Ross Lipman

Ross Lipman is an American restorationist, independent filmmaker and essayist. He is best known for his 2015 documentary Notfilm, his work with the Bruce Conner Family Trust and as Senior Film Restorationist at the UCLA Film & Television Archive, where he restored numerous independent and avant-garde works.

Ross Lipman
Known forfilmmaker and restorationist
WebsiteOfficial website

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.

His 2015 feature-length documentary Notfilm about Samuel Beckett's Film was produced and distributed by Milestone Films and premiered at the BFI London Film Festival.[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 in the apartment of Grove Press publisher and Film producer, Barney Rosset.[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 Performance Essays

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-1980s London. His more recent films continue in this essayistic vein, integrating visual artwork and scholarship.

Ross Lipman's performance 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.

The performance essay The Exploding Digital Inevitable premiered at International Film Festival Rotterdam in January 2017. The essay concerns the process of restoring Bruce Conner's classic avant-garde short Crossroads (1976 film), for which several versions existed.[9]

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.[10] 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.

Restored Narrative Films

Restored Experimental Films

Restored Documentary Films

Filmography
  • The Case of the Vanishing Gods (2020 - in progress)
  • In the Middle of the Nights: From Arthouse to Grindhouse and Back Again (2020)
  • Between Two Cinemas (2018)
  • Billy and Charles (2018)
  • Notfilm (2015)
  • Keep Warm, Burn Britain!
  • Personal Ethnographies (2007 - 2013)
    • Dr. Bish Remedies
    • Afternoon in Bottle Village
    • Clean MRF / Dirty MRF
    • Transmissions From The Link
    • At the Dolores
    • Nora Keyes in the Ghost City
    • Claire's Dream
    • Self-portrait in Mausoleum
    • Death Valley Story
  • The Perfect Heart of Flux (2007 - 2013)
    • Ocean Beach / Point Lobos I, II, III.
    • Afternoon in Bottle Village
    • Clean MRF / Dirty MRF
    • Curva Peligrosa
    • Casa Loma (Dignity and Impudence)
    • Tracy, California
    • Cheonggye Stream Renovation
    • In The Treeless Forest
    • Self-portrait in Mausoleum
    • Found Sand Mandala
  • Rhythm 06 (2008)
  • The Interview (2004)
  • Michael Barrish Screen Test (1997)
  • Rhythm 93 (1993-94)
  • Rhythm 92 (1992-93)
  • Kino-i (1991)
  • 10-17-88 (1989)
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gollark: All the cool messaging apps were doing it.
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gollark: We can create *thousands* of threads probably.

References
  1. James, David; Hyman, Adam. Alternative Projections: Experimental Film in Los Angeles, 1945-1980. Indiana University Press. p. 321. ISBN 086196909X. Retrieved May 30, 2015.
  2. "Past Awards". National Society of Film Critics. National Society of Film Critics. Retrieved May 30, 2015.
  3. Stambler, Deborah. "NOTFILM, But Still Samuel Beckett". Huffpost: Arts & Culture. Huffington Post. Retrieved May 30, 2015.
  4. McKinley, Will. "UPDATE: Rare Buster Keaton Footage Resurfaces – And You Can Help Bring It To Audiences". Cinematically Insane. Cinematically Insane. Retrieved May 31, 2015.
  5. Lipman, Ross (November 1996). "Problems of Independent Film Preservation" (PDF). Journal of Film Preservation. XXV (53): 49–58. Archived from the original (PDF) on January 21, 2013. Retrieved May 31, 2015.
  6. Lipman, Ross (Fall 2009). "The Gray Zone: A Restorationist's Travel Guide". The Moving Image. 9 (2): 1–29. Retrieved May 31, 2015.
  7. Cummings, Doug. "ROSS LIPMAN'S URBAN DECAY". LA Weekly. LA Weekly. Retrieved June 2, 2015.
  8. Victoria, Ellison. "INQUIRY TOWARDS THE PRACTICE OF SECULAR MAGIC". LA Weekly. LA Weekly. Retrieved June 2, 2015.
  9. "Conner's Crossroads and The Exploding Digital Inevitable". IFFR. January 12, 2017. Retrieved January 21, 2017.
  10. "A Tribute to Robert Gitt". UCLA Film & Television Archive. UCLA Film & Television Archive. Retrieved May 31, 2015.
  11. "Spring Night, Summer Night [programme note]". UCLA Film & Television Archive. 2015. Retrieved March 16, 2016.
  12. ""Southern Gothic" Expanded". Film Journey. Archived from the original on September 19, 2015.
  13. "Wanda (1970)". UCLA Film & Television Archive. UCLA Film & Television Archive. Retrieved May 30, 2015.
  14. 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 May 30, 2015.
  15. "The Exiles: A Film by Kent MacKenzie". The Exiles. Milestone Films. Retrieved May 30, 2015.
  16. "The Film". Killer of Sheep: A Film by Charles Burnett. Milestone Films. Retrieved May 30, 2015.
  17. Bodde, Margaret. "RESTORATION GIVES NEW LIFE TO LOST, FORGOTTEN, OR DISMISSED FILMS". The Film Foundation. Retrieved May 12, 2020.
  18. "MoMA Film Screenings". MoMA. MoMA. Retrieved May 30, 2015.
  19. "Tribute to Tom Chomont". UCLA Film & Television Archive. UCLA Film & Television Archive. Retrieved May 30, 2015.
  20. "Eadweard Muybridge, Zoopraxographer (1975); Paper Prints from the Library of Congress". UCLA Film & Television Archive. UCLA Film & Television Archive. Retrieved May 30, 2015.
  21. "Ornette: Made in America". UCLA Film & Television Archive. Retrieved May 30, 2015.
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