Kino Lorber is pleased to announce the U.S. theatrical premiere of HOW TO SMELL A ROSE: A VISIT WITH RICKY LEACOCK IN NORMANDY beginning tonight, August 12, at New York's Film Forum.
Ricky Leacock, Al Maysles,
Robert Gardner,
Robert Drew, Les Blank: the generation that invented cinema verité and gave us a plethora of brilliant documentaries is passing away. In HOW TO SMELL A ROSE, directed by Blank and Gina Leibrecht, one legendary figure visits with another. Les Blank's warm and moving portrait of Leacock and partner Valerie Lalonde in France includes marvelous clips of Leacock's movies, including his earliest film, CANARY BANANAS, made at age 14 on his father's Canary Island plantation. Leacock is as charismatic recalling his cinematic triumphs (shooting Flaherty's LOUISIANA STORY, filming
Leonard Bernstein in Israel), as he is explaining why he quit drinking or quoting Escoffier on the making of a perfect bouillon.
HOW TO SMELL A ROSE is complemented by the Leacock-Joyce Chopra classic, HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY, on the 1963 birth of the Fischer quintuplets in Aberdeen, South Dakota. The filmmakers focus on the media circus (Saturday Evening Post, Ladies' Home Journal, ABC News, etc.) that descends upon Andrew and
Mary Ann Fischer and their five new babies.
HOW TO SMELL A ROSE: A VISIT WITH RICKY LEACOCK IN NORMANDY and HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY will have a one-week engagement, August 12 - 18, at Film Forum, 209 West Houston Street (W. of 6th Avenue), with screenings daily at 12:30, 2:40, 4:50, 7:15 & 9:30.
HOW TO SMELL A ROSE: A VISIT WITH RICKY LEACOCK IN NORMANDY (2014, 65 mins.) Produced and directed by Les Blank and Gina Leibrecht. Camera: Blank and Leibrecht. Edited by Leibrecht. Featuring Ricky Leacock, Valerie Lalonde, and Blank. In English. A Kino Lorber release.
HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY (1963, 26 mins.) Co-directed by Richard Leacock and Joyce Chopra. Produced by Leacock Pennebaker. Narrator: Ed McCurdy. A Pennebaker Hegedus Films Release.
