Secret Museums: The Films of Arthur Lipsett

Arthur Lipsett’s first film was nominated for an Academy Award in 1962, marking the arrival of an influential new voice. The film’s dark humour and dancing rhythms had captured the spirit of his times. When Lipsett died by suicide in 1986, the humour and joy of his work was eclipsed by that sardonic darkness. It all came to feel like an omen.

Secret Museums is a study in the life and work of Canadian collage filmmaker Arthur Lipsett, whose struggles with mental illness have overshadowed his vital and innovative work. Author Stephen Broomer explores the spiritual themes and formal challenges posed by Lipsett’s films and the artist’s absurdist, comic, beatnik sensibility. As a critical biography, Secret Museums follows the trajectory of Lipsett’s life through his years as a filmmaker (1960-1975) and after, with new interpretations and analysis of his eight completed films.

In Secret Museums, Lipsett’s films are recognized as riotous comedies that reflect the artist’s resilience. This study offers a new interpretation of Lipsett and his films, positioning him as both a visionary force and a holy fool, illuminating fresh pathways through his work that reflect his understandings of his sources and his world.

Stephen Broomer is a filmmaker, writer, and video essayist based in Toronto, Canada. Broomer has been a Fulbright Scholar at University of California Santa Cruz, and he teaches courses in video essaying and Canadian experimental film at the Cinema Studies Institute at the University of Toronto.