SXSWorld
Issue link: https://sxsw.uberflip.com/i/482077
3 0 S X S W o r l d | M U S I C M A R C H 2 0 1 5 | S X S W. C O M I do what I do. I just film. I stick things together in a way I think they should be put to make a picture of what it was I saw."—Les Blank, 2002 By all accounts, Les Blank truly saw an eyeful starting in 1972, when he was commissioned by Shelter Records' Denny Cordell to document his wildly eclectic partner, rising superstar Leon Russell. In fact, mere descriptions hardly do justice to the crazed jux- tapositions, raw musicality and time-capsule fever dream of A Poem Is a Naked Person, the long-missing puzzle piece in Blank's extraordi- nary 45-year film career. A visionary, whose work provides the world its lone footage of countless Creole, Cajun, Appalachian and other musical leg- ends (see The Blues Accordin' to Lightnin' Hopkins), Blank's award-winning artistry also included profiles ranging from film- maker Werner Herzog (Burden of Dreams) to garlic (Garlic Is as Good as Ten Mothers). But at the time of his death in 2013, A Poem Is a Naked Person was mostly an unseen mystery. The Washington Post's Tom Zito deemed it "the best film ever made about rock & roll," while the "Dean of American Rock Critics," Robert Christgau, responded to its profusion of bluegrass and snakes, white gospel, scorpions and high-voltage demolition by calling it "repulsion out of control." Legal entan- glements, professional falling-outs, and hard feelings kept the film—except for a tiny handful of screenings—out of the public eye for its 40-some years of existence. "We had a lot of fun editing it," says Maureen Gosling, Blank's longtime partner, reveling in the film's eminent public unveiling (including its first "official" screening, at SXSW 2015). "We had this incredible editing machine where we could watch three pictures at the same time. Les would put music on the soundtrack, and we'd put the two cameras from the concert on two picture heads, and then images, just wild images, of water or landscape or events, on the third picture head. And we would watch it just for fun, and see what would happen, and get ideas." Raucous abandon defines concert scenes shot in Anaheim, California or at Austin's legendary Armadillo World Headquarters, capturing Russell's sometimes soulful, sometimes over-the-top con- cert persona. Meanwhile, Blank's camera, working from instinct and spontaneity, also meandered in and around Tulsa, Oklahoma, and Russell's rural compound at the Lake of the Cherokees—capturing an outrageous tractor pull, a building being dynamited, all manner of images involving nature, water and wildlife—lending the work a texture like no (rock & roll) film before or since. Or, as Harrod Blank, the filmmaker's son and keeper of his father's legacy, remarked, "You wouldn't fathom a scene combining George Jones music and this painter/artist guy [legendary Austin surrealist Jim Franklin] catching scorpions—you wouldn't do it." "It really gives the film [a sense of ] an experience, you know," Gosling enthuses. "It's not like 'this is the life of Leon Russell.' It's more of an experience. It's a snapshot of the times. It's kind of stream of consciousness; it's very visceral, and 'feeling-connections,' which is actually very much of a trademark of Les' films." "It's not just a portrait of Leon," Harrod chimes in. "It's a time capsule of Oklahoma. You can't even compare it to anything else. It becomes even more unique than if they had both tried to plan it that way." Not to say that Russell wasn't a fasci- nating character in his own right. An omni- present studio presence during the 1960s and a key player on record- ings ranging from the Byrds to Tina Turner, his subsequent song- writing prowess ("Tight Rope," "Delta Lady") and film turns, with Joe Cocker (Mad Dogs and Englishmen) and George Harrison (The Concert for Bangladesh), turned him into a bona fide superstar. By 1972, he was capitalizing on his fame, building a state-of-the-art studio, helming blues great Freddie King's come- back, branching out to chaotic, hard-as-nails on-stage R&B, blues, and white gospel and birthing Hank Wilson, his country-western alter-ego. Stirring appearances by friends, country greats Jones and Willie Nelson and intruders alike—Greenwich Village folksinger Eric Andersen—add to the film's expansiveness and high-wire tension. "It's sort of like a really good gumbo or jambalaya," explains Harrod Blank. "The ingredients all come together. You have Leon at the height of his charisma and talent. He was really on fire, in being a creative artist, and Les was on fire in being a creative artist. You've got these two guys come together in this work, just making super spectacular creations—the pinnacle of their careers. "And then there's this spice that's added to the mix," he says. "You have the Oklahoma rural characters, definitive of Oklahoma culture at the time, which makes it even more special. Back then it may have come across as being weird, but now you can say, 'Hey, wait a minute, this should be celebrated.' ." All of which merge to make A Poem Is a Naked Person far more than a simple sum of random footage and time-capsule curiosities. "Some people say," Harrod notes, "that it could be Les Blank's best film ever." A Poe m I s a Na ke d Pe r son s cre e n s to d ay ( Thur s d ay , M a rch 1 9) a t 5: 1 5 p m a t S a tel l ite Ve nu e: M a rch es a (6226 M i d d le Fi s k v il le Rd ). Alo n g w it h Fil m b a d g es a n d w ri s t b a n d s , M u - s ic b a d g es a n d a r t i s t w ri s t b a n d s a re welco m e. Public Finally Sees Rare, Acclaimed '70s Music Film by luke ToRn " Le o n Ru s s el l