Rating summary

Movie		3.5
Video		3.5
Audio		4.0
Extras		0.5
Overall		3.5

Spend It All 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.

While there is definitely music in this piece, Spend It All might be thought of more accurately as an attempt to document an entire culture rather than just the Art they produce, in this case the Cajun community of Southwest Louisiana (evidently a favorite subject of Blank's, as evidenced by at least one other documentary in this set). This is a fascinating "fly on the wall" documentary that also attempts to provide some historical background via some text interludes (see screenshot 5 for one example).

Spend It All Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Spend It All 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 is another largely very commendable looking transfer, though there are a couple of brief issues to mention. There's a moment of pretty severe damage during the credits, with what almost look like "bands" of grain wafting horizontally through a somewhat distressed image. Later, at circa 29:24, the image becomes fairly degraded again for a moment or two. There's also a clump of something stuck in the gate at around 39:07. Otherwise, though, this offers an organic looking appearance with a nice accounting of an often vivid palette (things like the red crawfish that are shown really pop with considerable authenticity).

Spend It All 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.

Spend It All features another fine sounding LPCM Mono track, one which supports the wonderful fiddle music perfectly well, while also rendering elements like dialogue or even the sizzle of food being cooked with problem free fidelity. This is another outing where the optional subtitles may help to decipher some fairly heavily accented speech.

Spend It All Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• An Appreciation by Werner Herzog (1080p; 10:00) is a rather sweet 2013 homage to Blank by Herzog.

Spend It All Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Blank has an almost inerrant sense of how to offer personal stories within a larger cultural context, and Spend It All is another fine example. There are occasional slight issues with the video presentation, but audio is fine, and the appreciation by Herzog actually kind of sweet. Recommended.