her picture, the film's tille appears, followed by a subtitle, "Additional Malerial for a Time-capsuJe," and then more shots of the CODtestants and the crowd of photographers with their cameras flashing. The heavy
drum beat gives way to wavering music in a minor key from the soundtrack of
a travelogue about India. A procession of marching and mounted troops in ceremonial finery passes among throngs of spectators as the narrator proclaims,
"For those who like brave men bravely dressed. no age holds greater fascination
than the zenith of the Rajputs." Ap ~lephant with the maharajah ensconced in a
howdah on its back lumbers to the centre of the crowded scene as we are told.
"With a final superb touch of spectacle the ruler arrives."
Cur to a medium cJose--up of a pale-faced adolescent boy in the open cockpit oi a small airplane saying, "Next year I intend to go after the trans... the
junior transcontinental record." Well-wishers shake his hand and the plane takes
ofL Cur to a dapper man, hat in hand, striding toward a large public building,
moun.ting part-way up the stairs, and turning to look at the camera while Bing
Crosby backed by a ragtime band sings, "Louisiana, Louisiana, I've been sad,
I've been sadl Louisiana. Louisiana. now I'm glad. boy I'm glad...... The song
continues over shots of a young girl in an elaborate headdress and costume
standing on top of a hot air balloon that takes off and sails over city streets with
the tiny figure of the girl still visible on top. Cut to a man wearing a waiter's out
fit and carrying a tray of food as he inches his way along a girder at the top of a
tall building Wlder construction. Several workers standing and sitting on anoth
er girder shout encouragement: "Ana boy1 Keep comin', boy! Just walk out on
the beam. That's it! That's it! That's it!" As one worker stands up to meet the
'"waiter," the film cuts to two men lifting a third man into the cockpit of a small
glider. The sound changes to a very old, tinny recording of a robust tenor singing
a stirring anthem. The glider is pushed nf! a high bluff and immediately crashes
on the rocks below. The pilot is helped up the steep slope and waves to indicate

1'1

MUJAM t. WElS

that he is okay. Cut to an old-fashioned. silent film inrertiUe: "'It was a nice job
while it lasted. "
The crash of the glider literally brings down 10 earth the preceding references (0 flights and heights. In addition to the literal heights, there are the
metaphorical heights attained by a beauty queen on her throne and a maharajah
atop an elephant. TIuough Upsell's editing, the maharajah is replaced as "ruler"
by a kid whose airplane lifts him into the sky as he, metaphorically. leaves behind
the old, tradition-bound cultures of the East. At another level of reference. the film
clips form a procession of their own, with beautifuJ women in swimsuits and
"brave men bravely dressed" leading the parade and an intertiUe gag-"lt was a
nice job while it lasted...-bringing u~ the rear. As the parade of images continues, the chronology of the archival footage moves forward from the 1920s and
1930s to the war years and into the 1950s-and the predominant thematic content
references science~ politics. religion, and war. Footage evoking World War ll-bat.
tleships~ soldiers, a Japanese man with radiation burns-is mixed with footage of
laboratory experiments, a Catholic priest in ceremonial finery conducting an outdoor service. scenes of everyday life, and images of iconic public figures such as
John D. Rockefeller, Benito Mussolini, Emperor Hirohito, Pope Pius Xli, Dwight
D. Eisenhower. Harry 'Duman. Konrad Adenauer. and Richard! ixon (who is seen, but
not heard, deliVering his famous "Checkers" speech on TV). Immediately follOWing
Nixon, a sword swallower performs for a crowd in a city square accompanied on
the soundtrack by a rapidly oscillating electronic buz.z, suggesting a human voice
distoned almost beyond recognition by a synthesizer. This sound continues over
the last two shots of the film: photographs of a man wearing large fake eyeglasses with hugely magnified eyes behind the lenses and the sad-eyed, deeply
lined face of Albert Einstein. who seems to be contemplating the sorry state of
the world, for which his theories were partially responsihle (Figures 13-16).
Going for '"a trip down memory lane" is a familiar conceit of compilation
films that do little more than exploir the sounds and images of earlier times ior
their comic andlor nostalgic effect. In A Trip Down Memory l.Jlne~ however, the
comedy tends to be dark and disquieting, and any chance for nostalgia is undercut
by the ironic juxtapositions of sound and image. Moreover. as the film's subtitle
suggests. upseu envisioned his film as a cinematic equivalent of the documents.
images and objects that are placed in time capsules to provide future generations
with material evidence of how people lived and what they thought at a particular time and place in the past. In some notes he prepared for Donald Brinain, the
film's producer. Lipsell wrote. "What are the forces thai have shaped, and are
shaping.. our new awarenesses; and what are our Dew responsibilities?"l5 This
suggests that the purpose of Lipsett's trip down memory lane was to collect
audio-visual evidence of those "forces" and preserve them in a cinematic time
capsule. with disjunctive. allusive montage serving as a kind of model of the
"new awarenesses" that are needed for contemporary society to recognize and

