Salesman the Documentary Maysles

The landmark documentary, Salesman, by the Maysles Brothers follows door-to-door bible salesmen in the 1960 's. Although the technique of direct cinema has been used throughout the Maysles ' careers, the results of this approach can yield diverse results. Everything from anti-ambiguous titles, long takes and an on screen absence of crew, cameras, or personalities saying "we are filming a documentary right now". The films Gimme Shelter and What 's Happening! The Beatles in the U.S.A. tag along with rock stars as they encounter the stoned, hippie culture of America. Salesman is a complete opposite portrayal of America in the 60 's as it documents real American 's trying to make a living selling premium bibles. The use of direct cinema in these films gives the viewer a sense of intimacy with the characters on screen, but the emotions evoked as well as the message sent to the viewer is dependent on the subjects themselves as well as the subject matter. In Salesman viewers get to ride shotgun with a sad combination of Willy Lowman and The Rat Pack as they chain-smoke and constantly shoot the shit about their lousy sales territory. This film seemed to take advantage of the direct cinema technique because of the vulnerability of the characters. They are simply classic American "Joes" in the late 60 's, and whether the camera was there or not, they still had to sell bibles to put dinner on the table. In the Maysles Brothers "rock-docs", the subjects, i.e. The Beatles, would have to be much more aware of the results of having recording equipment present just because of the sheer fact they are public figures and this sort of media interaction in normal. The result of the presence of recording equipment in their daily lives could cause a person to develop an "on screen personality". This leads to debates whether direct cinema is direct at all, due to the influence of a characters performance by the documentary crew present during shooting. In the 60 's, the technology of

Bibliography: "Salesman." IMDB.Coom. 25 Oct. 2007 . Nichols, Bill. Introduction to Documentary. Indiana UP, 2001. Hayward, Susan. Key Concepts in CInema Studies. New York: Routledge, 1996. Vogels, Jonathan B. The Direct Cinema of David and Albert Maysles. Southern Illinois UP, 2005.