Les Blank left a lasting influence on the Bay Area’s still-busy documentary filmmaking scene, perhaps even more so on the entire genre of music docs that go beyond performance footage to capture entire subcultures.

| Jun 7, 2024

All of it put together makes you feel almost as if you know what it was like to hang out in this time and place. A Poem Is a Naked Person may not impart many facts but it does provide understanding. What more could you ask of a documentary?

| Jun 9, 2022

Enthusiasts of the personalities documented from this particular period should find this easygoing snapshot illuminating, while others are bound to be disappointed by an item heralded as legendary due to its previous obscurity.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Oct 8, 2020

A Poem is a Naked Person perfectly captures a particular time not just in America, but in American music, to the point that it feels like a road show rehearsal for Nashville.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Apr 19, 2019

Not only is Leon Russell's legacy as one of American music's most vibrant composers and performers savored here, so too is Les Blank's intuitive genius as a filmmaker of grit, soul, and heart.

| Original Score: A+ | May 2, 2018

A fascinating mix of 70s style, drug-culture weirdness and old-fashioned country charm.

| Jun 23, 2017

Between the thrilling concert footage, what emerges is a pungent time capsule of a forgotten fringe of America, ripe for rediscovery.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Jan 2, 2017

A glorious time capsule bursting with life.

| Original Score: 5/5 | Aug 3, 2016

Unfortunately, most of the film is given over to musicians, baked and bickering endlessly in recording studios.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Jul 10, 2016

A brilliant, free flowing depiction of a time, a place and the people who inhabit it.

| Jul 8, 2016

A down and dirty mash-up of colourful sound and imagery.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Jul 8, 2016

It moves away from Russell to something else, somewhere else, to scenes and images that are beside the point. But that is the point.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Jul 7, 2016

This bewildering, kaleidoscopic journey on a magic carpet ride is well-worth experiencing.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Jul 6, 2016

Blank seems to have a natural, in-born respect for the lives of these people, and sees not yokels or "simple" country folk, but a vibrant and living community of artists and music-makers.

| Jun 3, 2016

A most entertaining rocker film in a true psychedelic playful sense.

| Original Score: A- | Apr 10, 2016

Shot in the early 70s but shelved for 40 years, this portrait of R&B great Leon Russell (1974) immediately takes its place among the best rock docs.

| Nov 19, 2015

Shot while hanging out with Russell across two years, "Poem" wriggles with weirdness and smells to high heaven of its 1970s roots.

| Nov 18, 2015

This film was never released in theaters - it was obviously way too far out and ragged for its own good. But it works nicely as a warped time capsule harkening back to strange days.

| Original Score: B- | Nov 6, 2015

Blank isn't afraid of the artistic wrath that he may incur and rather than making a Leon Russell film, has made what is defiantly a Les Blank film full of all of the idiosyncrasies that one would expect.

| Original Score: B+ | Aug 12, 2015

You begin to understand the eccentric characters and amazing weirdness of a (now lost) America that Blank was celebrating.

| Original Score: 3.5/5 | Aug 6, 2015