“An extensive catalogue of slice-of-life Americana…
Blank’s five-decade corpus at Film Forum is a capricious body of work.”
– Brian Sholis, Artforum
Click here to read entire review

For over 40 years, Les Blank (born in 1935) has created intimate films about the lives and passions of American regional subcultures, chronicling their music (the blues, rock, Zydeco, polka, etc.), exotic cuisines and eccentric artistes, along with a whole range of other subjects (including the special appeal of gap-toothed women). Two of his films, Garlic Is As Good As Ten Mothers and Chulas Fronteras, have been added to the National Film Registry.

The festival opens on Friday, November 14 with Blank’s latest film, All In This Tea, in which obsessive importer David Lee Hoffman travels into remote regions of China in search of rare handmade tea (“A delicious documentary.” - Nathan Lee, The New York Times), along with two shorter films: Gap-Toothed Women, with interviewees including model Lauren Hutton and Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, and the aforementioned Garlic Is As Good As Ten Mothers, a hymn to the “stinking rose,” to be presented in Blank’s own AROMAROUND! process, allowing the smell of garlic to waft through the theater.

The complete schedule follows. Seven of the films included had their New York premieres at Film Forum, including The Blues Accordin’ to Lightnin’ Hopkins, A Well Spent Life, and Garlic Is As Good As Ten Mothers. Les Blank will appear in person at selected screenings, Friday through Monday.

“I can’t believe that anyone interested in movies or America could watch his work
without feeling they’d been granted a casual, soft-spoken revelation.”
– Jay Cocks, Time

“Les is the one who has found truth, and in every single film he has made,
he has shown us and given us, this feeling of what truth on a screen can be...
What would America be without Les’s warm, dignified and wonderful look into the very soul of all of us?”
– Werner Herzog

“An eccentric documentarian classed with the likes of Errol Morris, Ross McElwee, and Werner Herzog.
His movies are both playful and serious, all while maintaining a sense of wonder about their weird subjects.”
– The Onion AV Club

“Although I consider Les Blank to be a quintessentially American filmmaker,
something about his work reminds me of Jean Renoir. Both are drawn to the rituals of daily life —
the meals, music and festivals that bind individuals together into communities.”
– Annette Insdorf

“America's master of cinematic cultural anthropology.” – Entertainment Weekly

IN PERSON EVENTS

DEL MERO CORAZON on Tuesday, November 18: Director Les Blank at the 7:25 show

IN HEAVEN THERE IS NO BEER? on Thursday, November 20: Directors Les Blank and Maureen Gosling at the 8:30 show

NOVEMBER 14 FRI (2 FILMS FOR 1 ADMISSION)

ALL IN THIS TEA

(2007) “I imagine things like walking through a forest. There are leaves on the ground. It just has rained. The rain has stopped. It’s damp, and you walk… and somehow that’s all in this tea.” – Werner Herzog. From plant to package, tea importer David Lee Hoffman scours China, battling mass-production-crazed bureaucracy along the way, in search of the real stuff. Co-directed by Gina Leibrecht.
1:00, 4:00, 7:00*
*Listen to our podcast: Introduction by director LES BLANK (Recorded November 14, 2008)

“A delicious documentary. Dips effortlessly into a half-dozen modes — travelogue, biography, nature ode, business story, nerd profile — sustaining a flexibility of tone that allows for both keen insights and drunken raptures.”
– Nathan Lee, The New York Times. Click here to read full review

“The film's quick-and-dirty vérité yields some delightful caught moments, steeped in historical footnotes that only enhance.”
– Aaron Hillis, Village Voice

“Packs in more information (not to mention pleasure) per celluloid foot than just about anything you’ll see this year, fiction or non.”
– Dennis Harvey, San Francisco Bay Guardian

Click here to watch the trailer

GARLIC IS AS GOOD AS TEN MOTHERS

& GAP-TOOTHED WOMEN

Garlic (’80): Hymn to the Stinking Rose — in Aromaround! — complete with guide to cultivation, savory dishes, and massive consumption. “Better than any dry martini as an aperitif.” – Time Out (London). Gap-Toothed… (’87): tribute to les dents du bonheur, including interviews with everyone from Lauren Hutton to Sandra Day O’Connor. Co-Filmmaker Maureen Gosling.
2:25, 5:25, 8:25*
*Listen to our podcast: Introduction by director LES BLANK (Recorded November 14, 2008)

GARLIC: “A joyous, nose-tweaking, ear-tingling, mouth-watering tribute to a Life Force. A deadpan and delightful paean.”
– The San Francisco Chronicle

