criterionforum.org

A Poem Is a Naked Person



Les Blank considered this free-form feature documentary about beloved singer-songwriter Leon Russell, filmed between 1972 and 1974, to be one of his greatest accomplishments. Yet it has not been released until now. Hired by Russell to film him at his recording studio in northeast Oklahoma, Blank ended up constructing a unique, intimate portrait of a musician and his environment. Made up of mesmerizing scenes of Russell and his band performing, both in concert and in the studio, as well as off-the-cuff moments behind the scenes, this singular film—which also features performances by Willie Nelson and George Jones—has attained legendary status over the years. It's a work of rough beauty that serves as testament to Blank's cinematic daring and Russell's immense musical talents.

SPECIAL FEATURES

• New, restored 2K digital transfer, supervised by executive producer Harrod Blank, director Les Blank's son, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack on the Blu-ray
• New conversation between musician Leon Russell and Harrod Blank
• Excerpts from a 2013 Q&A with Les Blank
• A Film's Forty-Year Journey: The Making of "A Poem Is a Naked Person," a new documentary featuring interviews with Harrod Blank, assistant editor and sound recordist Maureen Gosling, and artist Jim Franklin
• Out in the Woods, a short documentary by Gosling
• Trailers
• PLUS: An essay by critic Kent Jones

rockysds wrote:Les Blank's A Poem Is a Naked Person confirmed as forthcoming.

Austin Chronicle wrote:The film eventually became mired in legal difficulties and could only be shown with Blank in person per a complicated court settlement. (He passed away in 2013.) Finally, the parties have reached a settlement that allows A Poem Is a Naked Person to be shown at SXSW. A Janus Films theatrical release and Criterion DVD release will follow.

I'd wager the Burden of Dreams BD upgrade gets released alongside it when it happens.

rockysds wrote:Les Blank's A Poem Is a Naked Person confirmed as forthcoming.

Austin Chronicle wrote:The film eventually became mired in legal difficulties and could only be shown with Blank in person per a complicated court settlement. (He passed away in 2013.) Finally, the parties have reached a settlement that allows A Poem Is a Naked Person to be shown at SXSW. A Janus Films theatrical release and Criterion DVD release will follow.

Also confirmed on Les Blank Films' website.

Les Blank Films wrote:This film was never released, and has rarely been shown in public except at non profit institutions with Blank in attendance. After Les Blank’s death in 2013, his son Harrod Blank came to terms with Leon Russell to re-master and release the film. Criterion and Janus Films will be distributing the film in North America. We will be offering the DVD/Blu Ray as soon as it becomes available.

I guess this is also good news for the sales of the Blank set, which many were skeptical of being anything but a money-burning labor of love for Crit

domino harvey wrote:I guess this is also good news for the sales of the Blank set, which many were skeptical of being anything but a money-burning labor of love for Crit

I suspect that the Blank set is another one of those Criterion releases with a large potential non-cinephile audience (like the Martha Graham collection and the Gaudi doc) among foodies and music fans, and the challenge for Criterion was tapping into those non-traditional audiences. I'm wondering if Russell still has any substantial fanbase left nowadays? I wouldn't be surprised if "old bluesmen and obscure regional musicians" is more marketable subject matter than "Leon Russell - Live!" in 2015.

domino harvey wrote:I guess this is also good news for the sales of the Blank set, which many were skeptical of being anything but a money-burning labor of love for Crit

It was labeled as a "Top Seller" during the flash sale this week, for whatever that is worth.

And it has 1,500 facebook likes on their site. For reference Palm Beach Story has 342, Tootsie has 954, Persona 1,400 and Fantastic Mr. Fox over 6,000. I'd say its doing pretty well. For whatever reason I think box sets just sell period.

Does anyone know the status of the Les Blank documentary (that had the excerpt on the recent set)? I might imagine it would be paired with some release/set at some point (fill in the remaining Blank gaps? ) -similar to Persona + Liv & Ingmar.

I also didn't realize the Blank website sold shirts. Speaking of which, if you order the Criterion set from their website (its 36% off there), they throw in a shirt with the order.

Wonderful news about A Poem Is a Naked Person -I suspect most people thought it would never see the light of day again, let alone soon be available on home video. Might any of the films that I linked to above pair well with this?

zedz wrote:I'm wondering if Russell still has any substantial fanbase left nowadays? I wouldn't be surprised if "old bluesmen and obscure regional musicians" is more marketable subject matter than "Leon Russell - Live!" in 2015.

Not sure about the rest of the population, but it's the reverse for me. Never heard of this doc before now, but I'll be all over it as soon as I can.

Here is a trailer / promo for the screening at SXSW (A Poem is a Naked Person)

Didn't realize SXSW was going on right now, so presumably the Janus / Criterion release should be sooner than later.

It looks like A Poem is a Naked Person will already be touring in July. So we should be expecting it sooner rather than later...

Janus just posted a trailer on their Facebook, apparently from Criterion, for the Les Blank film on Leon Russell, A Poem is a Naked Person.

Looks like we may have the first great supplement to the Les Blank box coming at some point!

https://vimeo.com/130885614" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

EDIT: Looks like Janus is doing a theater run this summer:

http://janusfilms.com/poem/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

A Poem is a Naked Person by Les Blank opens in July. Here is the dedicated Janus page.

A Poem is a Naked Person poster in now on sale. This likely points towards this image also being the eventual DVD/Blu cover.

I do wish Criterion would sell posters for all of their releases. Sure, it would be another thing to fill up a warehouse, and the rights with the illustrator don't always allow this (I seem to recall a few designers/illustrators selling the covers on their own websites), but I'm sure quite a few would at least be very popular.

