Les Blank Clips on YouTube

I happened across a few decent length clips from documentaries by Les Blank. I haven't seen many of his movies; for some reason even though I think he is pretty well regarded, they are not well distributed at all. But I've wanted to see many of them: his key interests are food and music, after all.

There's a whole YouTube channel including clips from about a dozen of his movies, including the ones on Clifton Chenier and Bois Sec Ardoin, but for LTH I'll just highlight the most food-centric ones:

• Garlic is as Good as Ten Mothers, including some off-screen talk by Alice Waters
• All In This Tea
• Also, from In Heaven, There Is No Beer?, there's this performance of the song "Who Stole the Kiszka?"
• The clip from Dry Wood includes sausage making and other stuff done as a family processes a slaughtered hog, as well as a little bit of footage of the dinner table.

All In This Tea is actually just from last year, and my TiVo recently grabbed it from Sundance or IFC, but then deleted it before I got around to watching it. And, alas, it isn't listed as being rescreened any time soon. Darnit!

I found this other page of clips in RealVideo format. Still nothing from "Werner Herzog Eats His Shoe," though, and not really all that much about food as best I've noticed.

BTW, he really does. After having it cooked by Alice Waters. That one I've seen.

Hi,

Maybe 20 years ago, the Field Museum hosted Les Blank. While they were showing Garlic is as Good as Ten Mothers, people began to comment the movie was so realistic they could smell the garlic. Yeah, they could smell Les Blank cooking the garlic backstage.

I didn't attend, though my Mom and my sister Mary did. They still talk about that event today.

Regards,

Funny you should mention that Cathy... I did the same thing in Wichita, back in my 80s film society days. Sauteed garlic in the theater for Garlic Is As Good As Ten Mothers, then served red beans and rice (donated by a local Cajun restaurant) after Always For Pleasure.

I think it's safe to say that Blank's laidback documentary style and interest in capturing the inherent liveliness of food and music related good times, with relatively little intrusive authorial presence, had a certain influence on me.

Perhaps there's an LTHForum event in all this...