Salesman (film)

Salesman
Theatrical release poster
Directed by	Albert Maysles David Maysles Charlotte Zwerin
Produced by	Albert Maysles David Maysles
Written by	Albert Maysles David Maysles
Cinematography	Albert Maysles
Editing by	David Maysles Charlotte Zwerin
Distributed by	Maysles Films
Release dates	April 17, 1969 (1969-04-17) (United States)
Running time	85 minutes
Country	United States
Language	English

Salesman is a 1969 direct cinema documentary film directed by brothers Albert and David Maysles, and Charlotte Zwerin.^[1]

Synopsis

The documentary follows four salesmen as they travel across New England and southeast Florida trying to sell expensive Bibles door-to-door in low-income neighborhoods and attend a meeting in Chicago. The film focuses in particular on the struggles of salesman Paul Brennan, a middle-aged Irish-American Catholic from Jamaica Plain, Boston, who struggles to maintain his sales.

Interviews and the salesmen

• Jamie Baker, "The Rabbit"
• Paul Brennan, "The Badger"
• Raymond Martos, "The Bull"
• Charles McDevitt, "The Gipper"
• Kennie Turner
• Melbourne I. Feltman
• Margaret McCarron

Production

The Maysles brothers decided they wanted to be the first to make a nonfiction feature film (which turned out to be “Salesman") after learning that Truman Capote had made the claim that his newly released book “In Cold Blood” was a nonfiction novel. The film was made on a low budget; just under seven minutes into the film, one of the two cameras used can be seen in shot. The handheld microphone used to record the film's sound is visible in other shots.

Elements of popular culture that appear as backdrops to the main story include the song "If I Were a Rich Man", from Fiddler on the Roof; a recorded orchestral performance of The Beatles' song "Yesterday"; The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson; and televised boxing matches.

As stated in the closing credits,

The filming team of Albert and David Maysles went home to Boston to take another look at the kind of people they grew up with. The idea for the film was researched and developed by David Maysles[,] who found the salesmen. The photography was by Albert Maysles. The film was edited by David Maysles and Charlotte Zwerin.

Salesman was filmed in January 1967 (perhaps also late December 1966) and bears a copyright date of 1968.

Reception

Critical response

When the film was first released, Vincent Canby, film critic for The New York Times, lauded the film and wrote, "...[the] documentary feature about four door-to-door Bible salesmen who move horizontally through the capitalistic dream. It's such a fine, pure picture of a small section of American life that I can't imagine its ever seeming irrelevant, either as a social document or as one of the best examples of what's called cinema vérité or direct cinema...It is fact, photographed and recorded with extraordinarily mobile camera and sound equipment, and then edited and carefully shaped into a kind of cinematic mural of faces, words, motel rooms, parlors, kitchens, streets, television images, radio music—even weather."^[2] Documentary filmmaker James Blue once said of Albert Maysles that, “his cinema is one in which ethics and aesthetics are interdependent, where beauty starts with honesty, where a cut or a change in camera angle can become not only a possible aesthetic error, but also a ‘sin’ against truth.” ^[3]

Gene Siskel of the Chicago Tribune listed Salesman as one of the ten best films of 1970.^[4]

Awards

In 1992, Salesman was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant."

References

External links

• Salesman at the Internet Movie Database
• Salesman official website
• Salesman essay at the Criterion Collection by Toby Miller
• Salesman at DVD Beaver (includes images)
• Salesman film at Hulu