Always for Pleasure. 1978. Directed by Les Blank

Film

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Held on Wed, Aug 27, 2025, 8:00 p.m.

introduced by Maya S. Cade and K. Austin Collins

MoMA, Floor 1, Sculpture Garden

The Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Sculpture Garden

Always for Pleasure. 1978. USA. Directed by Les Blank. Courtesy Janus Films

Always for Pleasure. 1978. USA. Directed by Les Blank. DCP. 58 min.

Les Blank’s timeless New Orleans chronicle—one of a series of films Blank made about the Gulf Coast and its social culture, food, music, and people—is an intense, insider’s-view celebration of the region, taking us from a jazz funeral to Mardi Gras and St. Patrick’s Day celebrations and Second-Line parades, with plenty of mouthwatering close-ups of crawfish and gumbo along the way. Featuring live music by Professor Longhair, the Wild Tchoupitoulas, the Neville Brothers, Allen Toussaint, and Kid Thomas Valentine and interviews with New Orleans staples like Blue Lu Baker, Irma Thomas, and many others, Always for Pleasure is the ur-text of documentary filmmaking about the region. With its vast cultural breadth and deep affection for the spirit of the place, this is a celebration of New Orleans that doubles as an astonishing tribute to life itself.

This film accompanies When the World Broke Open: Katrina and Its Afterlives.
This film is part of Film in the Sculpture Garden.

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