Les Blank dies at 77

In 1979's "Werner Herzog Eats His Shoe," Blank chronicled Herzog's attempt to dine on his boot, the result of a lost bet.

And "Burden of Dreams," Blank's 1982 behind-the-scenes view of Herzog's disastrous filming of "Fitzcarraldo" in the Peruvian jungle, became a classic chronicle of artistic obsession.

"If I abandon this project, I would be a man without dreams," Blank films Herzog saying in the film. "I don't want to live like that,"
Source: Les Blank Dead: Acclaimed Documentary Maker Dies At 77 by Related on HuffPost

But his films also often drew on Blank’s keen sense of humor and whimsy, and provided an outlet for a man whom many knew as painfully shy. Inspired by a decades-old high school crush, Blank made the film “Gap-Toothed Women,” a collection of vignettes on such women, including then-Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor. Too shy to approach the subjects of the film, Blank had a co-producer do most of the interviewing.

"I just drift to what I find interesting," Blank told the International Documentary Assn. in 2012. "I try to find a fresh way of looking at the world around me and making some sense of it … something lasting that the world would want to see 100 years from now."

Blank is survived by a daughter, Ferris Robinson; two sons, Harrod Blank and Beau Blank; and three grandchildren.
Source: Les Blank dies at 77; prolific documentary filmmaker By Christine Mai-Duc, Los Angeles Times
Blank received lifetime achievement awards from the American Film Institute and the International Documentary Association and given the honorary Maverick Award at the Woodstock Film Festival in 2000.

Blank Jr. was born Nov. 27, 1935, in Tampa, Fla., and he attended Tulane University in New Orleans, where he majored in English. After seeing Ingmar Bergman's The Seventh Seal, he began to study acting and playwriting before going to film school at the University of Southern California. His on-the-job training was in industrial and educational films and he opened a production company, Flower Films, in 1967.

Blank is survived by his sons Harrod and Beau, a daughter, Ferris Robinson, and three grandchildren.
Source: Documentarian Les Blank Dies at 77 by Phil Gallo, Billboard