Nonfiction Film History: “Rick Prelinger’s Notes on the Sponsored Film and Les Blank’s 'Chicken Real' as an Addition to the Rules” By Roger Mancusi

Clip: http://www.lesblank.com/?portfolio=chicken-real-1970

In the introductory chapter from Rick Prelinger’s The Field Guide to Sponsored Films, Prelinger provides the shared criteria that he feels are present across sponsored films as well as the decade-by-decade breakdown of the production, exhibition, and reception of the many sponsored films featured in his book. Headlining his criteria is sponsorship, which he describes as “the common thread that links films funded by for-profit and nonprofit entities. Sponsorship also implies the packaging of information from a particular corporate or institutional perspective [and] denotes direct institutional support, generally through funding” (vi). Using this basic criteria as a building block, I would like to examine one sponsored film he does not include an entry on: the surreal look at Holly Chicken Farms captured in Les Blank’s 1970 film Chicken Real, which expands upon Prelinger’s description of sponsored films to incorporate a personal filmmaking style credited to filmmaker. It does incorporate an industrial approach, and was financed by Holly Farms, but the maneuvers Blank makes in depicting the industrial poultry giant allows a subtle critique of the very industry he examines which makes the short film stand out amongst its peers.

Chicken Real, made in the era that Prelinger marked as the beginning of sponsored films’ “obsolescence,” (vi) still exhibits the two main criteria that he believed linked sponsored material and necessitated a closer categorization and appreciation. But as you can see in the short clip provided above, the film goes beyond simply reporting the life-cycle of a chicken and the industrial workings of a hatchery and “dis-assembly line” to incorporate a personal style that Les Blank is known for. Within Chicken Real, Blank was able to take the funding provided by Holly Farms and create a surreal and ironic approach to examine a peculiar facet of the American culinary and musical experience. And much like Le Sang des Bêtes, Blank’s film is able to hold the systematic animal harvesting process in extreme close up to highlight some of the ironies of the industry and present the harsh realities in dry delivery for a heightened effect.

Within the film, the narrator will just as quickly state that the chicken farms create thousands of jobs as he will tout the hyper-specific mechanization of a previously human-held position, bringing the viewer to an odd realization. That the processing line can accomplish in one seventh of a second what one “grandma” could accomplish in an hour becomes a point of pride, when in reality, thousands of these grandmas are now out of work due to these machines. And beyond writing the at times hilarious narration himself, Blank is also able to use dramatic close ups to confront the viewer with the ridiculous nature of the chicken processing industry. In between the two earlier claims, the camera dramatically closes in on one chicken [Image 1] headed to the assembly line for evisceration, and we are forced to laugh at the amazingly structured plight of the doomed bird.

A "broiler" awaiting its fate. (Flower Films)

Blank also uses music as another stylistic element that gives the short film an element that stands out from Prelinger’s guidelines. Throughout the film, the action is punctuated, metered, or bridged using a bluegrass string accompaniment, a characteristic seen in Blank’s other works in the United States' southeastern regions including Sprout Wings and Fly and My Old Fiddle: A Visit with Tommy Jarrell in the Blue Ridge among others. In Chicken Real, the music adds a personal touch that bridges the gap between industry and consumers, and emphasizes the communal activities where products like Holly chickens could be enjoyed rather than the destructive process that create them. Blank lays the soundtrack over the film’s diegesis to blur out the din of industrial machinations in favor of alluding to the consumption of the final product, most optimally in a jovial and public setting as seen in the final scene.

Blank, I believe, uses the music associated with barbeques to reflect the consumer’s ability to forget the details of how chickens are actually processed in favor of the joy of consuming the final product. The film goes through painstaking efforts to confront us with the harsh realities of the life and death of the chicken, but the way Blank shoots the final scene in full close up of the sizzling racks of savory chicken makes us forget the earlier, more grotesque shots of disembowelment and evisceration. We, as consumers, are guilty of the same short memory as the people seen eating at the end of the film. And as educated viewers, we are fully aware of the manner in which the chickens were raised and killed, but can’t help but salivate along with the picnickers as they bite into the chicken. The music, as pleasing and beautiful as it is, becomes an underlying critique of the soothing mental factors that aid the consumer’s vain ability to forget how their food makes it to the their table. John Angelico, a film critic for the San Francisco Chronicle, embodies my argument: “Despite shots of mechanized chicken evisceration and massive poultry operations, my stomach was thinking mm, mmm, good” (Angelico).

Calling this short film, which has a complete run time of 23 minutes, simply a sponsored film, and only acknowledging the characteristics delineated by Prelinger, is a discredit to the personal influence that Blank has throughout the entire piece, and this film’s ability to stand out explains its recent restoration by The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences as well as its appearances in many worldwide film festivals. At an Academy event on July 30, 2013, Chicken Real played to a sold out house alongside the other Blank shorts Running around Like a Chicken with its Head Cut Off (1960), Christopher Tree (1968), and Spend it All (1971), and was received exceptionally well by the audience.¹ Scenes where Blank uses time lapse to turn shelves of eggs into bustling boxes of chicks and a processing machine that flings the chicken carcasses into a vat of hot water were specific crowd favorites. In 1995, Chicken Real was included in a ten film Les Blank retrospective at the San Francisco International Film Festival, and the official description of Chicken Real from the website also mentions its industrial background and odd nature: “One of Blank’s industrial films, which follows a Holly Farms ‘broiler’ from factory incubation right to the barbecue pit at a county fair. Hilarious, disturbing but, ultimately, just plain surreal” (SFFS.org).

Blank’s film clearly goes above and beyond Prelinger’s criteria when it comes to the manners that a filmmaker can portray a given sponsored subject matter. Yes, Holly Farms sponsored Blank’s film and his narrator does speak with the industrial tone used to describe the chicken factory’s workings, but the directorial techniques, specifically ironic close up and the use of a specific soundtrack, allows a subtle space for a personal point of view and expression. Using those ironic techniques, Blank calls on his viewer to realize the ridiculousness of the chicken industry and to look beyond the usual depiction of industrial processes that they were accustomed to, and because of its unique characteristics, Chicken Real has become a stand out in the sponsored film genre that is well appreciated and recognized on the film festival circuit.

Dec 2, 2013

“Rick Prelinger’s Notes on the Sponsored Film and Les Blank’s 'Chicken Real' as an Addition to the Rules” By Roger Mancusi

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