Blu-ray Review: A POEM IS A NAKED PERSON Boasts More Rock, Les Blank - Via Criterion

The cinema of Les Blank is one of wonder, a childlike sense of openness and discovery.  It's a mischievous wonder, the kind of freedom not dissimilar to the five year old who insists on wearing a Halloween costume to church – sure, he knows this isn't how everyone else does it, but this is how he's going to live his life.

There's a lack of rules, along with the kind of on-the-whole acceptance that tends to come from lack of negative conditioning that life pounds into all of us.  It's evident in everything from the lack of conventional narrative or talking head interviews to the everyday, slice-of-life-friendly shooting style he employs.

The title of this film evokes certain things synonymous with not just Art (with a capital A), but childhood freedoms:  Poetry (think of most any good children's book you know of) and nudity. (What toddler doesn't love to shed the diaper and run free?) 

Adding to the mischievous creation of this film is the fact its title, as oddly specific a statement as it is, the film never specifies where exactly the phrase comes from.  In the whole of A Poem is a Naked Person, there is nary the utterance or signage of “A Poem is a Naked Person”. Although it turns out to be a Bob Dylan line from the liner notes of “Bringing it all Back Home”, I'm happy to report that such details don't really matter.

Blank was clearly contracted to make a rock doc about Leon Russell.  This is evident on its own, and is confirmed on the disc's special features. But, in true Les Blank fashion, he as a filmmaker seems less interested in his supposed subject than in the world around the subject. 

Blank films are positively fueled by a deceptively loose aesthetic (not sloppy), with frequent moments of celebration, exploration of local diversity and custom, and music.  Always, music.  In this sense, A Poem is a Naked Person might be the ultimate Les Blank film - even as it's also one of the most unconventional rock docs I've ever seen. 

At points, it seems to almost give way to the chaos and craziness of this early 1970s Oklahoma-centric Leon Russell universe.  Detours abound: A rhinestone-studded musician wedding, the most elaborately psychedelic swimming pool surface mural ever, and all manner of hanging out and squabbling during the recording of “Hank Wilson's Back”, and concert scenes aplenty.

Some, including Kent Jones who wrote the accompanying essay, opt to read a critical cynicism, a darker message, as meaning behind the off kilter choices Blank made in the assembly. A local office building is demolished; crosscut to a concert performance. Then back to the scene of the demolition, where observers take to the rubble in search of souvenirs. Crosscut to fans after the concert, hungry for autographs. The point made in the editing is an odd if ever strangely insightful train of cinematic thought. Some like to find it indicting.

But, like all great films by Blank and music by Russell, the movie is fundamentally life affirming.  Even as, at one point, it's gruelingly death affirming, as well.  Not to spoil anything, but a fair word of warning to any animal lovers (and I count myself among you), there is a sequence involving a snake and a chick where nature, shall we say, takes its course.  Blank likely included such a moment in the interest of poetry and perhaps metaphor.  You be the judge, but one thing's for sure - other animals are not animal lovers, even if we are.

With this film finally arriving for all to experience, we've maybe arrived at a place where the standard parameters of documentary filmmaking don't apply.  The usual methodology we use to venerate directors - degree of apparent control, and whatnot - certainly apply less.  Or, I could speculate that Les cared less about those things: Being an overlord, exerting control, etc.  For him, when he arrived with his camera, life became a treasure hunt of moments and colorful individuals.  Leon Russell, at the peak of his game with all his talent, skills, and purse-string holding, is still just one of those individuals.

A Poem is a Naked Person is a right-thumping freewheeling endeavor that until recently, due to being blocked by its unhappy star, was off limits to general audiences.  Thankfully, through the efforts of Les Blank's son Harrod Blank, as well as Russell and whomever else was involved, we can all witness this odd celebration of music, life, and whatever the heck else is going on here.  It rambles, it meanders, it's abrupt.  I'd say it's not your father's rock doc, but it could've been.  If you delight in the kid who wears the Halloween costume to church, then you've come to the right place.

*****

Criterion's Blu-ray release of A Poem is a Naked Person is a must-own companion its 2014's must-own box set “Always for Pleasure,” which lovingly presents a wide array of Les Blank's other noteworthy work. The film may lack the gravitas of Blank's incomparable Burden of Dreams, which stands as one of the most vital movies about moviemaking ever made. But, this one was made first, and certainly stands taller as the greater Les Blank film, if not the greater film in general. To invoke a phrase never uttered by anyone in any of these films, it's all good. Quite good.

The Blu-ray serves up a 2K digital transfer and uncompressed monaural soundtrack, resulting in a presentation that looks and sounds wonderful, particularly so considering the time the movie's spent on the shelf. (That is, in between Blank's lifelong tinkering with it, right up until his death in 2013.)

Thankfully, Leon Russell has participated in the disc's bonus features, resulting in a great video conversation with Harrod Blank. In it, Russell is in good spirits yet forthright about his past issues with the film, and its maker. Yet, in his old age, he's now able to accept it for what it is. It's a valuable supplement that informs while also trailing off on nonsensical tangents – not unlike the film itself.

Also included is the more conventional and self-descriptive “A Film's Forty-Year Journey: The Making of 'A Poem is a Naked Person.'” This chronicle is about as long as the video conversation, about 30 minutes give or take, and is the disc's other essential extra.

There's also a short post-screening Q&A with Blank, depicting the filmmaker in failing health looking to share his suppressed masterpiece one last time. Finally, there's something called “Out in the Woods,” an eccentric montage of super-8 footage from behind the scenes, shot by Blank's partner Maureen Gosling, and supplemented with text from her letters to her parents, written during Naked Person's production. It's an odd if also somehow legitimate curiosity for inclusion.

Finally, Kent Jones of Film Comment has contributed the mandatory print essay. Fans of quality film writing might know him to be no slouch in the department.  It's a great and personal read that isn't afraid to declare A Poem is a Naked Person the masterwork that it is.