90-462: Albert Maysles (November 26, 1926 – March 5, 2015) and his brother David Maysles (January 10, 1931 – January 3, 1987; / ˈ m eɪ z ɛ l z / MAY -zelz ) were an American documentary filmmaking team known for their work in the Direct Cinema style. Their best-known films include Salesman (1969), Gimme Shelter (1970) and Grey Gardens (1975). The brothers were born in
180-580: A Primetime Emmy for 1985's Vladimir Horowitz: The Last Romantic alongside Albert. A 2006 musical based on Grey Gardens premiered at Playwrights Horizons and transferred to Broadway later that same year. A dramatized version of the Maysles brothers making the Beales documentary appeared in the 2009 HBO film Grey Gardens ; actor Arye Gross portrayed Albert and Justin Louis portrayed David. In 2015
270-591: A Metropolis (dir. Walter Ruttmann , 1927); Man with a Movie Camera (dir. Dziga Vertov , 1929); Douro, Faina Fluvial (dir. Manoel de Oliveira , 1931); and Rhapsody in Two Languages (dir. Gordon Sparling , 1934). A city symphony film, as the name suggests, is most often based around a major metropolitan city area and seeks to capture the life, events and activities of the city. It can use abstract cinematography (Walter Ruttman's Berlin ) or may use Soviet montage theory (Dziga Vertov's, Man with
360-421: A Movie Camera ). Most importantly, a city symphony film is a form of cinepoetry , shot and edited in the style of a " symphony ". The European continental tradition ( See: Realism ) focused on humans within human-made environments, and included the so-called city symphony films such as Walter Ruttmann's, Berlin: Symphony of a Metropolis (of which Grierson noted in an article that Berlin, represented what
450-429: A Summer ( Jean Rouch ), Dont Look Back ( D. A. Pennebaker ), Grey Gardens ( Albert and David Maysles ), Titicut Follies ( Frederick Wiseman ), Primary and Crisis: Behind a Presidential Commitment (both produced by Robert Drew ), Harlan County, USA (directed by Barbara Kopple ), Lonely Boy ( Wolf Koenig and Roman Kroitor ) are all frequently deemed cinéma vérité films. The fundamentals of
540-527: A broader perspective, as a reaction against studio-based film production constraints. Shooting on location, with smaller crews, would also happen in the French New Wave , the filmmakers taking advantage of advances in technology allowing smaller, handheld cameras and synchronized sound to film events on location as they unfolded. Although the terms are sometimes used interchangeably, there are important differences between cinéma vérité ( Jean Rouch ) and
630-480: A career as a psychology professor and researcher. After serving in the U.S. Army Tank Corps during World War II , Albert obtained a BA from Syracuse University and MA in psychology from Boston University . He taught psychology at Boston University for three years, also working as a research assistant at a mental hospital and as head of a research project at Massachusetts General Hospital . As an outgrowth of his research work, he traveled to Russia to photograph
720-630: A documentary should not be); Alberto Cavalcanti's, Rien que les heures; and Dziga Vertov's Man with a Movie Camera . These films tend to feature people as products of their environment, and lean towards the avant-garde. Dziga Vertov was central to the Soviet Kino-Pravda (literally, "cinematic truth") newsreel series of the 1920s. Vertov believed the camera – with its varied lenses, shot-counter shot editing, time-lapse, ability to slow motion, stop motion and fast-motion – could render reality more accurately than
810-437: A form of journalism, advocacy, or personal expression. Early film (pre-1900) was dominated by the novelty of showing an event. Single-shot moments were captured on film, such as a train entering a station, a boat docking, or factory workers leaving work. These short films were called "actuality" films; the term "documentary" was not coined until 1926. Many of the first films, such as those made by Auguste and Louis Lumière , were
900-515: A major battle and re-enact scenes to film them. The propagandist tradition consists of films made with the explicit purpose of persuading an audience of a point. One of the most celebrated and controversial propaganda films is Leni Riefenstahl 's film Triumph of the Will (1935), which chronicled the 1934 Nazi Party Congress and was commissioned by Adolf Hitler . Leftist filmmakers Joris Ivens and Henri Storck directed Borinage (1931) about