flaM COMJOtLAnON TO COL1..ACE

1:1

H&u,es 17-18. 'E.x.1mptes of ~ Western s.cience and lKhnotogy motif to Fluxes.

Generally, however, tht? unpbcations of tbe audio and visuallracks and their
relationship 10 each olher depend less on drrect Juxtapo iuan of sound and Imag~
Ihan on Ule graduJ.l .lccumulauon of meamngs and Cfos.s~referenC"S as lhe tilm
progresses. TIle flfSt Images 10 Ihe film come (rom fOOl age of two ctumpd,JUef:j

F1sUrM 1~16. Concluding im.ges of A Trip Dom1 Memoty Lone.

accepl the "new responsibilities" history has Imposed on lL Although it is composed primarily of sounds and Images from the pol5l. Ihe film's sound-Image collage IS. In il"'ll. all example of Ihe new kind of awarelles Upsetl regarded as
esseotJJI to underslandmg and actmg responSIbly in the presenL
EAST VUSUS WEST: FWlCES
For A 1hp Daunt Mel1wry Lane. Upseu organized his footage chronologically (aIter

lhe opemng sequence). but lor HllXeS. he chose a more complicaled struClure
b.1sed 011 conrrasllOg sets of mterrelaled sounds .:md unages with similar connota~
uons or thematic implications. These audlovisual motifs give the mm an under
lying conceptual unity, despite lhe diversity of unages and fragmentary nature of
the sounds and IIndges. AI any given moment. there is likely to be no necessary
connection between what we are hearing and Wh"ll we are .seemg; for, Unlike a siz-

abl<? portion of the found fOOl age in A Thp Down Memory Lane, almost none of
the footage in fluxes ret.nn.s lts anginal SOundlrdCk_ OceaslOnaJly a sound may
as a comment on the accompanying unage or lmply a relationship belween
unrelated images. For E'xaffiple, canned audience laughter accompanies a shot of
Adolf Eichmann altus war-aimes Iri.lJ 11\ Jerusaleut .. well .. lWO shots of a comedian, '""The Wacky Wizan:t~ demonstraung Silly inventions. The. Juxtaposition of
Wld and Image Ul these instances suggestS, perhaps. that whIle what Eichmann
did was not funny. the sug;ng of hl. trial provided a gnm lund of mass emenaillmem. the flIp side of which is the goofy showmanship of The Wacky WILlId_

SeJ;'\"e

14 WllUNlI Co WlS

louchmg differem "'8meDl. of a panel as lhey Ilghl up. ThIs introduces d c1ust
of images drawn from films dealing with science and technology, includrng mor~
(ootage of tile chunps later in the film. a chimp e.ncased III .l spact" CdpSU!e
dUring a space fllghl, the I.duodling of an early model of a rockl...... animation of .1
commUmCdtlOnS satelHtt> going into orbit and radio WJ'o't,."S u~lVelting up to a s.lle~
lite ~lnd back down to Earth. a devIce for measuring the vcolocltY 0.( .) f'llhn.g obJe-c,
another for measunng the velocity or a bullel fired from

nile (FigUfl' l:'J.

