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(0)Les Blank
Publisher
Les Blank Films
Description
Lightnin' Hopkins sings about playing cards with Les Blank and Skip Gerson - a card game he won which turned critical to the making of the film "The Blues Accordin' To Lightnin' Hopkins." After filming 13 songs, Lightnin' had told Les and Skip that he was done filming. As a last resort Les asked Lightnin' to play cards and he lost {dollar}200. But then Lightnin' agreed to film more. 3 1/2 min Color.
Publisher
Kanopy Streaming
Pub. Date
2015.
Description
This little known Les Blank gem is a portrait of the Serbian-American communities of California and Chicago. At the time of the California Gold Rush, the first Serbian immigrants arrived from the rugged Balkan Peninsula to settle in the New World. Against great obstacles, Serbian religion and identity had survived five centuries of Moslem domination under the Turks, and a deep sense of loyalty to ancestral tradition lives on in America today among...
Publisher
Les Blank Films
Pub. Date
2017.
Description
This softball umpire training film was one of Les Blank’s early industrial films made in 1962 prior to his independent filmmaking career. He made over 20 industrial films which helped him hone his skills as a filmmaker. Les recorded his own voice for most of the umpire calls which are humorous. Found as a marked-up work print in a cardboard box, this film wasn’t completed until 2015.
Publisher
Les Blank Films
Pub. Date
2020.
Description
THAILAND MOMENT, one of Les Blank's earliest films, is a beautifully rendered visual experience. Blank and fellow filmmaker Skip Gerson were hired to work on a documentary about the B52 bombing campaigns over Vietnam. That film never came to be, but the two traveled during the downtime and filmed this gentle meditation on a lush country - a moment in time. Remastered by Harrod Blank (Son) in 2015.
Publisher
Kanopy Streaming
Pub. Date
2015.
Description
This film follows world-renowned tea expert David Lee Hoffman to remote regions of China in search of the best handmade teas in existence. As a tea importer, Hoffman's obsession with this ancient beverage led him from "insipid tea bags in America" to far-flung tea regions in Asia. In the process, he discovered the rarity of good, handmade tea, especially in China, where the ancient craft of making tea has been giving way to mass production. Tea-making...
Publisher
Kanopy Streaming
Pub. Date
2016.
Description
Les Blank attended USC School of Cinematic Arts and pursued a Ph.D. in communications. These sudent films, made from 1960-1962, represent his initial interest in making narrative films. Three of the films freature his wife at the time, Gail Blank, and he himself appears in two of the films as a clean shaven young actor.
Publisher
Kanopy Streaming
Pub. Date
2015.
Description
A complex, insightful look at the Chicano experience as mirrored in the lives and music of the most acclaimed Norteno musicians of the Texas-Mexican border, including Flaco Jimenez and Lydia Mendoza. Selected for The Library Of Congress, National Film Registry of motion pictures, (to be preserved in perpetuity.) (In color).
Publisher
Kanopy Streaming
Pub. Date
2015.
Description
The definitive film, by Les Blank and Chris Strachwitz, on the history of the toe-tapping, foot-stomping music of French Southwest Louisiana. The film includes many Cajun and Zydeco greats, featuring Michael Doucet and BeauSoleil, Clifton Chenier, Marc and Ann Savoy, D.L. Menard, and many others.
Series
Publisher
Kanopy Streaming
Pub. Date
2014.
Description
Beginning with The Blues Accordin' to Lightnin' Hopkins in 1969, Les Blank has become known for his films about indigenous southern music and various other topics. He has received numerous major awards including the British Academy Award for 'Burden of Dreams,' about Werner Herzog and the making of 'Fitzcarraldo,' top prizes at the Melbourne Film Festival and the Sundance Film Festival for 'In Heaven There is No Beer?,' and the Maya Deren Award for...
Publisher
Kanopy Streaming
Pub. Date
2015.
Description
This film follows one of the world's top rock-and-roll bands of the 80's and a crew of fifty technicians to the Bahamas for the making of a music video for their number one hit single, "Stuck With You" for their album, "FORE!" Blank takes us behind the scenes for an off-beat look at what happens when a song is transformed into visuals and musicians are transformed into actors. Hidden in the straightforward reportage are sly comments on the MTV machine,...
12) Innocents Abroad
Publisher
Kanopy Streaming
Pub. Date
2015.
Description
A warmly amusing look at a bus-full of American tourists on a whirlwind tour of Europe. The eclectic soundtrack includes Mozart, Bob Dylan, Sandy Denny, Jonathan Richman, others. Innocents Abroad takes an amusing look at how Europeans and Americans stereotype each other, and also examines the validity of twentieth-century-style high speed, mass tourism. It is a glimpse into an important industry which is vital to the European economy, but which also...
13) Marc & Ann
Publisher
Kanopy Streaming
Pub. Date
2015.
Description
Enchanting portrait of Marc and Ann Savoy, Cajun musicians who are dedicated to the preservation and continuance of Cajun culture. Marc is an irreverent storyteller and accordion maker; his wife Ann is the mother of four, and author of the book Cajun Music: Reflection of a People.
14) Mister Charlie
Publisher
Les Blank Films
Pub. Date
1969.
Description
This short film by Les Blank with Skip Gerson features the charismatic legendary blues icon Lightnin' Hopkins sing a beautiful song about a stuttering boy who learns that he can communicate through singing. Also features Billy Bizor on harmonica.
15) Puamana
Publisher
Kanopy Streaming
Pub. Date
2015.
Description
Aloha! This gentle portrait of Auntie Irmgard Farden Aluli, one of Hawaii's best loved composers, focuses on Hawaiian women's contributions to family structure, art, music and dance. An intimate glimpse into the real culture of the islands.
16) Del Mero Corazon
Publisher
Kanopy Streaming
Pub. Date
2015.
Description
A lyrical journey through the heart of Chicano culture as reflected in the love songs of the Tex-Mex Nortena music tradition. Performers include, Little Joe and La Familia, Leo Garza, Chavela Ortiz, Andres Berlanga, Ricardo Mejia, Conjunto Tamaulipas, Chavela y Brown Express and more.
Publisher
Les Blank Films
Pub. Date
1965.
Description
Les Blank’s first documentary cinematography job shooting Drag Racers in Long Beach, CA, driving everything from hopped up “Mercs” to Supercharged “Rail Dragsters”. These cars could accelerate to over 220 miles/hour in a mile. The film follows the life of Rick “The Iceman” Stewart as he attempts to grab the world’s record.
18) Tattoo Uprising
Publisher
First Run Features
Pub. Date
2020.
Description
From antiquity to the present, TATTOO UPRISING reveals the artistic and historical roots of today’s tattoo explosion. This sweeping overview explores how tattoos were used in early Christian practices, how they were discovered halfway around the world during the voyages of Captain James Cook, and how they exploded in popularity in America beginning with artists like Ed Hardy.
Tattoo Uprising features some of the most extraordinary people of the
...Author
Description
How to Smell A Rose documents Les Blank's visit with the legendary co-founder of Direct Cinema, Richard Leacock (1921-2011), in 2000. At his farm in Normandy, France, Blank, and co-director Gina Leibrecht, recorded conversations with Leacock about his life, his work, and his other passion: cooking! In the early sixties, together with Robert Drew, D.A. Pennebaker, and the Maysles brothers, Leacock changed the way documentary films were made. Leacock's...