‘A Poem Is a Naked Person’ Is Les Blank’s Triumphant Ode to American Creativity

Painter Jim Franklin wanders about an empty pool holding a glass jar. It’s not immediately apparent what he’s up to until he makes his first capture. Scorpions. They’re everywhere, tiny ones, and he’s just calmly scooping them up. It’s the sort of eccentric, earnest vignette that one can find throughout the filmography of Les Blank, a catalogue brimming…