,J

machine thai lesls the eldslidty of nylon slockings. sequences flam oIn JOimaIlQ,)
film comIcally iUusualltlg the stages in the production of an automobue. a n::itx.'l
)aZZ b.l0d. and S('\'erdl madtines and pleces of lab equlpm~nl who:'e' purpo.se i5
ncn app,uem to a lay \'Iewer (Figure 18), At the comic extreme of thiS set 01 ur..J~c ..
are The Wacky WiZMd's inventlOns. and (oolilge of a man and wom.an in I.1b l:OJIS:
aUachmg a mass of long coils to a woman's head while a sinister male VOIce on
the soundlrack Intoncs. "Now 1 can comrol hie absoJutE'ly'"
Thai smppet of "found sound'" is part of .J 5rt of Jnlerrel.noo sounds thai
deOects the sdence-lt"Chnology references Into Ihe fe-JIm of sot-nc" fiction dod
the fantastic, wnh an emphasIs on invasions hom ouler sPJce and thrE."ats d
mass destruction. At differenl poUlt In the film we hE."ar st'\~r.ll such deodar. "I shall take- over this planet. JUSl as 1 did the others!" 'Hold oul yOt,r
hand. We h.:we made e\'C'rything on our planet invisible. Look'" '\-\.'to come from
d hungry planel.\Vhere a.1I protem was exhdusted centuri~ Jgo. As d mduer (If
survival we raid other pldnels .and extract [be prolejo from them for our own
people. Our onJy morality IS survival. '" As the closing credits dpp<>ar anud more
pass.lgell of fOWld foolag>. the soundtrack lOcludes (he foUowmg soWlds and

lions:

verbal exchanges;

noM COMPlLAf10N TO COLlAGE

15

[electronoc beeps)

rirst rays ready...

-F:trst rays aClivated."
Uumble of voices and shouted commands)
"Final phase activated. ~

"The war has reduced our population to a mere handful."

"Th.1t is uue. Meecham."
"tt I, indee<l typical that you Earth people reluse to believe
in the supenonty of dny world but your own."
.....chlldren looking 10'0 3... ~
[electronic beeps I

"Use emergency power and repel duack."

"Power tran'fer will begm Imme<lJately."
IthrobIJing electronic sound!
lsolence]

The croojts end at

thlS point, but the film does not. It continues with the falIOWlog dialogue accompanying a shot of a rocket launching and ume-Iapse

footage of the dllmpanz~ inside a sp.lce capsule:

"-00 I understand you to say {hell we met 10 Tibetl'"
"Yes. And unless I'm mIStaken, we wen? both on a slml1df mission."
~Yes?"

"Would it be intrUSJv{' if I should ask you if you were successfuJr

"In wh.:ur
"In obtaullIlg a specunen of the man{esa Lumina 111plna. the phosphQres~
cenl Wolf Flow('[...

"Why. you know!"

"II blooms only under tbe rays 01 the moon. "
"You adually believe that Ihis nower takes its 1ife from moonlight1..
"I do.'
"WeJt JO (olr I've been unsuccessfuJ in persuading mine 10 bloom by moonlIgbt or any other kind ollighr."
!a break in lhe now of the dialogue marked by a soft "dick"
"Whetht>r you catch it or nOI wUl nOl m.aHer much ...wmght 1 '"

The Unige lades to black and the film ends. The alen viewer wiU recogruze Ul
the ommaus irnpUcauons of the final words and the references to the Woll
Rower and moonlight an oblique allusion to the OBt words on the film's sound
track.: lhe w~rewolJ 5("eks to killihe thing it loves besl. ... {In (act. the opening
lioe of the film dJ1d the closing lines come from the- same source: Werewolf of
London [USA. 1935. S,uan Walker''''')

11 WUUA. (. WlU

Figufes

1~20.

uamples of the Eastern spiritual motif io Fluxes.

