• Garlic is as Good as Ten Mothers

  • Werner Herzog Eats His Shoe

  • Werner Herzog Eats His Shoe

  • Werner Herzog Eats His Shoe

Les Blank Documents Berkeley

  • Introduction

    Maureen Gosling has been a documentary filmmaker for more than thirty years and is best known for her twenty-year collaboration with acclaimed independent director Les Blank.

Documentarian Les Blank, director of many exceptional films, often captured his longtime home, Berkeley, on film. Tom Luddy helped orchestrate the now-legendary event at the UC Theater documented in Blank’s Werner Herzog Eats His Shoe. The community that arose around the Pacific Film Archive and the restaurant Chez Panisse is captured by Blank in many films, including Garlic Is as Good as Ten Mothers, a paean to the history of the stinking rose, featuring chef Alice Waters and a host of other garlic lovers who praise its culinary as well as healing attributes. The San Francisco Chronicle called the film “a joyous, nose-tweaking, ear-tingling, mouth-watering tribute to a Life Force.” Also on this program are interviews with Luddy, Waters, and Herzog produced by the Criterion Collection. 

Event Accessibility

If you have any questions about accessibility or require accommodations to participate in this event, please contact us at bampfa@berkeley.edu or call us at (510) 642-1412 (during open hours) with as much advance notice as possible. More information on accessibility services.

Films in this Screening

Werner Herzog Eats His Shoe

Les Blank, Maureen Gosling, United States, 1980

At Berkeley’s UC Theater, Werner Herzog fulfills a promise to Errol Morris upon the completion of Morris’s first film, a consumption made more palatable with the aid of Alice Waters. 

FILM DETAILS 
Print Info
  • Color
  • 16mm
  • 21 mins
source
  • Les Blank Films

Garlic Is as Good as Ten Mothers

Les Blank, Maureen Gosling, United States, 1980

Les Blank’s paean to the history of the stinking rose features local chef Alice Waters of Chez Panisse fame and a host of other garlic lovers who praise its culinary as well as healing attributes. The San Francisco Chronicle called the film “a joyous, nose-tweaking, ear-tingling, mouth-watering tribute to a Life Force.” 

FILM DETAILS 
Print Info
  • Color
  • 16mm
  • 51 mins
source
  • Les Blank Films

Remembering Les

Kim Hendrickson, United States, 2014

FILM DETAILS 
Print Info
  • Color
  • Digital
  • 11 mins
source
  • Janus Films

An Appreciation of Les Blank by Werner Herzog

Kim Hendrickson, United States, 2014

FILM DETAILS 
Print Info
  • Color
  • Digital
  • 10 mins
source
  • Janus Films