''21-87'' is a 1963 Canadian abstract

montage Montage may refer to: Arts and entertainment Filmmaking and films * Montage (filmmaking), a technique in film editing * ''Montage'' (2013 film), a South Korean film Music * Montage (music), or sound collage * ''Montage'' (Block B EP), 201 ...

collage film Collage film is a style of film created by juxtaposing found footage from disparate sources. The term has also been applied to the physical collaging of materials onto film stock. Surrealist roots The surrealist movement played a critical role i ...

created by

Arthur Lipsett Arthur Lipsett (May 13, 1936 – May 1, 1986) was a Canadian avant-garde director of short collage films. Life and career Born in Montreal into a Jewish family, Lipsett saw his mother, an immigrant from Kiev, commit suicide when he was 10 years ...

that lasts 9 minutes and 33 seconds. The

short Short may refer to: Places * Short (crater), a lunar impact crater on the near side of the Moon * Short, Mississippi, an unincorporated community * Short, Oklahoma, a census-designated place People * Short (surname) * List of people known as ...

, produced by the

National Film Board of Canada The National Film Board of Canada (NFB; french: Office national du film du Canada (ONF)) is Canada's public film and digital media producer and distributor. An agency of the Government of Canada, the NFB produces and distributes documentary f ...

, is a collage of snippets from discarded footage found by Lipsett in the editing room of the National Film Board (where he was employed as an

animator An animator is an artist who creates multiple images, known as frames, which give an illusion of movement called animation when displayed in rapid sequence. Animators can work in a variety of fields including film, television, and video gam ...

), combined with his own black and white 16 mm footage which he shot on the streets of Montreal and New York City, among other locations.

Release and reception

''21-87'' premiered on the CBC program ''Explorations'' in 1964. Journalist

Howard Junker Howard Junker is a writer and editor. Early life and education Howard Junker was born in 1940 in Port Washington, New York, and educated at Canterbury School (Connecticut). He graduated from Amherst College in 1961, and earned an M.A. from the U ...

dismisses ''21-87'' and Lipsett's other film, ''Free Fall'', as repetitious: "the whole idea of wildly flashing stills and phrases wears quickly". Critic N. Roy Clifton is frustrated by the seeming randomness of the images. Critic John Fell suggests the film is evocative of parataxis, like a sentence without a conjunctive word.

Influence on George Lucas

"21-87" would have a profound influence on director

George Lucas George Walton Lucas Jr. (born May 14, 1944) is an American filmmaker. Lucas is best known for creating the ''Star Wars'' and ''Indiana Jones'' franchises and founding Lucasfilm, LucasArts, Industrial Light & Magic and THX. He served as chairm ...

and on

Walter Murch Walter Scott Murch (born July 12, 1943) is an American film editor, director, writer and sound designer. With a career stretching back to 1969, including work on '' THX 1138'', ''Apocalypse Now'', '' The Godfather I'', '' II'', and '' III'', ''Am ...

, an editor and

designer A designer is a person who plans the form or structure of something before it is made, by preparing drawings or plans. In practice, anyone who creates tangible or intangible objects, products, processes, laws, games, graphics, services, or exp ...

with whom Lucas worked. Lucas described it as "the kind of movie I wanted to make – a very off the wall, abstract kind of film". In response, Lucas created the

pure cinema Pure may refer to: Computing * A pure function * A pure virtual function * PureSystems, a family of computer systems introduced by IBM in 2012 * Pure Software, a company founded in 1991 by Reed Hastings to support the Purify tool * Pure-FTPd, ...

, short, 16mm movies: "

6-18-67 ''6-18-67'' is a short quasi-documentary film by George Lucas regarding the making of the 1969 Columbia film '' Mackenna's Gold''. This non-story non-character visual tone poem is made up of nature imagery, time-lapse photography, and the subtle s ...

", " 1:42.08", and " Look at Life". The later " Electronic Labyrinth: THX 1138 4EB", an experimental

science fiction Science fiction (sometimes shortened to Sci-Fi or SF) is a genre of speculative fiction which typically deals with imaginative and futuristic concepts such as advanced science and technology, space exploration, time travel, parallel unive ...

short, takes place in a

dystopia A dystopia (from Ancient Greek δυσ- "bad, hard" and τόπος "place"; alternatively cacotopiaCacotopia (from κακός ''kakos'' "bad") was the term used by Jeremy Bentham in his 1818 Plan of Parliamentary Reform (Works, vol. 3, p. 493). ...

n future on 14 May 2187. Lucas expanded the latter into ''

THX 1138 ''THX 1138'' is a 1971 American social science fiction film co-written and directed by George Lucas in his directorial debut. Produced by Francis Ford Coppola and co-written by Walter Murch, the film stars Robert Duvall and Donald Pleasence, wi ...

''. His later works ''

American Graffiti ''American Graffiti'' is a 1973 American coming-of-age comedy-drama film directed by George Lucas, produced by Francis Ford Coppola, written by Willard Huyck, Gloria Katz and Lucas, and starring Richard Dreyfuss, Ron Howard (billed as Ronny ...

'' and ''

Star Wars ''Star Wars'' is an American epic film, epic space opera multimedia franchise created by George Lucas, which began with the Star Wars (film), eponymous 1977 film and quickly became a worldwide popular culture, pop-culture Cultural impact of S ...

'' has shown "21-87"'s influence. Lucas and Lipsett would never meet. The concept of

the Force The Force is a metaphysical and ubiquitous power in the '' Star Wars'' fictional universe. "Force-sensitive" characters use the Force throughout the franchise. Heroes like the Jedi seek to "become one with the Force", matching their personal wil ...

, so prominent in ''Star Wars'' and its sequels and prequels, is said to have been inspired by a statement made by

Roman Kroitor Roman Kroitor (December 12, 1926 – September 17, 2012) was a Canadian filmmaker who was known as an early practitioner of ''cinéma vérité'', as co-founder of IMAX, and as creator of the Sandde hand-drawn stereoscopic animation system. ...

in the short film.

References in Lucas's works

*In ''

'', Princess Leia's prison cell on the

Death Star The Death Star is a fictional space station and Weapon of mass destruction, superweapon featured in the ''Star Wars'' Space opera, space-opera franchise. Constructed by the autocratic Galactic Empire (Star Wars), Galactic Empire, the Death Star ...

is numbered 2187. *In '' Star Wars: Episode III – Revenge of the Sith'', the order to initiate the

Great Jedi Purge Jedi (), Jedi Knights, or collectively the Jedi Order are the main heroic protagonists of many works of the '' Star Wars'' franchise. Working symbiotically alongside the Old Galactic Republic, and later supporting the Rebel Alliance, the Jedi O ...

(Order 66) can be found by subtracting 21 from 87.

References

Sources

* * * *

External links

''21-87''
at the

website * * 1964 films 1960s English-language films Canadian short documentary films National Film Board of Canada short films Canadian black-and-white films Films directed by Arthur Lipsett Collage film Films produced by Tom Daly Films produced by Colin Low (filmmaker) 1960s avant-garde and experimental films 1960s Canadian films Canadian avant-garde and experimental short films {{short-film-stub