The soundlrack's eVOCdtion of lhe e-ene and fantastic and Ihe closely relat
ed SL1ern,:e hetion/dl asrer motif help to darken the comechc and irnruc perspective QIl the VJSUJI track's representation oj SCience and t~hnulogy Imphdlly.
they also Quesllon Ihi" purpose aod value of [hose two pillJ.r5 of mlXJem We 'tern
dVlhzatJon. The same IS true oi the film's olher majOr \'isu.1I mOliJ. which IS as
rtle10nymlcaUy lmked 10 the EaSt as saenc' and lechnology ar~ Lnlkt:>d to the W I
It is composed of shOts drawn from what appears [0 tw one or more films aboul
Tibet (the habll.u of the- phosphorescent \Volf flower) Ilnd includes Buddhist
monks medl1alUlg. praying, and engaged JO relJgious ceremorues, the mosl slnlnng
ofwhtch IS footage of a priest in Jluxuriam robe and headdress perfomung complex
hand movements as he circles in iront of an eldborall.~ly decorated shnne (FIgure:s
19-20). Fragments of this footage recur severaJ umes, most nOlJbty dUring the
final credits sequence. That sequence dlso includes sbOIS of a child \\.1th a sh.wed
head and ''''eanng a monk's robe. t\YO monks praymg. dud sWi'rJI monks St,.)ated.
in front of an ahar coDldinmg small sialues of thie> Buddha. Ime-rspersed ar(' shots
of glOWing diJls on a pll?Ce of lab equipment J.lld clouds of smoke as d rocke! IS
launched. A shOlar a monk Wllh his eyes closed in med!lauon inunediatt"ly follow'S
the shol of lhe rocket, after which, sciffice and technology imagt!ry lakes a\"\~f,
with one more rockel launchlOg and the chirnp-Ul-space.
Thus. 10 the course of the film, the spintuality and mysliCJsm of Ihe EaSI are
set a~inst the rationality and matenahsm of the West and the West's (onndence
In the scienuhc method and technological progress. H()\'J()l~r, unJikl? the
ohmmm" 10 Very l\'lce, Very Nu:e, there IS no s.uggestlon 111 Fluxt.~s IhJtlhe spn
itual values of Ihe EaSI can penetrate the resolutely maierialisl values of the
Wesl. The monks' expressionless faces and their indecipherable rlluals Jre .15
aben to Western culture as the outer-space ol]iens who CJn make then world
in\'l.Slble or extract all the protem from other planets. Faith in technology, LJpsett
implIeS, has become the West's religion. and IllS film oIlers "",denee ollis equally
alienating effe'Cls. Famc15Y and sriffice ficuon, With their e..(llre5S10nS of profound
arw.ety and paranoia, fill the spirituill vacuum lerl by a dE'Volion to sclenttnc and
materialistic progress. 111 a brilliant bit of gtJphic m.:ndllng, a shot of J Buddbi"l

FIlOM COMPtlAflOH TO COlLA(;,l 11

r.
r'CUre5 2122. Images re~ the East.-t West in direct jUltlpOSition in Ruxes.

monk carrying 3 large- round pol inlO ""'ruch a woman spoons food from a sauce
pan IS foUowed by dn aniffi,;,tion sequence of a large round 5cltellile hurtling into
space (Figures 21-22). The- funcnon and significance of the twO large, round
objea and Ihe ways of hfe Ihey represent could hardly be more differem, and
the film oUers no resolution 10 that incompatibility.
Worries about copyTight infringement. because some of the film's sound
was taped off television, delayed distribution of Fluxes fOT over ,1 year after ils
compJetion. l1 Moreo\feI, there bad cl1ways beE1l people elt the Board who disapproved of UPSCI1'S films. and presumably they would have been In. no huny to
see fluxes relea.5ed."11 is likely Ihey dId not appreoatethe ambigwty and 'rony
In LJpsett's construction of .a soundillldge collage loaded with diverse cuhural
references bUl lacking cJedT indications as (0 which are to be valued and which
rejected. And wlule the collage structure and multiple references of A lhp Down
Memury t..ane could be Justified as "addllional material for a time capsule." the
orgllnizauon and choice of content for Fluxes could be dismissed as arbilIary and
seU~lndulgenl-or "artytarty"-by people committed to a Griersoni.lll vision of the
F~m Board', tlllson d'me. In Ihe contl!Jtl of avant-garde found footage film"
however. Hu.te5 and A lhp Down Memory Lane stand oul (or their mgenious
montage of osleoslbly unrelated bagmenls 01 film and sound. their sure padng,
Iheu d.lfk comedy. and their unrelenting critique of the dominant cultural values
of theu time.
MONTACf AND 11tE DlAUcnCAL IMAGE:
BDUAMIH"S AIICADS PROIEer AND UPSETTS fOUND,FOOTAGE FILMS

Upse,t's method of accompli'hlng thaI critique shares some of 'he ",ategies

Waite< Benjamin adopted for his mammol11, unfinished Arcades Project. IIi.
unlikely Llpsen knew abou, Benjamin's projea, which did not appear in prinl unlil
1982. Moreover. the content and sca.le-not to mention the medium of expression-of lhe Arc.1des Project and Lipsett's films are qWle dJ(ferenl. Nevenhe1ess.
I would Iil<e 10 suggest lhal Benjamin'. approach '0 cultural analys" o({en a prodUCtIve way ollbinlting abou, Upseu's method of galhering and orgamzmg hi'

