Les Blank spent the early part of his thirties, and much of his twenties, putting together industrial movies, basically educational films for the corporate world, movies to promote the venture to investors and employees. Blank called them "insipid" and moved quickly to get his career on a different track. He wasn't fond of wasting his creative output on low rent promotional movies for corporations so he left, set up his own production company, and started making short observations on film. We might call them documentaries and, indeed, few have ever documented better than Blank, but his films are structured in such a beautiful, informal way, they come off as observations by a casual observer, yet are so expertly compiled that only a fool would think it all happened by way of happy accident. The Blues Accordin' to Lightnin' Hopkins was only his second effort and it stands as one of his best, still.

Early on in his documentary career, Les Blank had a radical idea. Rather than show a bunch of still images or talking heads, complete with captions to let us know who we're listening to, why not actually just document a culture, a person, an activity? That such a concept in the history of documentary filmmaking would seem radical just goes to show how far off course many documentaries have travelled. Blank simply filmed the culture in action and later, in the editing booth, put the pieces of the puzzle together in a way that not only documented but enlightened. From start to finish, The Blues Accordin' to Lightnin' Hopkins, does nothing but show Hopkins perform, talk and fish and yet, by the end, we have a full picture of the man and his music.

Throughout his career, Lightnin' Hopkins, born Sam John Hopkins, was prolific. Starting at an early age, he began playing with such legends as Blind Lemon Jefferson at church but, despite a few tries, could never break into the music business. Finally, in 1946, at the age of 34, he recorded his first album, twelve songs with pianist Wilson Smith, and the two were renamed Lightnin' and Thunder. From there, Hopkins kept recording dozens and dozens of records until it was estimated he exceeded 1,000 recordings. By the sixties, blues historians pointed to him as one of the greatest carriers of the blues tradition in existence.

Hopkins settled in Houston, Texas and after the fifties, rarely left it. Despite all his success with recording the blues, and his later international fame, Hopkins never lived anything more than a simple existence, driven by his passion for the blues, a musical form and emotional state that were both something he felt strongly anyone could understand. He was also a great storyteller, outside of music, and a highlight in the movie occurs when he tells a tale about swerving to miss a pig in the road that has, as its punchline, a moral about looking out for oneself because good deeds rarely go unpunished.

Les Blank spent the rest of his career fascinated with documenting the culture, often through examining the different American musical styles of the South, from the blues to zydeco. After his early successes in 1968, he never returned to the sterile world of industrial filmmaking and the rest of the world can be grateful. His examinations into the culture have left works that are themselves now cultural landmarks. Not surprisingly, his documentary, Burden of Dreams, about the making of famed director Werner Herzog's Fitzcarraldo, is probably more seen than the narrative film it documents. And Blank's passion for finding the truth inside the everyday led to some of the most engaging documentaries in the realm of cinema. Without talking heads giving their "expert" opinion or endless still photographs accompanied by solemn narration, Blank manages to inform more in one documentary short than a year's worth of feature length documentaries could hope to do. Lightnin' Hopkins says during the course of the film, "When I play the guitar, I play it from my heart." The same could be say of Les Blank when he makes a movie. It shows in every frame.

By Greg Ferrara