hey - just a note about someone who I think is a great documentary maker and who I'm just not sure is mentioned in the same breath as the the other directors who've made careers out of bringing great subjects, happenings and stories of real people to people via imaginative and engaging films.

This person I speak of is Les Blank. Most notable for his work with Werner Herzog (Burden of Dreams, Werner Herzog Eats His Shoe), Les has made the most hay in telling stories of roots music, it's origins and cultures to film and to the public (Dizzy Gillespie, The Blues According to Lightning Hopkins, etc)

The other night I was made aware that he'd be showing some films at the Maysles cinema in Harlem. He showed the Dizzy movie and there was a "special showing" of another film that was not and as it turned out could not be promoted. It was a film called "A Poem Is a Naked Person" and is about a year in the life of keyboardist/bandleader and roots musician Leon Russell. A fascinating film portrait of someone who is basically a recluse with no interest in being promoted in this way. Which is strange because he was one of the producers of the film and apparently was very difficult during the filming. Eventually he condemned the film and made it so that Les was contractually unable to show it on a mass scale.. he can now only show it at non-profit gatherings that have no specific promotion of it.

The film is wonderful. As much a portrait of the artist and his work environments (the use his personal studio and do sessions in Nashville) as the people and places in his immediate surrounding towns. If you get the chance to see it, you really should.

Does anyone have any heros, sung, or unsung in the documentary world?