"

WWJMI Co WlU

found foolage and the kmd of rerception that method nukes posSIble; what
Lipseu called "new awarenesses" and Benjamin called "knowledge fthatj comes
only in hghtning nashes."
For hiS In\'esligauon of the economic. sodal, and cullural developments lhJI
sluped nmeteenth-cemury Paris. Benjamin chose an extremely unorthodox
methodology based on the accumulation of brief quotat.ions (rom a vasl array of
nio('(eenth- Jnd twentjelh~cemury sources_ "This work:' Benjamm. wrote. "hM
to develop 10 the highPst degree the art of citing without qUOIalion marks. Its theory IS Intlmettely related 10 ilial of montage.")O These fragments were. 10
Benjamin's words. "blasted OUl of the continuum of hislOrical succession"jl and
Juxtaposed w,thout I!Jtphcit analysis, Benlamin put it tlu' way: "Method of thIS
proJect: literary montage. I neE'dn'( say anything. Merely show I slull purlOin no
\Jluables. appropriate no mgenious formUlations. But the rags. rhe refuse-this I
will not 1.Ovemory bUI allow. in the only way posslbl~ to come Into !hPlf own:
by makmg use of them." u Of course, Benjaffiill's sialed LOlenuon to -merely
show" is somewhat ingenuous. MOnla,ge. arter all, implies calculdted selectlOJl
and arrangement Morem'er. in addition 10 organizing his textual fragments
according to subject maner ("Arcades," "MCl8osin, de NOUvetlJJles. "Sales Clerk,,"
-Fashion," "The S1reels of Pari ,'" "PhOiography," and approxun.ltfly tlfty other
categories), BenjdIDin frequently placed Ius own brief comments among them. H
must also be said thai Benjamin's sense of montage may have been more
Surrealisl than Eisenslelruan. but as Susan Buck-Morss. m her magisterial study
of Ihe Arcades Project. wnles. "'Benj,anun's goo.l. within the legacy of Surrealism
Ithe phrase is Benjamin'S (\Y.e. \Y.Jl was '0 connea the shock of awakening ""h
l11e dIsciphne of remembering and 'hereby mobilize the lustoncal objects." She
goes on (0 quote Benjamin: "We here construe! an alarm dock that roust!s the
kitsch of tht" last century to 'Jssembly'-and IhlS ope-rales (Otally with cunning. ~H
Upsetr, audio"i,uai "rags" and '[efuse" were alsn "blaSled om of the COli'
{jnuum of hislonc,al succession" and cunningly assembled 10 allow them to
"come Into theu o\\rn" through anematlc. r.llher than blerary. mOlllage. As well.
in their }UKlaposlbon. his fragmt"nts of found sound and illl.lges often suggest the
-ch.ance encounI(>fS" of Surrealist theory and practice rather lhan the caJculdted
collisions" between shots in Eisenstein', theory .and praeuce of momage. (A
!ragment of sound in Ft'ee FalJ-"an electncal orCUH. semi-penne,lble membranes.
a mathe:rn.aticaJ expression. or green cheese. II makes no d.1ffereoce"-seems 10
endo"" tha' principle of Surrealist aesthelies.) AI'" !ike BenjJOlin, Upsell counted
on what Buck-Morss calls "the interpretive power of imJges that makt" con~
ceptual points concretely, with reference to the world oUlslde the text." k Th.u
world outside the text'" includes not only the hiSlonul comexl from which lh>
lmage-fragmenLS are ulracled. but also the immediate. present world of lht.>
reader/VIewer of the text. Benjamin was as rnleresled In what his 'cdgS" and
"refuse" could rell him about his own ume as he was in what the'\' reveaJed dbout

FIOM CC)MptlA'TlOH

ro COUACl

19

nineteenrn-century Paris. As Buck-Morss expresses it, "Nineteenth-centwy objects

were to be made visible as the origin of the present. -lS Or, in Benjamin's words,

6.

See Frameworks Archive for SeptemberOecember 1998, http://Wwwht-beam.neVfw/

fw9l1ndex..html

7.

