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Very Nice, Very Nice
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Wikipedia article
'Very Nice, Very Nice' is a Canadian avant-garde collage film made by Arthur Lipsett in 1961, and produced by the National Film Board of Canada.
Plot
Thoughts about day-to-day life interpreted through snapshots and sound collages pondering if life is better than it was thirty years ago.[https://www.filmaffinity.com/us/film562651.html FilmAffinity]
Production
While working at the National Film Board, Lipsett collected pieces of audio from the waste bins and pieced them together as a hobby. When his friends heard the product of this they suggested that he add images to it. The result was this film.
Reception
'Very Nice, Very Nice' was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Live Action Short Film at the 34th Academy Awards.[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tSgkVjsq3no Short Film Winners: 1962 Oscars]
Legacy
Stanley Kubrick wrote to Lipsett to praise 'Very Nice, Very Nice', stating that it was "the most imaginative and brilliant uses of the movie screen and soundtrack that I have ever seen." Kubrick asked him to create a trailer for his upcoming 'Dr. Strangelove'. Lipsett declined Kubrick's offer. Pablo Ferro eventually went on to direct the trailer himself;[https://www2.bfi.org.uk/news-opinion/sight-sound-magazine/polls-surveys/stanley-kubrick-cinephile Stanley Kubrick, cinephile|BFI] however, Lipsett's influence on Kubrick is clearly visible in the released trailer.[https://blog.nfb.ca/blog/2016/10/05/arthur-lipsett-week/ Inside the Disturbed and Disturbing Collage Films on NFB]
By 1970, the film had 200 prints in circulation. It is often shown at film festivals and in film schools. American experimental filmmaker Stan Brakhage was given a copy of the film at one point.[https://vimeo.com/64967517 THE SHORT FILMS OF ARTHUR LIPSETT (Arthur Lipsett, 1963-1970) on Vimeo]
See also
*Modernist film
*Conformity
*United States in the 1950s
References
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