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Les Blank was an American documentary filmmaker best known for his portraits of American traditional musicians.
Total trailers found: 63
01 January 1965
Les Blank's first documentary cinematography job shooting Drag Racers in Long Beach, CA, driving everything from hopped up "Mercs" to Supercharged "Rail Dragsters".
17 February 1987
A charming valentine to women born with a space between their teeth, ranging from lighthearted whimsy to a deeper look at issues like self-esteem and societal attitudes toward standards of beauty.
01 January 1994
The long-awaited sequel to Sprout Wings and Fly is a gentle celebration of mountain living, a once-thriving American way of life.
12 July 2019
An examination of the artistic and historical roots of today's tattoo explosion.
02 March 1982
Fitzcarraldo is a dreamer who plans to build an opera house in Iquitos, in the Peruvian Amazon, so, in order to finance his project, he embarks on an epic adventure to collect rubber, a very profitable product, in a remote and unexplored region of the rainforest.
01 January 1991
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.
01 October 1973
Featuring the stories and music of seminal Cajun musicians "Bois Sec" Ardoin and Canray Fontenot, Dry Wood is a short, vibrant documentary portrait of life, food, music and festivity in the Louisiana Delta from the singular Les Blank.
01 January 1969
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.
30 December 1976
A complex, insightful look at the Chicano experience as mirrored in the lives and music of the most acclaimed Norteño musicians of the Texas-Mexican border, including Flaco Jimenez and Lydia Mendoza.
01 January 1971
The Ways of Water was made with the Earth Science Curriculum Project and the Environmental Studies Project of the American Geological Institute.
01 January 1991
80-year-old Julie Lyon, sister of Old Time fiddler Tommy Jarrell, lights up this gem of a film as she spins tales of her Appalachian childhood in North Carolina - and her first romance.
01 October 1985
Oakland bluesman Sonny Rhodes sings “Cigarette Blues”: a musical warning that compares cigarette smoking with playing with a loaded gun.
30 April 1988
Directors Werner Herzog and Errol Morris make a bet which results in Herzog living up to his promise that he would eat his shoe if Errol Morris ever completed the film Gates of Heaven.
29 March 2016
Home video footage shot by Maureen Gosling during the filming of Les Blank's feature "A Poem is a Naked Person".
13 March 1972
Another short documentary of "Real Food, Roots Music, and People Full of Passion for what they do!", Spend It All is Les Blank's spirited look at the French-speaking Cajun community of southwest Louisiana.
01 October 2010
In a mountain village in southwestern China, just south of Tibet, one of the last remaining traditional bearers of the Lisu ethnic group is amid the mountains of new changes seeping into every crevice of their lives.
01 January 1964
This is Les Blank’s earliest music film, focusing on the renown trumpet player, Dizzy Gillespie, who along with Charlie Parker, Thelonius Monk, Sonny Rollins and others sparked the change from traditional Jazz to “Bebop” in mid-1940s America.
01 October 1982
The Amazon rain forest, 1979. The crew of Fitzcarraldo (1982), a film directed by German director Werner Herzog, soon finds itself with problems related to casting, tribal struggles and accidents, among many other setbacks; but nothing compared to dragging a huge steamboat up a mountain, while Herzog embraces the path of a certain madness to make his vision come true.
01 January 2006
A film created by Les Blank and Maureen Gosling from footage that was cut from the documentary "Always for Pleasure" (1978) about Mardi Gras in New Orleans.
27 November 1991
A chronicle of the production problems — including bad weather, actors' health, war near the filming locations, and more — which plagued the filming of Apocalypse Now, increasing costs and nearly destroying the life and career of Francis Ford Coppola.
12 September 1987
Huey Lewis And The News: BEFORE! 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.
01 January 1961
One of Les Blank's student films: a horror film following a young couple.
01 January 1967
This film, photographed and edited by Les Blank, produced and directed by Pieter Van Deusen, documents a spontaneously improvised concert by musician Christopher Tree.
01 January 1988
Following a brief statement by Ry Cooder on his thoughts about performing - and improvising - on stage, this concert film depicts Cooder's 1987 live show in Santa Cruz, California, which was part of his "Get Rhythm" world tour.
01 January 1969
This creative educational film by Pieter Van Deusen features a variety of string instruments performed by noted musicians such as Shamim Ahmed Kahn.
01 January 1971
Conjoined fables are told, one Japanese, the other African, a ghost story colliding with farcical folklore.
01 January 1991
Legendary filmmaker Les Blank's toe-tapping film treats us to a portrait of a musical Louisiana couple committed to celebrating and preserving Cajun culture.
18 November 2015
In 1967 Les Blank and Skip Gerson were hired to work in Thailand on a documentary about the B52 Bomber and its use in bombing campaigns over Vietnam.
01 January 1962
A short film looking at the early married life of a young couple.
01 January 1960
This short film features Les Blank (in a rare acting role) and Getachew Abbai. Directed by David Lawrence.
02 January 1969
A lyrical recreation of Lightnin’ Hopkins’ decision at age eight to stop chopping cotton and start singing for a living.