Stan Brakhage, "On Canadian Painting and dnema.~ Canadian Joumol of Film
Studies/Revue conodienne d'&des cinhnarographiques 14.1 (2005): 95.
For more extensive diSQJssion of the history, theory and practice of compilation and
found-footage filmmaking. see Jay Leyda. Films Beget Films: A Study of the CcmpilaOOn
(New York: Hill and wang. 1964); Joel Katz" -From Archive to ArchNeoIogy:
Onematogroph 4 (1991): 93-103; Celia Hausheer and Christophe Settele, eds.., Found
Footage Film [In Gennan and English] (lucerne: V1PER/Zytdop verlag. 1992); Eugeni
Bonet ed.. Desmontoje: Film, VIdea/Apropiod6 (in Spanish and English) (Valencia:
IVAM--centle Julio Gonz..1&ez, 1993); Sharon Sandusky, "'The Atcheo~ of Red~ption:
Toward Archival Films: Millennium Film Joumo/26 (199.3): 325; William C. Wees,
R~ Images: The Aft and Politics of Found Footage Films (Ne'N York: Antflology Film
Archrves, 1993); James Peterson, Dreams of Chaos, VISions of Order: Understanding the
Ameriam Avant-garde Cinema. (Detroit: Wayne State UnNersity Press, 1994), 126-178;
Yann Beauvais, Found Footage dans Ie codre du cyde "OfI(Jlyse. colloge, meJoncolie
(Paris: Galerie Nationale du Jeu de Paume, 1995); SCott MacKeruie, -fJot.Ners in the
Dustbin: Termite Culture and Detritus Cinema,"' CineAetion 47 (1998): 24-29; Paul Arthur,
-n.e Status of fuund Footage: Spec.toror 20.1 (1999-2000): 57-69; Pattik Sjoberg, The
world in Pieces: A Study of Compilation Fl/ms (Stockholm: Aura ffirtag, 2001); Jeffrey
Skoller, Shadows, Specters. Shards; Making History in Avant-Garde Rim (Minneapolis:
University of Minnesota Press, 2005), 137.

"What has been is to be held fast-as an image flashing up in the now of its
recognizability."36 That meeting of present and past, now and then, generates
what Benjamin called a "dialectical image--a concrete insight achieved by a
tweotiethcemury subject critically engaged with a nineteenthG.eDtury object.
For Benjamin. that spark br "lightning flash" 01 insight leaps across temporal

a.

m,m

space-from the .rnid-1BOOs to the 1930s. For Upsen. it leaps across perceptual
space-that is, the space between the way the image/sound was perceived in its
original context (which-except for pans of A 1Hp Down Memory Lane-was in
the present or recent past) and the way it is perceived in the context of his films.
Whatever the nature and original context of their literary and audio/visual
fragments, both Benjamin and Lipsett counted 00 recontextualization through
momage to release the spark of insight offered by dialectical images. They shared
the conviction that. if properly addressed. the shallowest. most ephemeral demtus of popular culture can be made 10 yield deep, lasting insights into the forces
that have shaped contemporary society and-in Upseu's case, at least-have also
shaped the way society views' itself in the mirrors of the mass media. While
Benjamin's Arcades Project remains an ungainly and unfinished monument to
the analytic power of "literary montage," Lipsett's films. on a smaller, more manageable scale, demonstrate the affective and aesthetic, as well as analytic, power

9.

01 an audio/visual monlage 01 cultural "rags" and "reluse.

Nons

My thanks to Bernard Lutz at the National Film Board and Julienne Boudreau at
the Cinematheque quebecoise for assisting my archival research, to Blaine Allan
for his editorial acumen and assistance in preparing the frame enlargements {or

10.

this article, and to the Executive nl the Film Studies Association 01

Although some commentators have assumed that 2 J87 and Free Fan are also com
posed of found footage, archival documents indicate that is not the case. In an undated
letter to LM. Kit Carson (written in response to a letter from Carson dated 17 August
1966), Lipsett says of 21-87, -n was the first time I had shot (aJ live action film:
Cinemath~ue quebecoise archives, file 2005.0055.39.sc. The production file for Free
Fall includes a short blurb for the film, describing rt. as coming "'from the the camera of
Arthur Lipsett.- Budget sheets rtSt Lipsett as "'Director and Cameraman" and include pay.ments for research and partial shooting-' and "shooting personnel and crew." NFB,
Arthur Upsett production file ~213, -Free Fall.- Credits at the end of the film list Lipsett
for -camera, Editing. Sound Editing:" While found footage appears in N-Zone, a large par.
tion of the film is composed of original footage shot for the film.
fur Ruxes, for example, Upsett not only drew upon the NFB's own films, but also
ordered footage from the Sherman-Grinberg stock~hot libraIY, CBS New Yort. Hearst
Movietone, Manhattan~ovietone Film Library, and News of the Day. NFB, Arthur Upsett
production file A-7G-67, -Print our ("Auxesj.

