Les Blank (1935-2013) was an American documentary filmmaker. After studying English literature and theater, he made some industrial films until, within the countercultural movement of the 1960s, he moved to Berkeley and founded his production company, Flower Films. From then until his death, he worked as an independent artist. He dedicated his life to traveling across the United States, portraying, like a filmmaker-troubadour, blues and jazz musicians (Dizzy Gillespie, Lightnin’ Hopkins), folk singers (Leon Russell, Tommy Jarrell), local characters, and culinary and popular traditions, such as Creole and Cajun cultures from the southern United States, staying true to the Southern soul of his native Florida. Trained in the tradition of direct cinema, Les Blank always filmed his subjects in their real environments, delving into the roots of their cultures with an intimate and humanistic approach. His films capture joy, vitality, sensual pleasures (especially parties, music, and good food), and the cooperative and resistant spirit of the people and communities he filmed. Among his works, Burden of Dreams, about the making of Werner Herzog’s Fitzcarraldo, is also highly significant.