GARLIC: “This documentary eulogy to garlic sure gets the juices going!”
– Time Out (London)

GARLIC: “Blank’s most gastronomically obsessional film portrait yet. An exhaustive, lip-smacking foray!”
– San Francisco Bay Guardian

GAP-TOOTHED: “A funny, frisky movie with a light feminist overlay and an undercurrent of self-acceptance…
Gleams with all the deadpan charm that characterizes Blank’s forays into the esoterica of American life.”
– San Francisco Examiner

GAP-TOOTHED: “How can you resists a film that answers the age-old question, ‘What do Howdy Doody and Lauren Hutton have in common?’ In 30 minutes of interviews, artwork, folklore and song, Blank transforms the issue of gapped teeth into an exploration of how we deal with the way we look—and, ultimately, how we deal with life.”
– L.A. Weekly

GAP-TOOTHED: “These women make extraordinarily good company.” – Vincent Canby, The New York Times

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NOVEMBER 15 SAT (2 FILMS FOR 1 ADMISSION)

BURDEN OF DREAMS

& Werner Herzog Eats His Shoe

Dreams (’82): Cast members drop like flies, a prop ship is trapped in rapids, director makes impossible demands: riveting account of crazed—even for Werner Herzog—shooting of Fitzcarraldo. Herzog’s Shoe (’80): the director consumes footwear after losing a bet to Errol Morris. Co-Filmmaker Maureen Gosling.
3:10, 7:10*
*Les Blank and Maureen Gosling in person at 7:10 show

“Far stronger movie than Herzog’s movie,
in part because it has Herzog himself as the real life madman.”
– J. Hoberman, Village Voice

“One of the most wrenching depictions of grand folly ever captured on film.”
– Time Out New York

“As vital as Fitzcarraldo may be, Blank's Burden of Dreams may be the more riveting film, and is certainly the keystone work in the California documentarian's near half-century canon.”
– Aaron Hillis, Village Voice

"Remarkable ... one of the most candid, most fascinating portraits ever made of a motion picture director at work...
There's never been anything else like it."
- Vincent Canby, The New York Times

A WELL SPENT LIFE

& SPEND IT ALL

Well Spent (’71): Septuagenarian Mance Lipscomb, legendary blues guitarist, looks back on a 60-year marriage and Texas sharecropping. Kurt Vonnegut’s favorite movie. Spend It (’71): lives and music of the Louisiana Cajuns, with a local’s self-tooth extraction a memorable highlight.
1:30, 5:30

“Along with The Blues Accordin’ to Lightnin’ Hopkins, three of the best films on music and its cultural roots ever made by an American.”
–The New York Times

WELL SPENT: “Mance Lipscomb is truly a man to remember…. He somehow, by his very proximity, makes our own lives a little better.”
– The New York Times

WELL SPENT: “With Lipscomb’s passing, what was always a strong, beautifully filmed portrait of a man and his music has become a precious document—a love song to beat back the silence of death.”
– Michael Goodwin, City Magazine

Click here to read about Bob Dylan’s viewing of A Well Spent Life

SPEND IT ALL:“A perceptive, lusty lyrical documentary of some true American originals.” – Times Picayune, New Orleans

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NOVEMBER 16 SUN (2 FILMS FOR 1 ADMISSION)

J’AI ÉTÉ AU BAL

(’89) Try staying in your seat for this celebration of the music of French SW Louisiana, featuring Michael Doucet and BeauSoleil, Clifton Chenier, Marc and Ann Savoy, et al. Co-Filmmaker Maureen Gosling.
1:00, 4:25*, 8:00
*Les Blank and Maureen Gosling in person at 4:25 show

“Such an infectious film that it’s hard to stay seated. A feast of folkloric scholarship, human history, regional color and irresistible music, an inspiring ‘must-see’ for anyone interested in American folkways or music.”
– Peter Stack, San Francisco Chronicle

“An exuberant tribute that begins as anthropology and becomes a celebration. Guaranteed to send everyone out of the theater feeling good and probably better. Les Blank is looking at the world and making documentaries with the transforming vision of a singular artist.”
– Vincent Canby, The New York Times

HOT PEPPER

& DRY WOOD

Pepper (’73): Zydeco King Clifton Chenier belts out those Cajun tunes in juke joints across Louisiana. Wood (’73): The music of Bois Sec Ardoin and Canray Fontenot, plus a hog butchering.
2:40, 6:15

