Birthday

1936-05-13

Place of Birth

Montréal, Québec, Canada

Biography

Arthur Lipsett (May 13, 1936 – May 1, 1986) was a Canadian avant-garde director of short collage films. Lipsett's meticulous editing and combination of audio and visual montage was both groundbreaking and influential. His film 21-87 was a profound influence on director George Lucas, who stated that it was "the kind of movie I wanted to make — a very off the wall, abstract kind of film." Lucas used thematic approaches from 21–87 in THX 1138, his Star Wars films and also American Graffiti. Lucas has said that his use of the term "The Force" in Star Wars was "an echo of that phrase in 21-87". Lucas never met Lipsett, but tributes to 21–87 appear in several places in Star Wars. For example, the holding cell of Princess Leia in Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope on the Death Star is cell No. 2187. The reference was continued in the 2015 movie Star Wars: The Force Awakens, with a character named FN-2187. Description above from the Wikipedia article Arthur Lipsett licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.