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Strange Codes: Portrait of an Artist or Message of the Medium?
Strange Codes was Arthut Lipsett’s last film, made in 1974. It is the least known and written about. Created in Toronto with the assistance of Henry Zemel, Arthur also used a grant from the Canada Council to produce the film. Strange Codes was aired on a television show called Sprockets, yet there seems to be only one film copy surviving, which is at the Cinematheque Quebecquois in Montreal.
Strange Codes differs in content from Lipsett’s earlier films, but not so much in structure or form. A transition or progression away from stills towards live-action segments he shot himself can be seen from Very Nice, Very Nice through his other films over time. The end “result” is a self-portrait of the late artist which friends such as Chris Nutter believe may be “an index to his other films”.
The film is a collage of various shots of Arthur in an apartment looking at different symbols: objects, photos, diagrams and words. He puts on different mysterious identities: costumes, symbols, poses. At certain points we see him facing the camera, looking. What is he saying to the audience? He sometimes appears a bit tormented or affected and seems to be keeping it inside. In other shots Arthur appears to be having fun, even suppressing smiles. The question is, why did Arthur choose to star in this film, when he had only appeared briefly in earlier works such as 21-87 and N-zone?
One can either find the answer by examining the evidence or examining the question. That is, was there a great mystery to unlocking the secret of the films, or was Arthur simply playing? Arthur had a great deal to teach the world about the nature of collage, is this his message? There is no doubt that his films carry many, many messages, such as social, political, spiritual and semiological messages. The films were also poetic, humorous and fun. It is possible that there is a message in Strange Codes that Arthur wanted us not to analyze his films past a certain degree. Arthur’s performance in Strange Codes, at certain points, seem to be a good-hearted mockery of those who analyze intensely and seriously, like a scholar, a scientist or an anthropologist. He wears robes, a lab coat and silly hats while peering through a magnifying glass, a pocket telescope and a pair of binoculars. He points with an ornamented stick at diagrams on the wall and opens little boxes only to find nothing. All of this, mind you, is played out under the self-important voice/presence of Warren S. McCullough.
For those who don’t know him, McCullogh was a scientist who believed strongly in the authority of scientific and logical explanation. In an NFB documentary titled The Living Machine, Part Two Wolf Koenig interviews the scientist, eventually setting him up to contradict his own theory. He asks Mc Cullogh: Can you explain the love you feel for you grandchildren?” to which McCullough can’t easily reply.
Arthur’s profuse use of McCullogh’s banter in his films is telling. One message that can be gleaned from this element is that over-analysis becomes silly, self-defeating and perhaps even an invasion of the sacred. Arthur was a man very interested in spirituality and religions. Perhaps to him his films were something that he felt should be inspiring and seen as art, and not picked apart. Perhaps, he thought, we would find nothing. Or perhaps he thought that his art would be mis-interpreted and therefore, analysis would be obsolete.
Whatever he thought, it can be seen that Arthur both invited analysis and not. For example, he himself can be seen in the film examining “evidence”; whether this is a mockery or not, Arthur, in real life was a heavy reader and was always investigating, especially culturally. In a proposal for one of his earlier films, Free Fall (1964), under the heading (Sleuthing and Indeterminancy in film) Arthur states that it is his job as a filmmaker to leave clues for the audience to figure out. He goes on to say “and out of this intrinsic cinematic material a truth is finally revealed from the scattered pieces of evidence”(Lipsett, 1964). That truth, at least to myself, remains a mystery worthy of attention, if not investigation.
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