DRY WOOD: “A homemade rural carnival… An almost continual round of barbecues, expositions on sausage making, and demonstrations of gumbo preparation where Blank gets so close to the action that he’s almost using his lens to stir the pot.”
– J. Hoberman

DRY WOOD: “Blank is so good, so uninsistent and unobtrusive, that he can pass along the immediate experience in a way that is usually the province of dramatic art.”
– Jay Cocks, Take One

HOT PEPPER: “Winds the music through the bayous and byways of the countryside (some of Blank’s most stunning photography) and into the streets and homes of the people. The off-hand folk wisdom and random jive that Blank loves so much is here in bounteous profusion.”
– Michael Goodwin, City Magazine

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NOVEMBER 17 MON (2 FILMS FOR 1 ADMISSION)

THE BLUES ACCORDIN’ TO LIGHTNIN’ HOPKINS

& Four Early Shorts

Lightning Hopkins (1969): The legendary bluesman performs at a barbecue and a black rodeo and visits his hometown. Plus Running Around like a Chicken With Its Head Off (1960): Blank’s first student film, an homage to Ingmar Bergman; Dizzy Gillespie (1964): Blank’s first music film; God Respects Us When We Work, But Loves Us When We Dance (1968): L.A. Easter Sunday “Love-in—with psychedelic special effects;” and The Sun’s Gonna Shine (1969): recreation of 8-year-old Lightnin’ Hopkins’ decision to start singing.
1:15, 4:00, 6:45*
*Les Blank in person at 6:45 show

“Recommended! The highlight is the extraordinary Lightnin’ Hopkins, but the other three shorts are pungent as well.”
– Time Out New York

“Reaches past the impish bluesman himself and into the Blues itself, into the red-clay Texas,
into hard times, into blackness, into senses… It’s a beautifully made film. See it and feel.”
– Carmen Moore, Village Voice

“The scarred, wiry Hopkins looks like America’s ultimate cowboy-hipster.” – J. Hoberman

Click here to read Blank’s account of the making of The Blues Accordin’ to Lightnin’ Hopkins

SPROUT WINGS AND FLY

& Julie: Old Time Tales of the Blue Ridge

Wings (1983): 82-year-old Appalachian fiddler Tommy Jarrell keeps that bluegrass coming and the good whiskey flowing, amid a panoply of backwoods characters and a celebration of native folkways. Julie (1991): Jarrell’s 80-year old sister spins yarns of a mountain childhood.
3:00, 5:45, 8:50

“Sure to have you stompin’ your feet in time.” – Time Out New York

“Jarrell delivers folksy homilies and family anecdotes with the same ease he brings to fiddling and banjo picking,
and Blank has a fine feel for the tradition and lore of bluegrass.”
– The Chicago Reader

"Sprout Wings and Fly is a compassionate, life-affirming, altogether extraordinary document... offers fine old-timey music, crazy jive, a fascinating cast of backwoods characters - plus a compelling look at a civilization fast losing its sanest ways."
– Michael Goodwin, Berkeley Monthly

Click here to read more about Tommy Jarrell

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NOVEMBER 18 TUE (2 FILMS FOR 1 ADMISSION)

CHULAS FRONTERAS

(1976) The toe-tapping social protest music of the Mexican community, on both sides of the border, with memorable featured performer Flaco Jiménez.
1:00, 3:35, 6:10, 8:45

“A Tex-Mex Masterpiece!” – The Village Voice

“Filmed with the excitement of discovery.” – Dave Kehr

“Blank’s most emotionally complex film. His camera weaves in and around lives documenting odd bits of vérité.”
– J. Hoberman

“A joyous, angry, complicated film—a multi-leveled document fully worthy of the people and music that gives it life.”
– Michael Goodwin, Take One

DEL MERO CORAZON

& SWORN TO THE DRUM

Corazon (1979): Chicano culture through the love songs of the Tex-Mex Norteña music. Drum (1995): Latin percussion = Francisco Aguabella. Portrait of the but all-too-little-heard master of the conga drum.
2:15, 4:50, 7:25*
*Les Blank in person at the 7:25 show

DEL MERO: “A lyrical journey through the musings of the heart in the Mexican-American Nortena music tradition. Love songs abound and serve as the lyrical poetry of the people. Their songs are of passion and death, hurt and humor, and the pleasures and torn dreams of love.”
– Pacific Film Archive

DRUM: “Blank throws us right into the heat and passion of a 1985 Aguabella gig. The drum comes alive under Aguabella’s hands, spinning rhythms that are thrilling, hypnotic—that speak directly to the soul. It’s the music that speaks the most freely—and Blank’s film has plenty of it.”
– Kurt Wolff, San Francisco Film Festival notes

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NOVEMBER 19 WED (2 FILMS FOR 1 ADMISSION)

ALWAYS FOR PLEASURE

& Yum, Yum, Yum!