Canada/Association canadienne d'etudes cinematographiques for inviting me to

present the Martin Walsh Memorial Lecture at its annual conlerence in May 2007.

11.

Jo~

12

Zoe Oruick, Projecting Canada: Government Policy and Documentary Film ot the
National Film Boord (Montreal and Kingston, ON: McGill Queen's University Press.

D.B. Jones. Movies and Memorando: An Interpretative History of the Notional Film Boord
(ottawa: Canadian Film Institute, 1981), 102.

B.

1.

of Conoda
2.

3.
4.

5.

For more biographical information on Upsett. see Lois Siegel, -A down Outside the
Circus,- http://wwwsiegelproductions..c.a/filmfanatics/arthurtipsetthtm (originally pub
lished in Cinema Canada 134 (October 1986]; 1(}'14), and Mtchael Danesek.
-rranscending the Document,lIy: lhe Films of Arthur Upset!;: MA Thesis, Concordia
University, 1998,39--66. In his study of lipsett's films and their institutional context,
Danc.sok anticipates some of the arguments developed in the present essay.
See Danesek. pp. 20-21, and Fred camper, http://www.fredc.amper.comjUpsett.html.
Arthur l.ipsett, "Notes and Proposals: Conodian Journal of Film Stucrres/Revue c:onodienne d'MucIes dnemotographiques 7.1 (1998): 62.
FortTlef Anderson interviewed by Michael Daneso,," see Daneso,," "An Introduction to
Notes and Proposak: by Arthur Lipsett; Canadian Joomal of Film Studies/Rewe conodieone rJ'erudes Ont!motogrophiques 7.1 (1998): 43.

11 W\WAM C. M15

39.

2007),39.

14.

Richard Griffith., -North and Latin America: in Paul Rotha. DocvmentDry Film (London:
Faber and Faber, 1952),332.
Ernst Borneman, "Doa.lmentary Films: Work! War II,~ in Canadian Film Reader, Seth
Feldman and Joyce Nelson, eds. (Toronlo: Peter Martin Asscxiates, 1977).55.

15.

Ibid.. 55.

16.

Ibid..

17.

IA Richards, The Philosophy of Rhetoric (New York: Oxford University Press, 19.36), S7.112.

18.

~5-57.

John Grierson,. Grierson on Dowmentary, Forsyth Hardy, ed. and intro. (London: Faber
and Faber, 1979), 112-

Documents in the production file indK.ate that Lipsett drew upon at least six outside
sources for photos, as well as Fox Movietone for stad sOOts. NFB, Arthur Lipsett production file 61205, "Very Nice-Very Nice.20. "Script for very Nice, Very Nice.- dnematheque quebkoise archives. folder
19.

ROM COMPILATION 10 COlLAGE 1:1

2003.005.53.sC; sound saipt in English and French, NFB, Arthurd Lipsett production file
61-205. "IIery Nke-Vely Nke:
Midlael Baker, ~ [)ots.and-Loops to Cut-and-Paste: Arthur Lipsett's ~ Nice. Ve1y
Nice,- www.synoptique.ca/core/en/print/bakec6psett/(14March2005). 2.

21.

MITSUYO WADAMARCIANO

n.

Ibid.. 4.
T5. Eliot, The Complete Poems ond Plays '909-'950 (New York: Harcourt. Brace: 1952),
38. Eliot's line also sums up the opinlon of the more unsympathetic critics of Lipsett's
film. D.B. Jones, for example, called the film "a disordered f}.lm about disorder, a confused film about confusion, 83.

23.

24.

Lipsett, 49.

25.

Ibid. 56.
"Thanks to Blaine Allan for identifying this obSQne source.
In the production files for Fluxes, an order for a trial print (dated 29 April 1969) indudes
the foUowing comment about the -music": -Stock from various services. May be subject
to copyright claims, but unable to KSentify at present.- Concerns about copyright infringement are also addressed in memos by Tom Daty, Frank Spiller, and c.era(~ Bertrand in

26.
27.

