Rating summary

Movie		4.5
Video		3.5
Audio		4.0
Extras		1.0
Overall		4.0

A Well Spent Life Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman July 7, 2019

Note: This film is available as part of Les Blank: Always for Pleasure.

Chances are that unless you have a specialized interest in some of the indigenous folk music(s) of the United States, your recognition of the name Les Blank, if indeed you recognize it at all, may well come courtesy of Burden of Dreams (note that the link points to a DVD, not a Blu-ray), Blank’s fascinating documentary about the filming of Werner Herzog’s Fitzcarraldo. That piece was actually kind of an outlier in Blank’s oeuvre, a large body of work that otherwise tended to focus primarily on musicians (though there are a couple of exceptions in this set). Criterion’s collection of fourteen Blank documentaries may understandably be thought of as a niche product, but for those interested in this subject, it’s a virtual smorgasbord of great performances and at least some biographical data.

Lightnin' Hopkins may have gotten a lot of the glory, but Mance Lipscomb (who is a "supporting character" of sorts in Blank's documentary about Hopkins, included in this set) has his own cult, and it's easy to see why in this hugely appealing film which, kind of like Lipscomb himself, just kind of ambles along, going with the flow, following Lipscomb and his wife Elnora. Amazingly for such a beloved musicians, Lipscomb had a "day job" as a sharecropper, and he seemed to delight in the simple pleasures of life, something that Blank manages to convey with ease and grace and not a hint of condescension.

A Well Spent Life Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

A Well Spent Life is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of the Criterion Collection with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 1.33:1.

Criterion's insert booklet has the following information on the transfers in this set:

All fourteen films are presented in their original aspect ratio of 1.33:1. On widescreen televisions, black bars will appear on the left and right side of the image to maintain the proper screen format. These new digital transfers were created in 2K resolution on a Scanity film scanner from internegatives at Technicolor Los Angeles. Thousands of instances of dirt, debris, scratches, splices, warps, jitter, and flicker were manually removed using MTI's DRS and Pixel Farm's PFClean, while Digital Vision's Phoenix was used for small dirt, grain, and noise management.

This transfer has some noticeable variances which may bother the more persnickety videophile. Most of this presentation offers a nicely organic appearance, but there are moments where the grain field looks fairly rough, and perhaps even noisy, especially against some lighter backgrounds, as in one scene with Mance in front of some kind of yellow backdrop. There are also occasional problems with grain resolution during optical dissolves. Otherwise, though, this features some nicely lush photography of outdoor environments, and detail levels are commendable in close-ups. As with several other films in this set, the Janus masthead wobbles pretty significantly, and there are momentary issues like hairs stuck in the gate.

A Well Spent Life Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Criterion's insert booklet has the following information on the soundtracks:

The original monaural soundtracks for The Blues Accordin' to Lightnin' Hopkins; A Well Spent Life; Dry Wood; Always for Pleasure; Garlic is as Good as Ten Mothers; Sprout Wings and Fly; In Heaven There is No Beer?; Gap-Toothed Women; Yum, Yum, Yum! A Taste of Creole and Cajun Cooking; and The Maestro: King of the Cowboy Artists were remastered at 24-bit from 35 mm full-coat magnetic tracks. The original monaural soundtrack for Hot Pepper was remastered at 24-bit from the original 16 mm full-coat magnetic track. The original monaural soundtrack for God Respects Us When We Work, but Loves Us When We Dance was remastered at 24-bit from a restored DA-98 tape and the restored 35 mm full-coat magnetic track. The original monaural soundtrack for Spend It All was remastered at 24-bit from a restored WAV file. And the original stereo soundtrack for Sworn to the Drum: A Tribute to Francisco Aguabella was remastered at 24-bit from the original 16 mm full-coat magnetic track. Clicks, thumps, hiss, hum, and crackle were manually removed using Pro Tools HD, AudioCube's integrated workstation, and iZotope RX3.

A Well Spent Life features another nice sounding LPCM Mono track. Both the ubiquitous voiceover by Mance, as well as "dialogue" or other spoken elements sound fine, and all the music is presented cleanly and clearly without any significant issues.

A Well Spent Life Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• No Man Like Mance (1080p; 13:15) is an appealing 2014 piece featuring frequent Blank collaborator Skip Gerson, along with Blank's sons Harrod and Beau, as well as Chris Strachwitz, founder of Arhoolie Records.


• Meeting Mance (1080p; 7:14) offers Strachwitz again, this time recounting how he came to know the legendary musician.

A Well Spent Life Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

A Well Spent Life was one of my favorite documentaries in this set, one which offers a beautiful accounting of a man whose passion was music, but who managed to navigate the necessities of making a living with an unusual amount of grace and grit. Video has occasional hurdles, but audio is fine, and the supplements very enjoyable. Highly recommended.