Consequently, has anyone found out whether the Scanners cover has been made into a poster anywhere? Surprisingly I already have 3 people bothering me about it - wanting to purchase it. So there's $75 in sales already Criterion.

I believe the pattern is films that Janus tours, that come to Criterion, are able to be sold as prints. I cannot think of one poster for sale that isnt also a Janus release.

Just got in from a screening of A Poem Is A Naked Person. Les Blank's son Harrod did a Q&A afterwards wherein he revealed that the Criterion edition is slated for March '16, the poster art by Jim Franklin will most likely be the cover, and there will be a nice selection of outtake footage included (although he himself hasn't had a chance to review said material yet).

Coming in March

Has anyone seen this yet? I'm very intrigued and would be interested in hearing how people on this forum view this film in comparison to Blank's other works?

therewillbeblus wrote:Has anyone seen this yet? I'm very intrigued and would be interested in hearing how people on this forum view this film in comparison to Blank's other works?

Leon Russell is probably the least interesting subject of any Les Blank film, and his music is probably the least interesting music in any Les Blank film. (Bear in mind that I, like almost everybody else on the planet, hasn't seen his Huey Lewis & the News pic.) But everything else about the film is pretty wonderful! Fortunately, Blank is easily distracted by the regular folk he stumbles across and some fantastic musical interlopers (specifically George Jones and Willie Nelson).

therewillbeblus wrote:Has anyone seen this yet? I'm very intrigued and would be interested in hearing how people on this forum view this film in comparison to Blank's other works?

I liked it a lot, but I agree that Leon Russell isn't a particularly interesting guy. It ends up not mattering because Blank finds so much interest in everything else that's happening.

The MORE! has been revealed. It appears more that they changed nearly everything (although nothing is lost from the previously announced extras):

New conversation between musician Leon Russell and Harrod Blank
Excerpts from a 2013 Q&A with Les Blank
A Film’s Forty-Year Journey: The Making of “A Poem Is a Naked Person,” a new documentary featuring interviews with Harrod Blank, assistant editor and sound recordist Maureen Gosling, and artist Jim Franklin
Out in the Woods, a short documentary by Gosling
Trailers
PLUS: An essay by critic Kent Jones

Bolded indicates completely new bonus material. Inteview with Leon Russell has turned into a conversation alongside Harrod Blank; other interviews are now part of the documentary. Trailer/essay/technical specs all remain identical.

Out in the Woods doesn't have an IMDB page, but it takes its name from a Leon Russell song (at least I assume).

"Out in the woods" is a brilliant and haunting short film from Gosling. The sound design gives you a sense of how she probably felt working for an out of control boss in the relative isolation of grand lake for two years. The creeper minor key of the sound design contrasts with the "put a good spin on it" chipperness of the text to her parents, I loved it.

"A poem is a naked person" is a strong journeyman first feature hampered from being great by some typically first feature conceits.

Fundamentally, the film doesn't seem to respect Leon Russell the way Les' earlier films respected lightning Hopkins or mance and this is because of both the editorial decisions to rudely break away from some performances and to rarely include Leon in the films first half. I think the producers who hired Les always wanted his style, meaning the local color digressions to contextualize Leon, Tulsa, and the new record label--and the opening couple is perfect in every way in this respect, as is the bit featuring the spooklight. But so much of the film just seems to reject its subject that the film seems fairly insulting. Whether it is the building demo, the snake or the glass chewing, the film selfishly foregrounds directorial style over substance of subject. Although the snake is worth every fight to keep it in the film, it is illustrative of the overall problem. And none of the other directorial conceits succeed the way the snake succeeds. Finally, the film ends on a quirky song by a random kid that speaks only to the experience of the director in making the film, even though the back half of the film actually was about Leon Russell, Blank couldn't resist the final chance to make it about himself and also insult Leon one last time. As Harrold points out in the extras, the ending was reedited to end on Leon singing over the music clearance credits, but it still doesn't quite make up but it does help take the sting out.

The features are all excellent and help contextualize a lot of the films quirks. Unlike the repeated statements in the extras, I don't find it a masterpiece mostly because the directorial hubris prevents a masterpiece from emerging, but also because Blank has several better films and definite masterpieces in his filmography.

I bought this as a les blank fan, I know almost nothing about Leon Russell although I recognized several of his songs I had never seen him perform before. It does fill an essential gap in his development as a filmmaker and clarifies by her absence how essential it was to have gosling be his editor as she is far superior at shaping his films in a way to yield Blanks unique voice without him Getting in his own way. In a way, this film makes "burden of dreams" possible because I think blank's experience on poem informed his avoiding pitfalls on dreams. And it gives me even more respect for Herzog for agreeing to be a les blank subject, as I think only he and Leon were the only les blank subjects who were widely known without being les blank subjects and it didn't turn out very well for Leon. In a way this perspective of mine is also informed by the bitterness of the maestro in the box set extras, who didn't like the way he was filtered into becoming a les blank subject in the final films. Given the inherent subjectivity of his approach, this film, Poem, raises more questions about blank and his subjects than it answers, in my opinion.

I'll chime in with the general spirit here. The film is perhaps too long, but the concept that Russell is the least interesting thing about OK is handled fabulously. There's a great humor with the digressions to him interrupting a much more typical Blank film. That makes this feel a bit more like one of those Godfrey Ho films or flashback cheapo episodes than a cohesive whole which does hurt the film a little. Still there are so many great moments it is hard to care about these flaws except in short spurts.