A Well-Spent Life

I felt quite lucky after seeing this film for the first time. It is filled with the `good stuff' that is present in all great art, and has made it's mark on my life. Les Blank, at his very best, has made a beautiful film with this documentary about Mance Lipscomb.

In a very quiet and intimate fashion, the film gets to the real heart of a good man and the great music he made throughout his life. Blank delicately films the goings on in Lipscomb's life and in the world around him. Obviously, the film is full of great music that any lovers of old folk music would enjoy. This is a very good film that is worth much more than the price/time it takes to watch it.

"God made us here in this world to live peaceful and quiet and get along together."

In addition to hearing the very pleasant acoustic folk/blues strummings of Mance Lipscomb in this touching little tribute to him, it's also a treat to hear him muse about life and dole out some gentle wisdom. He was 75 when this was filmed and had lived a humble life, one that might make a man bitter - his father had been a slave (think about that for a second) and had left the family when Mance was 11, he lived in poverty as a sharecropper, and was oppressed by the white "boss man" with no ability to do anything other than take it. In between hearing him play songs like "Night Time is the Right Time" he talks about things like the need for friendship and love as the basis of marriage and a lifelong commitment (even if his wife hilariously refuses to eat at the dinner table with him because he stood her up 50 years ago). He also talks about living a simple life, accepting others, and living in harmony. We see a slice of life in rural Texas, and an enlightened old soul in addition to being treated to his music.

A deeply moving tribute to the Texas songster, Mance Lipscomb, considered by many to be the greatest guitarist of all time.

Les Blank was previously in Texas capturing Lightnin' Hopkins and those around him. In many ways, this is a follow-up, as it features another Texas blues guitarist. But there are some notable differences.

Lipscomb is full of wisdom he acquired over his 75 years, and talks freely about farming, cooking, women and the importance of sharing the earth and not giving in to the temptation of claiming too much for yourself. Unlike Hopkins, who seemed to live in a world gleefully ignorant of their shortcomings, Lipscomb seems fully aware and even more seems to think it is the correct way to live -- as simply as possible. Perhaps he is right.

"This world is made for everybody.... I'm looking to see that the young race of people combine together, black and white. If you got a little, you and me is together. We're gonna be one nation of people." Respect.

Mance Liscomb, a portrait of a man at 75 years, abandoned by his father when he was 11 for another woman; raised 23 kids and got the nickname "Daddy Mance" (a lot of them from his sister who died); worked the farm his whole life for not much money, like 50 to 75 cents a day at times (but he was always happy and healthy); had a wife who he loved and she loved him (but no bs tolerated); and always, beautifully, played the blues as true and soulful like he lived it and found his fame in his 60s thanks to the "young people."

What a man. He's like RL Burnside without the, you know, killing. This is the kind of pure cinema where you have "Night time is the right time" playing over shots of the purple and blue night sky and it feels like rhis is exactly what the medium of celluloid was made for. It could be longer, with more detail about how he got a record contract and so on, but why mess with something that is so immersive into the world and deep philosophy (and food) of Mance such as this? You even get a baptism! Last but not least, you know someone has lived an unapologetic, hard and (as the title suggests) "well-spent" kind of life when a man like Mance Liscomb can take a whole giant mass of watermelon with the seeds in his mouth no problem. Damn, man.

Mance Lipscomb grew up a poor black tenant farmer in Texas born in 1895. He's also a great guitarist and blues singer. In 1960, he got signed to a recording contract. It's a hard good life. This is existence. It's a real slice of a man's life. It's a legacy. It seems like an easy going time in poverty at first and then he talks about his one-legged neighbor. Mostly, it's his voice and his songs. The filmmaker injects some questions from time to time but it is mostly the man. It's a culture. It's a time and place. It's the man.