Lenny Lipton was born May 18, 1940, in Brooklyn, New York. He wrote the lyrics of the song "Puff, the Magic Dragon" when he was nineteen years old. He is the author of Independent Filmmaking and The Super 8 Book. He lives in California with his wife and daughter.
In HAPPY BIRTHDAY LENNY, Mother explains the nature of her love. (File under neurosis.)
Exhibition: Robert Flaherty Film Seminar; NY Film Festival.
1965, 16mm, color/so, 8m, $25
The 1965 Vietnam Day Peace March, remembered for the Hell's Angels' attack. Vividly depicted. Provides a valuable historical perspective on the period, filmed by a partisan.
Exhibition: SF Int'l Film Festival; NET; Italian TV; Cinematheque Fran?aise.
Collection: Pacific Film Archive
1965, 16mm, b&w/so, 8m, $25
"... set in Mexico in the sandal shop of Ubaldo, a peasant craftsman. The camera enters the shop and moves in on Ubaldo as he makes a pair of sandals for some tourists. Meanwhile, the soundtrack gives a dialogue between an uptight American couple. The man in particular (George Kuchar's voice) is truly an American horror as he puts down Mexico, Ubaldo, and his own wife whom he obviously hates.
"But Lipton gives us much more than a bitterly amusing view of a sick marriage. In a remarkably brief period of time he also shows us a view of Mexico as seen by American tourists, and he shows us a view of American tourists as seen by Mexicans and as seen by him, and he makes a statement about the nature of work, industrial society, and alienation ...." - Richard Milner, Berkeley Barb
1966, 16mm, b&w/so, 9m, $25
Cape Cod and the ghosts of city traffic. Positively ecodellic.
1966, 16mm, color/so, 7m, $20
Extreme close-ups moving across a woman's body. Based on a harmonic theory of film montage, in which shots are likened to melody. Part of the American Federation of Arts series.
1966, 16mm, b&w/color/si, 9m, $25
Warm multiple imagery.
1966, 16mm, color/so, 4m, $20
A homage to the superhero. Lipton's only animated film. The song "Powerman" is performed by Rogue Streib's East Bay Symphony, with the filmmaker singing lead.
1966, 16mm, color/so, 5m, $20
TV's image raised to a fever pitch to help reveal the chaotic nature of the medium. A driven flux of electronic icons, building its intensity.
"Best insult to American Civilization." - Bellevue Film Festival, 1968
1968, 16mm, color/so, 8m, $25
"A rich neat film with funny stuff in it ... full of humor that was neither self-conscious nor laughing at others, but full of pathos and feeling for humanity. Really funny things leave something deadly serious and beautiful that echo like afterimages in your mind." - Bob Nelson
Exhibition: Bellevue Film Festival; Yale Film Festival; SF Int'l Film Festival; St. Lawrence University Independent Filmmakers Competition; Cinematheque Française.
1968, 16mm, color/so, 24m, $70
The prospective renter needs no better recommendation than this: Peter Kubelka purchased a print for the Austrian Film Archive. Rent it while it's hot.
1969, 16mm, color/so, 7m, $20
A film about the building of People's Park, and its ultimate destruction, marking the end of an era.
1969, 16mm, color/so, 27m, $80
A collection of twelve short silent films, dealing with daily life and the mundane. Anticosmic cinema.
1969, 16mm, color/si, 33m (18fps), $100
The Red Mountain Tribe hangs out in my backyard.
"Lipton's lovely home movie PEOPLE, in its affection for valuable inconsequential gestures, indicates in the course of its three minutes why there has to be a continuing alternative to the commercial cinema." - Roger Greenspun, The New York Times
1969, 16mm, color/so, 3m, $20
On Memorial Day, 1969, 50,000 people defied law and order to pay homage to People's Park. Made up of footage originally shot for the BBC.
