![\"image002](\"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/04\/image002-copy-300x241.jpg\")
LES BLANK<\/b><\/h1>\nLES BLANK<\/b><\/h1>\nLes Blank died last Sunday at 77.<\/p>\n
Taylor Hackford called him a \u201cnational treasure.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cAlthough his films are not well known at the moment, they\u2019ll take their place,\u201d he told\u00a0The New York Times<\/i>. \u201cFilms are great when they live a long time, and I think Les\u2019 will live.\u201d<\/p>\n
Blank was quietly renowned for intimate documentaries exploring comparatively unknown music genres and regional cultures (Cajun\/Zydeco titles like\u00a0Spend It All<\/i>,\u00a0Dry Wood<\/i>,\u00a0Marc And Anne<\/i>\u00a0and\u00a0Yum, Yum, Yum! A Taste Of Cajun And Creole Cooking<\/i>) as well as artists including film director Werner Herzog (the celebrated\u00a0Burden Of Dreams<\/i>).<\/p>\n
\u201cYou could call him an ethnographer; you could call him an ethnomusicologist or an anthropologist,\u201d continued Hackford, who himself directed the 1987 Chuck Berry music documentary\u00a0Hail! Hail! Rock ‘n’ Roll<\/i>. \u201cHe was interested in certain cultures that Americans are unaware of. He shot what he wanted, captured it beautifully, and those subjects are now gone. The homogenization of American culture has obliterated it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Particularly fascinating in the\u00a0Times<\/i>\u00a0obit, though, was Telluride Film Festival founder Thomas Luddy\u2019s account of the awarding to Blank of the 2007 Edward MacDowell Medal, presented annually to an individual who has made an outstanding contribution to the arts (previous winners including Thornton Wilder, Robert Frost, Aaron Copland, Leonard Bernstein and only two film directors: avant-gardist Stan Brakhage and animator Chuck Jones.)<\/p>\n
\u201cI was expecting that we\u2019d be discussing names like Francis, Marty, David Lynch and so on,\u201d said Luddy, a member of the jury. But chairman Hackford, he said, stated that his own films and many of those by the acknowledged \u201cbig names\u201d could well be forgotten in 100 years, whereas \u201cLes Blank\u2019s films will be revered as time-capsule classics.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWe never even discussed another name, and our meeting was over in less than an hour,\u201d Luddy concluded. Contrast this, then with the news that this year\u2019s\u00a0Billboard<\/i>\u00a0Music Awards, to air May 19 on ABC, has Bruno Mars, the Band Perry, Justin Bieber, Taylor Swift, Miguel and Pitbull up for \u201cthe new fan-driven \u2018presented by Chevrolet\u2019 Milestone Award, recognizing,\u00a0Billboard<\/i>\u00a0proclaims, \u201cthe ingenuity of this year\u2019s hitmakers.\u201d<\/p>\n
Say what?<\/p>\n
\u201cThe six finalists are artists whose amazing achievements on the\u00a0Billboard<\/i>\u00a0charts in the past year have exemplified originality and skill,\u201d says the mag\u2019s website. Let\u2019s see if we get this right: The same big names we see on every other award show, this one purportedly predicated primarily on chart performance, are not only being further rewarded merely for sales achievement, but are also up for another award to be determined solely by online voting popularity\u2014via\u00a0Billboard<\/i>\u2019s site. And to top it off voters are encouraged to submit reasons (200 words or less) why they\u2019re \u201cthe perfect person\u201d to co-present the Milestone Award live with Cee Lo Green.<\/p>\n
Nowhere in the press releases does it say anything about a Les Blank tribute, let alone the kind of music that he promoted, that many people buy even if it rarely dents the\u00a0Billboard<\/i>\u00a0pop charts.<\/p>\n
And by the way,\u00a0Billboard<\/i>\u2019s Icon Award will go to Prince, who will deliver \u201cwhat will likely be an unforgettable performance during the broadcast,\u201d prophesizes\u00a0Billboard<\/i>.<\/p>\n
Jim Bessman<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
LES BLANK A National Treasure Les Blank died last Sunday at 77. Taylor Hackford called him a \u201cnational treasure.\u201d \u201cAlthough his films are not well known at the moment, they\u2019ll take their place,\u201d he told\u00a0The New York Times. \u201cFilms are great when they live a long time, and I think Les\u2019 will live.\u201d Blank was […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[4976],"tags":[6250,6265,6267,6262,5672,6260,6253,6255,6261,6269,6266,6251,6256,6270,4675,6264,6254,6252,1172,6268,6263,6259,6257,6258],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9365"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9365"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9365\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9369,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9365\/revisions\/9369"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9365"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9365"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9365"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}