November and December 1968. NFB, Arthur Lipsett production file A-7G-fil, -Print our

ifluxes").
28.

See Segel! (4): -Even Very Nice, ~ Nice was not well-accepted: explains Gordon
Martin who was in charge of the Board's Saeen Study program in film education"M_
'People onty changed their attitudes when it was nominated for an Academy Award.'
'Generally, people in NFB Distribution thought the film was rubbish: recalls Mark Slade,
who had just come to NFB Distribution at that time_- Slade, one of Lipsett's staunchest
SUPp<lrters at the Film Board, also implied that the delayed release of Ruxes was due to
antipathy toward lipsett's films among people in NFB Distribution (Siegel, 4).

29.

Walter Benjamin. The Aroodes Project, Howard Eiland and Kevin Md..aughlin, trans.
(Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. 1999), 456 {N1,lJ.

30.

Ibid. 459 (Nl. IOJ.

Ibid.. 475 [Nl0.3l.
Ib;d. 460 (N I 8J.
SUsan BUd.-Morss, The Dialectics of Seeing: Waite- Benjomin and the Arcades Project
(Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 1989), 2n.

31.
32.

:n.
34.
35.

Ibid.. 6.
Ibid.. 218.

36.

Benjamin, 473 IN9,

7J.

WlLUAM C. WEfS is an Emeritus ProCessor of English at McGill University. He

is Editor of this journal and author of Vorticism and
English Avant-Garde (1972).
Light MOlJing in Time: Studies in tlte Visual Aesthetics of AIJiIIIl-Garde FUm
(1992). Recycled Imnges: The Art and fblitics of R1und Footage Films (1993). and
numerous articles and reviews chiefly on experimental!avant-garde film and video.

me

WllUAM.t.WElS

J-HORROR: New Media's Impact on

Contemporary Japanese Horror Cinema

Resume: les recents films d'epouvante japonaiSt connus colledivement sous Ie

terme de II J-Horror ., exemplifient Ie phenomene de Ia dispersion transnationale
d'un cinema digital mufti-rmMiatique qui est, paradoxalement, determine par des
contingences culturelles, industrielles et economiques r~ionales. le potentiel veritable du cinema digital ne se retr0':Ne pas dans les effets speciaux generes par ordinateur qui apparaissent dans la serie Star WafS, mais plutOt dans les mouvements
regionaux, comme Ie II J-Horror ., qui renversent Ie courant traditionel des capitaux
et de la c.ulture, cest-a-dire, Ie monopole hollywoodien. Ce phenomene n'est pas
nouveau dans J'histoire du cinema. Ce qui Ie rend unique est Ie deploiement ver
naculaire de sa specificite mediatique, temporelle et regionale.

The main objective of this essay is to scrutinize new media's

effect on rontem-

porary Japanese dnerna, especia1ly the horror film genre "J-Horror." In particular,

I want to examine the ongoing contestation and negotiation between cinema and
new media in contemporary Japan by analyzing the impact of lle\V media on the
transnational horror boom from Japan to East Asia. and finally to Hollywood. As
the case oC contemporary JHorror films exemplifies. the new, digitalized, multimedia form oC cinema is now-a dispersed phenomenon, both ubiquitous and
transnational as technology, yet regional in the economic, industrial, and cultural
contingencies of its acceptance. While academic discourses on the connection
between cinema and new media have been increasing, many of them are fol~
lowing the historical constellation oC hegemony and capital in cinema, namely
Hollywood's place as production and dislribution center. From my perspective
the emerging possibilities of new media in cinema have less to do with the
progress of CGf (Computer Generated Imagery) effects in such Hollywood iran
chise. as the Star Wars series (USA, 1977-2005, George Lucas) than in the ways
regional movements o.r genres such as Dogme 95, Chinese Sixth Generation
Films (typically low-budget films made outside the slate-run sludios). and J-Horror
have challenged the long-standing flow of capital and cullure. i.e. the centrality
of Holl)'\vood. I argue that sucb a phenomenon is not entirely new in the history
of the cinema, but what makes it most interesting is its vernacular staging within
a specific time and locale and particular media. How did a Jow-budget B genre

CANADIAN JOUlNAl OF fiLM STUDIES' IEVUE CANADIEN"I D'hUDES aNlMA'IOc;lA..,H1QUlS

VOLUME I ' NO.1 FAU AUTOMNE 1 . .7 pp n...u