1970, 16mm, color/si, 11m, $35
"MY LIFE, MY TIMES is an 11-minute slide show from a young lifetime of snapshots made by Lenny Lipton, featuring family, girlfriends, and various big-city scenic eyesores - all accompanied by music like 'Listen to the Mockingbird,' 'There's a Tavern in the Town' and a Stephen Foster medley. The film must have taken equal parts of affection and chutzpah, and it is perhaps too private really to deserve (or require) a public." - Roger Greenspun, The New York Times
1955-1970, 16mm, color/so, 11m, $35
"I have seen many 'life-style' movies, and there are many I'll never see, but from those that I've seen, Lipton's strikes me as one of the most memorable. Something very real comes through, a way of life as expressed through a series of situations, scenes, and incidents. ... FAR OUT, STAR ROUTE is a very personal anthropological/ethnographic notebook that will remain a valuable document, and it will make some people feel good when they see it." - Jonas Mekas, The Village Voice
"The essential appeal of the film is its warmth, for it is a personal glimpse of some very likeable young people. There are many extremely memorable scenes ...." - After Dark
"A home movie focuses on people, doing the simplest and most ordinary things, without undue stress on technique. FAR OUT, STAR ROUTE uses this as its aesthetic, consciously and wisely, to create a new form of film experience." - David Bienstock
1971, 16mm, color/so, 64m, $135
An apocalyptic vision of dogs in the dark forest and humans on the bright beach.
1972, 16mm, color/si, 5m, $20
A year in the life of my family and friends centering on the birth and growth of my daughter Chloe.
1972, 16mm, color/si, 58m, $135
A group of middle class professionals who have been friends since college days rent an unused and once very posh rich boys' summer camp. The central action of the film is the filmmaker's attempt to make a movie with the friends' children.
1975, S8mm, color/so, 17m, $50
"Space limitations prohibit me from even summarizing the melange of fascinating hippies that animate Lipton's world, but we are generally treated to a provocative documentary kaleidoscope of Berkeley wit, defiance, insight, mania, obsession, and delusion ... a definite intimacy and spontaneity are maintained by the close, direct-eye-contact approach. The 'characters' stare unstintingly into the lens as they speak, and the effect is very much like standing toe-to-toe with someone during a conversation. This technique invests the film with a sense of familiar honesty that is pleasantly and nakedly uncontrived.
"With CHILDREN, as with his previous film FAR OUT, STAR ROUTE, Lipton has set himself the task of documenting the New Culture, not by analyzing it or discussing its process of emergence, but simply by showing that it exists. ... [I]njustice and rebellion are not invoked, and the characters are obviously already at home with their countercultural identities. This is a crucial kind of documentation to undertake, but limitations inhere either in the genre itself, or, more likely, in Lipton's approach to the genre." - Michael Shedlin, Film Quarterly
1975, S8mm, color/so, 59m (18fps), $135
James Broughton receives a Father's Day gift at a Canyon Cinema party.
1975, S8mm, color/so, 9m (18fps), $30
A dedicated team strives to maximize human potential. The film shows modern techniques for treating handicapped kids, concentrating on the British-developed Bobaths' technique applied to cerebral palsy.
1975, S8mm, color/so, 24m (18fps), $70
A trip to Oregon with the Brownings of Pleasant Hill, and Joe Valentine of the Mohawk River. A journey to the heartland, as Joe would call it.
1975, S8mm, color/so, 12m (18fps), $35
The Foundation of Revelation is a group of Shavites following the teachings of Cirengiva Roy, a man they call Father. Father, an amazingly dynamic person, is considered to be God by his followers, and his nine wives. There are thousands of followers across the United States, and in other parts of the world. This film takes a look at the central house, or headquarters of the Foundation. An intimate view of Father and those who live with him.
An AFI grant was awarded to the filmmaker for this project.
1975, S8mm, color/so, 68m (18fps), $135
The true story of Kenneth Anthony Zadel, in his Canadian hideout. Zadel is shown in his daily routine on his farm deep in the rain forest. Finally apprehended for cracking a safe outside of Victoria, BC, Zadel was extradited to the United States after his Canadian arrest, where he faced charges on three counts each of armed robbery and attempted murder. He is presently serving a twenty-year sentence in New Jersey.
1975, S8mm, color/so, 11m, $35