"The Blues Accordin' to Lightnin' Hopkins" is an American documentary from 1970, so this one is already almost 50 years old now and it is an early, but not very early career effort by director Les Blank. Here he takes us in one of his many short films, certainly one of his more known, to Texas into the world of blues musician Lightnin' Hopkins. Or lets say he shows us his music would be a more accurate description because sadly apart from the pretty solid and convincing audio side, there is very little to this documentary in terms of informative value. We don't find out a great deal about his career, about his family, about his life in general. We just get to listen to the tunes while seeing landscape sceneries and photography. This is Blank's usual approach to filmmaking and I know some adore it, but I myself am struggling a bit here. So it clearly isn't for everyone and I myself am glad it was a relatively short film. Still, if you love the blues (more than I do), then feel free to check this one out. Or just listen to a record instead and honestly you won't be missing much in terms of the visual side here. All in all, a thumbs-down as the overall effort did not get me remotely curious to check out Hopkins and take a deeper look into his certainly prolific musical heritage.
