Les Blank Movies
A theater student at Tulane University and a communications major at U.S.C.-Los Angeles, Les Blank became a professional filmmaker at the age of 29, when he co-directed the documentary featurette Dizzy Gillespie. Blank has since articulated his fascination with music, food, and ethnic culture in a series of offbeat full-length documentaries, bearing such titles as Garlic Is As Good As Ten Mothers (1979) and In Heaven There Is No Beer? (1984). After completing 1981's Werner Herzog Eats His Shoe, Blank followed Herzog to South America. It was here that Blank assembled his most famous film, Burden of Dreams (1982), a behind-the-scenes documentary on the making of Herzog's Fitzcarraldo. Making a rare foray into television in 1983, Blank directed the free-wheeling adaptation of Mark Twain's Innocents Abroad. The subject of numerous major museum retrospectives, Les Blank has been honored with the Maya Deren Life Achievement Award. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide- 1988
Les Blank is the director of all of the films in this collection. ~ All Movie Guide
- 1995
In this documentary Yugoslav filmmaker Dusan Makavejev reminisces about his career, his personal life, and the troubles of his former nation. Included are clips from his dramatic features, newsreel footage, and contemporary footage of the war-torn countryside. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- 2007
David Lee Hoffman is a man who has devoted his life to tea. Hoffman is an importer who brings unusual varieties of tea to discerning drinkers in the United States, specializing in teas that have been grown organically and picked and dried by hand by growers who use experience and instinct as their guides. However, the bulk of Hoffman's most prized teas are grown by independent farmers in China, where the growth of industrialization and an increased demand for higher-yield cash crops is helping to put such planters out of business. Filmmakers Les Blank and Gina Leibrecht offer an in-depth portrait of Hoffman and the growers he works with in the documentary All in This Tea, which demonstrates how handcrafted teas are produced and how Hoffman struggles to educate drinkers about the finer points of a beverage that few have experienced in its most sublime form. All in This Tea was screened in competition at the 2007 San Francisco International Film Festival. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- 1978
Always for Pleasure is a plotless cinematic celebration of the Mardi Gras. Director Les Blank concentrates less on the parades and such that the tourists get to see, preferring to dwell on the sensual pleasures of the festival. There's music aplenty, modern rock blending effortlessly with jazz and Cajun tunes. Blank has an errant eye for the bizarre and beautiful, and offers us generous portions of both. The only drawback to Always for Pleasure is that's all over in a mere 58 minutes. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Professor Longhair, Kid Thomas Valentine, (more)
- 1987
This anthology includes "Blues Accordin' to Lightnin' Hopkins," "God Respects Us When We Work" and many others. These are director Les Blank's own favorites. ~ All Movie Guide
Documentarian Les Blank, who filmed Werner Herzog Eats His Shoe, trained his cameras on Herzog again, as the eccentric German filmmaker made his epic, Fitzcarraldo, in the Amazon rainforest of Peru. Herzog's production is in trouble right from the start. He begins filming with Jason Robards playing the title role, and Mick Jagger playing Fitzcarraldo's sidekick, Wilbur. With 40 percent of the film shot, Robards becomes ill and goes back to the states, where his doctor will not let him return. Because of the delay, Jagger, with album and tour commitments, is forced to quit the production. Thinking no one can fill the rock star's shoes, Herzog jettisons Jagger's role. He eventually casts his frequent collaborator Klaus Kinski as Fitzcarraldo and begins shooting again. Violent tribal disputes and unpredictable weather hinder the shoot, but the biggest obstacle is Herzog's own quixotic and dangerous determination to film one antique boat smashing down the Amazonian rapids, and the dragging of an identical boat over a mountain from one river to another. Blank interviews members of the cast and crew, including the impoverished Indian extras, and captures the troubles of the seemingly cursed production, but his interviews with Herzog are the focal point of the film. "If I abandon this project," Herzog explains at one point, "I would be a man without dreams, and I never want to live like that. I live my life or I end my life with this project." Herzog later made his own documentary about Kinski, My Best Fiend, which adds to the lore of this infamously difficult shoot. ~ Josh Ralske, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Werner Herzog, Klaus Kinski, (more)
- 1970
- R
This documentary video gives information about the automated chicken-growing industry in today's business world. ~ All Movie Guide
- 1978
