Currently, Blank has footage for four films shot on digital video, including one which follows a tea importer through China as he searches for the perfect leaf. But Blank doesn’t have the funds to edit any of them. “It always has been difficult for him, apparently harder right now,” says Herzog, adding that he considers Blank “a national treasure.” “He’s the one who shows us many of the margins of American societies. He deserves much better.”
These days, Blank spends much of his time making public appearances at Les Blank mini-retrospectives at universities, film festivals, and repertory houses around the globe. Showing old films is no replacement for having the financing for new ones, but it is confirmation of a different sort of dream.
“I always wanted my movies to be timeless, to be watched forever,” says Blank. “It looks like that might happen.”
The man Behind the mcdocumentary
One of the side pleasures of watching a Les Blank film is spotting his trademark Hitchcock-like cameo, a fleeting on-screen glimpse of the director as a face in the crowd. (Or, in case of The Blues Accordin’ to Lightnin’ Hopkins, as a reflection in the fabled singer’s sunglasses.)
But food documentarian Morgan Spurlock took a different approach, casting himself as the front-and-center subject of his film, Super Size Me. In it, Spurlock, a talkative 6' 2" 33-year-old with a drooping Joe Namath mustache, spends 30 days subsisting on a no-exercise, three-meals-a-day, McDonald’s-only diet. By the time the final credits roll, the Big Macs, Chicken McNuggets, and 42-ounce sodas have taken their toll: Spurlock has gained 24.5 pounds, his cholesterol is up 65 points, and he’s beset by chest pains, dizzying mood swings, heart palpitations, and sexual lethargy.
In 98 minutes, Super Size Me effectively links the world’s largest restaurant chain with America’s current obesity epidemic. Was that a preplanned goal? “For me, the film isn’t just about McDonald’s—it’s about our whole culture and the way we live and eat and the influence of the company,” says Spurlock, adding that he chose to target McDonald’s because it’s so “iconic,” but just as well could have concentrated on Taco Bell or Wendy’s.
Scraped together for a reported $65,000, Super Size Me at one point cracked the top ten weekend box office list and by early July had grossed an impressive $10 million. There are Spurlock victories, however, that are less easily quantifiable. Back in March, McDonald’s announced plans to introduce healthier menu items and vanquish the Super Size option by the end of 2004. (Representatives of McDonald’s steadfastly insist that plans for the phaseout predated the film’s release.)
Born and raised in West Virginia, Spurlock, a former stand-up comic and music-video director, grew up eating typical American meat-and-potatoes fare, and he is unapologetic about his love of Quarter Pounders and french fries. It wasn’t until 2000, when Spurlock met his girlfriend, Alexandra Jamieson—whose job description, professional vegan chef, is a punch line in itself in Super Size Me—that he discovered fresh produce. “I’d never eaten an artichoke until I got with Alex,” says Spurlock, who, thanks in part to Jamieson’s customized detox program, has returned to his original 185 pounds. “I was like, ‘What’s that they’re eating? An art-ta-what? I thought those came in little jars.’”
In sharp contrast to Blank’s languid directorial style, Spurlock prefers quick cuts and zippy graphics and a witty, unceasing narration. Even their examples of inspirational food moments in film couldn’t be more different. (Blank cites a walrus-blubber eating scene in the 1922 silent classic Nanook of the North; Spurlock selects the 1971 candy-gorging fantasy Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory.)
What the two have in common, though, is a desire to take moviegoers on a memorable ride. Despite the poor reaction of test audiences to footage of Spurlock losing his McLunch and of an overweight man undergoing gastrointestinal surgery, he refused to excise them. “My whole thing was, ‘You know what? You’re going on a journey with me,’” says Spurlock. “I want you to be a part of that the whole time.”
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