Chicken Real1980

An industrial short made for the world's second largest poultry producer, CHICKEN REAL incorporates subversive bits of satire in its promotion of the assembly-line approach to mass-manufacturing food. Music recorded in North Carolina, of a group playing all the chicken songs they knew. Blank shot this documentary for an automated chicken growing operation that produces 156 million chicken a year! He brought all his skill to bear on the project, and added a narration that's only barely tongue-in cheek. It's his funniest film, one that works on its own terms as a fascinating documentary on the chicken biz and also a humorous comment on itself. Surreal images abound – hundreds of chickens clicking toward a feeding belt, thousands of chicks huddling together is a giant breeding room, dead chickens flying across a table, passing through hellish flames on a conveyer, receiving giblet transplants. But the most interesting thing is that Blank evades the issue of chicken death completely – skipping in an instant from live chickens to dead ones with absolutely no mention that birds are dying. It's the only Blank film in which death is never acknowledged – and as a result death pervades the picture as it does no other. Chickens of incomparable succulence. – Micheal Goodwin, Pacific Film Archive