20 December 1968
A musical portrait of Texas bluesman 'Lightnin' Hopkins. The film includes interviews and a performance by Hopkins.
01 October 1983
Set in the North Carolina Appalachians, Sprout Wings and Fly honors the fiddle playing of 82-year-old Tommy Jarrell of Toast, NC.
08 September 1990
Les Blank marries his passion for spicy, down home food and his love for Cajuns and Creoles in this mouth-watering, exploration of the cooking, and other enthusiasms, of French-speaking Louisiana.
01 January 1960
Les Blank's first student film, made while at USC, starring Gail Blank, Pieter Van Deusen and Les himself.
01 January 1968
In this short film, blues musician Lightnin’ Hopkins performs an improvised song inspired by a card game he played with filmmaker Les Blank and producer Skip Gerson during the production of "The Blues Accordin’ to Lightnin’ Hopkins".
14 April 2007
During the 1990s, David Lee Hoffman searched throughout China for the finest teas. He's a California importer who, as a youth, lived in Asia for years and took tea with the Dali Lama.
11 March 1971
A musical portrait of Texas blues songster Mance Lipscomb.
22 November 1973
A musical portrait of Zydeco King Clifton Chenier, who combines the pulsating rhythms of Cajun dance music and black R&B with African overtones, belting out his irresistible music in the sweaty juke joints of South Louisiana.
01 January 2005
Les Blank continued filming the Maestro after the original film “The Maestro: King of the Cowboy Artists” was completed.
18 December 1969
A widow upholds feudal virtue by suppressing her love for a cavalry captain in favor of her daughter.
09 May 1974
Les Blank's first feature-length documentary captures music and other events at Leon Russell's Oklahoma recording studio during a three-year period (1972-1974).
12 October 1995
What happens when a dedicated husband and father quits his job, adopts the persona of a Western-Movie Singing Cowboy, takes on the entire art establishment (including Christo and Andy Warhol), and refuses to accept money for his art ? Meet Gerry Gaxiola, AKA The Maestro, an ex-wage slave who gave up everything to make art for art's sake.
18 February 1980
A zesty paean of praise to the greater glories of garlic. This lip-smacking foray into the history, consumption, cultivation and culinary/curative powers of the stinking rose features chef Alice Waters of Chez Panisse, and a flavorful musical soundtrack.
31 August 2014
In the year 2000, Les Blank, along with co-filmmaker Gina Leibrecht, visited Richard Leacock (1921-2011) at his farm in Normandy, France and recorded conversations with him about his life, his work, and his other passion: cooking! With the flair of a seasoned raconteur, Leacock recounts key moments in his seventy years as a filmmaker and the innovations that he, D.
01 October 1968
Les Blank's poetic documentation of 1967's Los Angeles Easter Sunday Love-In. Preserved by the Academy Film Archive in 2002.
13 October 1989
The definitive film on the history of the toe-tapping, foot-stomping music of French Southwest Louisiana.
01 January 1991
This aloha-filled portrait of Auntie Irmgard Farden Aluli, one of Hawaii's best loved composers, gently focuses on Hawai'ian women's contributions to the family structure, art, music and dance.
23 May 1984
A joyous romp through the dance, food, music, friendship, and even religion of the Polka. The explosive energy and high spirits of the polka subculture are rendered with warmth and dedication to scholarship in this journey through Polish-American celebrations.
12 September 1987
This little-known Blank gem is a portrait of the Serbian-American communities of Chicago and California, highlighting their history in this country, their music, dancing, and religion.
02 May 1978
A musical portrait of New Orleans' street celebrations and unique cultural gumbo in 1977: second-line parades, Mardi Gras, Jazz Fest.
25 March 1980
Documentary by Jean-Pierre Gorin about twin girls who spontaneously developed their own unique language as children.
01 January 1985
Anthology of six short films, including: Dizzy Gillespie Chicken Real Cigarette Blues God Respece
08 September 1987
Roland drives a dada art gallery on wheels and attracts more girls than he knows what to do with. Unfortunately, they rarely stick around.
01 January 1979
A lyrical journey through the heart of Chicano culture as reflected in the love songs of the Tex-Mex Norteña music tradition.
18 February 2008
An obsessively-made documentary, filmed over 16 years, exploring the creative life and adventures of the eccentric artist and entrepreneur Harrod Blank.
21 February 2025
In 1964, Les Blank filmed 45 minutes of motorcycles for a documentary film that was never completed. Before his death in 2013, he asked his son Harrod Blank to cut the footage to the music of The 13th Floor Elevators.
01 January 1994
A self-portrait documentary of Dusan Makavejev who travels to former Yugoslavia, and charts the changes of the society which parallels to his own life.
01 January 1970
One of Les Blank's industrial films, which follows a Holly Farms "broiler" chicken from factory incubation to the county fair barbecue pit.
31 December 1964
Directed by Terry Nowak. This early film about the Southern California Renaissance Fair, with Les Blank as cameraman, is shot in sensuous detail on a 16mm Bell & Howell camera.