Pleasure (1978): New Orleans: first a funeral, then food — the art of crayfish eating — then it’s time for Mardi Gras, with the Wild Tchoupitoulas society suiting up. “One critic said that it looked like it was shot by a guy wandering through New Orleans with a bottle of beer in one hand and a camera in the other.” – Les Blank. Yum! (1990): fish stew cooked up in the Louisiana backwoods.
1:30, 4:25, 7:20

PLEASURE: “Recommended! Extraordinary.” – Time Out New York

PLEASURE: “Good-time film-making, ethnography with rhythm: the title says all you need to know
about Blank's unique movie on the tributaries of rock'n'roll.”
– Time Out (London)

PLEASURE: “An enormously enjoyable work! An outstanding job of capturing the sense of a community enjoying itself.”
– The San Francisco Chronicle

YUM: “Les Blank’s documentary celebrations of the bright, workaday world of American subcultures pick up the Flaherty tradition where Flaherty himself leaves off… The tale his Cajun musician-fisherman-gourmands tell, their relaxed and wrinkled faces breaking suddenly into crackling laughter, is one of joyful camaraderie, a mutual involvement and appreciation taken, for all the ease with which it is presented, quite seriously indeed.”
– Raymond Durgnat and Judith Bloch

YUM: “An offbeat and irresistible life-affirming creation.” – Telluride Film Festival notes

THE MAESTRO:
King of the Cowboy Artists

(1995) Family man Gerry Gaxiola quits his job to become a Singing Cowboy Renaissance man, sticking it to Andy Warhol and Christo along the way.
3:05, 6:00

“A challenging, funny and original work about an artist who defies categorization.”
– American Film Institute

“For close to twenty years The Maestro has totally dedicated himself to art for art's sake, producing an astonishing array of works: a series of seventy-two paintings inspired by Van Gogh, over 100 ceramic Cadillacs full of cowboys on their way to a round-up in Reno, a series of landscapes along the Navajo Trail, a set of dazzling color block prints of Berkeley landmarks, and a collection of hundreds of decorated envelopes with cryptic messages to postmen and correspondents. Nothing exemplified his eclectic approach better than his annual Maestro Day, a joyous celebration of his previous year's work held at Albany High School from 1977 to 1990. In the words of one fan, ‘You have to be there. You have to see it.’”
– Pacific Film Archive

Click here to visit the Gaxiola’s Website

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NOVEMBER 20 THU (2 FILMS FOR 1 ADMISSION)

INNOCENTS ABROAD

(1991) Two weeks, ten countries, 40 Americans! It’s the European group tour experience, with national stereotypes battling good-humoredly. Sundance Grand Jury Award. Soundtrack features Bob Dylan, Bo Diddley, Fats Waller, Sandy Denny, and Jonathan Richman.
1:00, 3:55, 6:50

“Charming, insightful and yes, funny! A delightful portrait.”
– Sundance Film Festival notes

“A humorous portrait!” – Brian Sholis, Artforum

IN HEAVEN THERE IS NO BEER?

& Cigarette Blues

No Beer? (1984): It’s polka time!… from the Polkabration in Connecticut, to a Milwaukee Polka Mass, to the accordion mania of the Int’l Polka convention. Sundance Special Jury Prize. Blues (1985): butts and death, according to Oakland bluesman Sonny Rhodes.
2:40, 5:35, 8:30*
*Les Blank and Maureen Gosling in person at the 8:30 show

“The energy and bursting spirit of the polka subculture is rendered with both warmth and a dedication to scholarship. The photography and editing, soundtrack and beautifully constructed 'true-to-life' scenes of In Heaven There Is No Beer? are superb. For some reason or other, I found myself alternately laughing and crying during the film. It is an unbelievably heartwarming movie."
-San Francisco Examiner

“Blank’s approach to his material involves at least as much warmth as scholarship. The music, as depicted here,
becomes a natural, unfiltered reflection of people’s lives and values, as well as something that fills them with delight.”
– Janet Maslin, The New York Times

IN HEAVEN THERE IS NO BEER?: “RECOMMENDED! It’s all polka, all the time, in Blank’s classic look at the musical style tailor-made for downing huge mugs ‘o brew.”
– Time Out New York

CIGARETTE BLUES: “Delightful! Equal parts music video and PSA.” – Brian Sholis, Artforum

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