Les Blank made qui­et, affec­tion­ate films about quirky sub­jects. Many of his films paid homage to the music and food he loved—The Blues Accordin’ to Light­nin Hop­kins and Yum Yum Yum! A Taste of Cajun and Cre­ole Cook­ing. Blank was a lover of many tra­di­tion­al Amer­i­can musi­cal forms. Some of his movies are the only known filmed doc­u­ments of artists who are now gone.

Blank died April 7 at his home in Berke­ley, Cal­i­for­nia. He leaves behind a cat­a­log of films that seem small but in fact take on the biggest sub­jects: human­i­ty, love, com­mit­ment, joy and indi­vid­u­al­ism.

In Gap-Toothed Women, Blank cre­ates a sin­gu­lar love let­ter to women who shun ortho­don­tics and embrace their diastema (the gap between the two front teeth). The film explores the ori­gins of the belief that women with this fea­ture are unusu­al­ly lusty (think of Chaucer’s “gap-toothed wife of Bath”) and ends up cel­e­brat­ing uncon­ven­tion­al beau­ty.

One of his most inter­est­ing works devel­oped out of an inside joke. Blank was a friend of the direc­tor Wern­er Her­zog. Her­zog, in turn, had men­tored the young film­mak­er Errol Mor­ris, who was mak­ing his first film, Gates of Heav­en. In a char­ac­ter­is­ti­cal­ly dark attempt to be encour­ag­ing, Her­zog quipped that he would eat his shoe if Mor­ris com­plet­ed the film.

A man of his word, Her­zog lat­er ate the shoe in front of an audi­ence inside Berkeley’s U.C. The­ater. Food pio­neer Alice Waters cooked the shoe for five hours in gar­lic and wine. Blank filmed the event in 1980 and, true to his style, stepped back from the sub­ject and cre­at­ed a film about mak­ing hon­est art. You can watch it above.

Kate Rix writes about dig­i­tal media and edu­ca­tion. Vis­it her web­site: .

If you would like to sign up for Open Culture’s free email newslet­ter, please find it here. It’s a great way to see our new posts, all bun­dled in one email, each day.

If you would like to sup­port the mis­sion of Open Cul­ture, con­sid­er mak­ing a dona­tion to our site. It’s hard to rely 100% on ads, and your con­tri­bu­tions will help us con­tin­ue pro­vid­ing the best free cul­tur­al and edu­ca­tion­al mate­ri­als to learn­ers every­where. You can con­tribute through Pay­Pal, Patre­on, and Ven­mo (@openculture). Thanks!

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Wern­er Her­zog and Cor­mac McCarthy Talk Sci­ence and Cul­ture

Errol Mor­ris: Two Essen­tial Truths About Pho­tog­ra­phy

Por­trait Wern­er Her­zog: The Director’s Auto­bi­o­graph­i­cal Short Film from 1986

In many ways food—its pro­duc­tion, prepa­ra­tion and consumption—is the hottest art form today. Chefs are like celebri­ty auteurs, revered for their pas­sion and ded­i­ca­tion. We even watch real­i­ty tele­vi­sion shows about the dra­ma of com­mer­cial restau­rant kitchens.

The newest doc­u­men­tary by Daniel Addel­son puts anoth­er one of these artists in the spot­light. Addelson’s new film Storm fol­lows vint­ner Ernst Storm, a native of South Africa who makes wine in the San­ta Ynez Val­ley near San­ta Bar­bara, through a fall grape har­vest. The film is as earthy, bright and moody as the beau­ti­ful land where it is set. Storm tromps around his land in shorts and boots and a hat oper­at­ing fork lifts and hoist­ing pitch­forks full of grapes into huge tubs. We also see him in the lab, track­ing the chem­i­cal trans­ac­tions tak­ing place in his cur­rent batch.

The movie doesn’t shy away from the indus­tri­al side of wine­mak­ing, all the hoses and vats and stain­less steel casks.  But Storm’s voiceover reminds us that behind the heavy lift­ing is the dream of coax­ing some­thing plea­sur­able out of nature’s boun­ty.

Storm will pre­miere at the Sono­ma Film Fes­ti­val in April. Clock­ing in just over eight min­utes, Storm con­veys the hard work of mak­ing wine, the soli­tude and the fun. Most of all the film con­veys the craft’s artistry. The sen­su­al stuff—the smells and col­ors and flavors—are what dri­ve Storm’s affec­tion for process. He is dis­cern­ing and atten­tive. We see him climb­ing to the top bar­rel in a high pyra­mid, with a glass and a fan­cy turkey baster in hand. Remov­ing the big cork, Storm sucks out a bit and swish­es it around in his glass, then tast­ing it to see how things are going. Each vari­ety must be cared for, he says.

As a film­mak­er Addel­son isn’t mak­ing a com­mer­cial for Storm Wines. He’s inter­est­ed in the ingre­di­ents that make for a cre­ative person—the per­se­ver­ance, pas­sion and atten­tion to detail nec­es­sary to fol­low an idea through.

He will pick up this thread again in his next film, which looks at the ben­e­fits of teach­ing char­ac­ter to chil­dren in school.

Kate Rix writes about dig­i­tal media and edu­ca­tion. Read more of her work at .