Les Blank directed this documentary on Chicano culture in America as it is expressed through music. Focusing primarily on the Nortena sounds of the Tex-Mex border towns, Del Mero Corazon looks at how Hispanic-American culture finds a way to thrive, regardless of its environment, through the music passed from generation to generation, featuring performances and interviews from Little Joe and La Familia, Leo Garza, Chavela Ortiz and Brown Express. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- 1965
Les Blank directs this program exploring the knowledge, roots and talents of Dizzy Gillespie. ~ All Movie Guide
- 1973
Filmmaker Les Blank has made a name for himself in the world of documentary filmmaking with his "slice of life" stories. One of his favorite subjects is the Cajun culture of his home state of Louisiana. This documentary is such a film, featuring some of the great figures in Cajun music. The documentary showcases the talents and cultural heritage of legendary musician Bois Sec Ardoin, whose French name means "dry wood" in English. Also presented is a look at another Cajun giant, Canray Fontenot. The joie de vivre of Cajun culture shines through the dance tunes, and the accompanying food and laughter that have made this lifestyle famous. ~ Rose of Sharon Winter, All Movie Guide
- 1980
That's the title, all right; we're not making it up. Filmmaker Les Blank, whose previous documentaries have been sometimes humorous, sometimes dead-serious studies in obsession, here investigates the topic of garlic. You will be amazed at the hundreds of uses to which that pungent herb can be put. And, for you devotees of vampire stories and asafetida bags, you'll be given a brief rundown of the ages-old "garlic mystique". It's not for nothing that Les Blank was the 1990 recipient of the award named after avant-garde filmmaker Maya Deren. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- 1991
In this documentary, a group of Americans who have joined a bus tour of Europe run by Globus Gateway are followed for the two weeks the group traveled around the continent, debarking at regular intervals at museums, historic buildings, and restaurants. Despite the temptation to poke fun at this "lazy" way to see the sights and the people who choose it, the filmmakers chose to feature a more sympathetic and humane perspective, and another story begins to emerge which illustrates the point of view of its residents that Europe is increasingly beginning to look like an enormous theme park especially designed for tourists. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide
This lively documentary takes the viewer deep into the Cajun and Zydeco musical world of Louisiana, and features interviews and performances from some of the best known musicians, as it traces the history of both musical forms using archival footage from the 1930s onward. That history is inextricably intertwined with the history of the people who settled Louisiana, and the documentary illuminates that story with interviews from historians and folklore specialists. Among the many musicians featured are Clifton Chenier, Queen Ida, and Wayne Toups. These two musical forms were almost obliterated by the influx of U.S. popular music when rural Louisiana became less isolated after World War Two, but they underwent a revival in the 1960's which has continued to this day. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Michael Doucet, Marc Savoy, (more)
- 1989
This program features a look at the black culture and blues traditions of Texas. Nowhere do blues run deeper than in Deep Ellum. In the 1930s and 1940s, blues musicians performed for African-Americans, as well as curious white outsiders, including gangsters like Pretty Boy Floyd. Archival photographs and film clips show great musicians, such as Blind Lemon Jefferson, entertaining the crowds. Cigarette Blues presents the band Sonny Rhodes and the Texas Twisters. Their act in a California nightclub is interspersed with variations on a blues theme by the audience and the musicians. ~ Rose of Sharon Winter, All Movie Guide
- 1971
In the tradition of his past and future up-close celebrity documentaries, Les Blank served up 1981's Mance Lipscomb--A Well-Spent Life. The subject is Texas blues artist Mance Lipscomb, seen at work and in repose. A lifelong sharecropper and tenant farmer, Lipscomb was 65 when he made his first record. His versatility as a singer, composer, guitarist and violinist bordered on the uncanny, and his influence would continue to be felt even into the highly streamlined country-blues market of the 1990s. Director Blank makes excellent use of the materials at hand (there is comparatively little of Lipscomb on film), and the result is a rich, fully fleshed out life study of one of the Southwest's finest "songsters." ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- 1991
Ann and Marc Savoy have brought their love of their Cajun heritage into their marriage. The talented couple share their Cajun traditions with others through their music and artistry. Marc Savoy is an accomplished accordion maker as well as player. Ann Savoy's music speaks of the stories she also tells in her book Cajun Music: A Reflection of a People. With the Savoys as guides, the viewer goes on a journey through Cajun country, to enjoy the music, dance, food, and storytelling traditions that characterize the unique Cajun culture of Southwest Louisiana. ~ Rose of Sharon Winter, All Movie Guide
