Films of Les Blank

Films of Les Blank
“Some people (unfortunate viewers!) assume that documentaries are didactic chronicles, usually narrated by an all-knowing and often paternal male voice. Les Blank’s documentaries, from HOT PEPPER to IN HEAVEN THERE IS NO BEER?, resist such categorization. They’re more often joyful glimpses of an America far from the corporate mainstream. He has been called something of an anthropologist, as he has recorded such a variety of ethnic cultures – from the music of Chicanos in CHULAS FRONTERAS, to the Serbian-American communities of Chicago and California in ZIVELI, to the Cajun and Zydeco musicians of Southwest Louisiana in I WENT TO THE DANCE. But it takes more than an anthropologist to capture Mardi Gras in New Orleans (especially the black community), as Blank does in ALWAYS FOR PLEASURE. It takes a filmmaker.” –Annette Isendorf’
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