Ross Lipman

Ross Lipman
Known for restorationist at UCLA Film & Television Archive
Website Official website

Ross Lipman is an American restorationist, independent filmmaker and essayist. He is best known for his work as Senior Film Restorationist at the UCLA Film & Television Archive, where he has restored numerous independent and avant-garde works.

Lipman was the 2008 recipient of Anthology Film Archives' Preservation Honors,[1] and is a three-time winner of the National Society of Film Critics' Heritage Award.[2]

Lipman's essays on film history, technology, and aesthetics have been published in Artforum, Sight and Sound, and in numerous academic books and journals and his films have been screened internationally and have been collected by museums and archives. He is currently working with the distribution company Milestone Films on the production of a feature-length documentary entitled Notfilm about Samuel Beckett's Film. Notfilm is set for international release in 2015.[3] The documentary was prompted by the discovery of long-missing footage from the original production of Film, which Lipman discovered amid reels of outtakes under the kitchen sink of Grove Press publisher and Film producer, Barney Rossett.[4]

Publications

Known for his contributions to the theory of film restoration, particularly the ethics involved in restoring independent and experimental film, Ross Lipman has contributed numerous essays on the subject, beginning with “Problems of Independent Film Preservation”[5] in 1996 and consolidated in “The Gray Zone: A Restorationist’s Travel Guide”[6] in 2009.

Lipman’s conceptualization of restoration theory has developed from years of practice within the field. His ideas have been controversial in acknowledging a subjectivity inherent in the process of restoration itself, a position once considered taboo from art conservation orthodoxy, but gaining increasing credence in recent years as museum conservators have been confronted with the transient nature of many post-war and contemporary artworks. Lipman is also the author of several historical analytical essays, including a definitive history of John Cassavetes and his collaboration with Charles Mingus on the score for Shadows, as well as an analysis of the ground-breaking production techniques used in Kent Mackenzie's The Exiles (1961).

Filmmaking and live performance

Ross Lipman’s early works span across a multiplicity of forms. Of his films, Doug Cummings of LA Weekly wrote, "Lipman's repertoire often highlights unique social groups with whom he has lived",[7] and his earlier films frequently explore themes of cultural decay and renewal.

With the completed prologue for the in-progress documentary feature Keep Warm, Burn Britain!, Lipman uses still images to remember squatters he encountered in Thatcherite mid-1980’s London. His more recent films continue in this essayistic vein, integrating visual artwork and scholarship.

Ross Lipman’s live cinema essays are often concerned with the intersection of cinema history and lived experience. His best known performance is The Book of Paradise Has No Author, which premiered Aug. 2011 at the Inquiry Towards the Practice of Secular Magic, a cross-disciplinary event at piXel (+) freQuency, hosted by Los Angeles Filmforum and presented by the Disembodied Theater Corporation.[8] The piece explores notions of "first encounters" with lost cultures, viewed through the prism of the Tasaday tribe, who were, according to a 1972 episode of 20/20, a primitive tribe that had only recently encountered contemporary civilization.

Restoration

Ross Lipman was mentored by and worked under Robert Gitt, well-known UCLA Film & Television Archive restorationist who restored or supervised the restoration of over 360 films.[9] Lipman adapted and developed methods of applying these principles to the restoration of independent and experimental film, where the primary concept is that moving image restoration is a form of interdisciplinary art practice that differs from other visual art forms in its production for mass duplication. Lipman has theorized and elaborated on this concept in numerous publications.

Narrative

Experimental

Documentary

Filmography

References

  1. ↑ James, David; Hyman, Adam. Alternative Projections: Experimental Film in Los Angeles, 1945-1980. Indiana University Press. p. 321. ISBN 086196909X. Retrieved 30 May 2015.
  2. ↑ "Past Awards". National Society of Film Critics. National Society of Film Critics. Retrieved 30 May 2015.
  3. ↑ Stambler, Deborah. "NOTFILM, But Still Samuel Beckett". Huffpost: Arts & Culture. Huffington Post. Retrieved 30 May 2015.
  4. ↑ McKinley, Will. "UPDATE: Rare Buster Keaton Footage Resurfaces – And You Can Help Bring It To Audiences". Cinematically Insane. Cinematically Insane. Retrieved 31 May 2015.
  5. ↑ Lipman, Ross (November 1996). "Problems of Independent Film Preservation" (PDF). Journal of Film Preservation. XXV (53): 49–58. Retrieved 31 May 2015.
  6. ↑ Lipman, Ross (Fall 2009). "The Gray Zone: A Restorationist's Travel Guide". The Moving Image. 9 (2): 1–29. Retrieved 31 May 2015.
  7. ↑ Cummings, Doug. "ROSS LIPMAN'S URBAN DECAY". LA Weekly. LA Weekly. Retrieved 2 June 2015.
  8. ↑ Victoria, Ellison. "INQUIRY TOWARDS THE PRACTICE OF SECULAR MAGIC". LA Weekly. LA Weekly. Retrieved 2 June 2015.
  9. ↑ "A Tribute to Robert Gitt". UCLA Film & Television Archive. UCLA Film & Television Archive. Retrieved 31 May 2015.
  10. ↑ "Spring Night, Summer Night [programme note]". UCLA Film & Television Archive. 2015. Retrieved 2016-03-16.
  11. ↑ ""Southern Gothic" Expanded". Film Journey. Archived from the original on September 19, 2015.
  12. ↑ "Wanda (1970)". UCLA Film & Television Archive. UCLA Film & Television Archive. Retrieved 30 May 2015.
  13. ↑ Goodman, John. "Pacific Cinémathèque screens first films in Shirley Clarke restoration project Q&A with UCLA film preservationist Ross Lipman". North Shore News. North Shore News. Retrieved 30 May 2015.
  14. ↑ "The Exiles: A Film by Kent MacKenzie". The Exiles. Milestone Films. Retrieved 30 May 2015.
  15. ↑ "The Film". Killer of Sheep: A Film by Charles Burnett. Milestone Films. Retrieved 30 May 2015.
  16. ↑ "MoMA Film Screenings". MoMA. MoMA. Retrieved 30 May 2015.
  17. ↑ "Tribute to Tom Chomont". UCLA Film & Television Archive. UCLA Film & Television Archive. Retrieved 30 May 2015.
  18. ↑ "Eadweard Muybridge, Zoopraxographer (1975); Paper Prints from the Library of Congress". UCLA Film & Television Archive. UCLA Film & Television Archive. Retrieved 30 May 2015.
  19. ↑ "Ornette: Made in America". UCLA Film & Television Archive. Retrieved 30 May 2015.

External links

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