990-515: A mental hospital, and returned the following year with a camera provided by CBS to film his first documentary, Psychiatry in Russia (1955). Although CBS did not air the film, it was televised on NBC , on the public broadcasting station WGBH-TV in Boston, and on Canadian network television. David also studied psychology at Boston University, receiving a BA. Also like his brother, David served in
SECTION 10
#17327753947701080-437: A minute or less in length, due to technological limitations. Examples can be viewed on YouTube. Films showing many people (for example, leaving a factory) were often made for commercial reasons: the people being filmed were eager to see, for payment, the film showing them. One notable film clocked in at over an hour and a half, The Corbett-Fitzsimmons Fight . Using pioneering film-looping technology, Enoch J. Rector presented
1170-506: A more poetic aesthetic approach to documentary. Examples of their work include Drifters (John Grierson), Song of Ceylon (Basil Wright), Fires Were Started , and A Diary for Timothy (Humphrey Jennings). Their work involved poets such as W. H. Auden , composers such as Benjamin Britten , and writers such as J. B. Priestley . Among the best known films of the movement are Night Mail and Coal Face . Calling Mr. Smith (1943)
1260-577: A new art form; that the "original" actor and "original" scene are better guides than their fiction counterparts for interpreting the modern world; and that materials "thus taken from the raw" can be more real than the acted article. In this regard, Grierson's definition of documentary as "creative treatment of actuality" has gained some acceptance; however, this position is at variance with Soviet film-maker Dziga Vertov 's credos of provocation to present "life as it is" (that is, life filmed surreptitiously), and "life caught unawares" (life provoked or surprised by
1350-461: A new financial model for rock acts pioneered by Ronnie Schneider , the sole producer and financial manager of the tour. Schneider was the nephew of Allen Klein , who had been recently fired by Keith Richards and Sam Cutler. Neither Schneider nor the Stones had any money at the time to fund this endeavor so Schneider had to come up with a new business model and that meant the band getting a piece of
1440-573: A nonprofit organization dedicated to the exhibition and production of documentary films that inspire dialogue and action, located in Harlem . Albert died of pancreatic cancer at his home in Manhattan on March 5, 2015, aged 88. His films Iris , about fashion icon Iris Apfel , and In Transit , about the longest train route in the United States, were released posthumously later that year. At
1530-502: A request for support from the Black Panthers . Stones media appearances during the tour featured typical banter of the time on other issues; while other members of the group affected boredom, Jagger gave non-sequitur responses to cultural questions, and said of New York, "It's great. It changes. It explodes." The tour sold over $ 1 million worth of tickets, with ticket prices ranging from $ 3.00 to $ 8.00. This tour represented
1620-428: A resource to teach various principles . Documentary filmmakers have a responsibility to be truthful to their vision of the world without intentionally misrepresenting a topic. Social media platforms (such as YouTube ) have provided an avenue for the growth of the documentary- film genre . These platforms have increased the distribution area and ease-of-accessibility. Polish writer and filmmaker Bolesław Matuszewski
1710-799: A situation as it's happening [with his camera] and pay much closer attention and somehow anticipate what's going to happen the next moment, be ready for it and get it, the way people with normal attention spans are incapable of doing." The Maysles brothers' films Salesman and Grey Gardens have been preserved in the Library of Congress' National Film Registry as being culturally, historically or aesthetically significant. In May 2002, Ralph Blumenthal in The New York Times referred to Albert as "the dean of documentary film making" and Jean-Luc Godard once called Albert "the best American cameraman". The moving image collection of Albert and David Maysles
1800-451: A wordless meditation on wartime Britain. From 1982, the Qatsi trilogy and the similar Baraka could be described as visual tone poems, with music related to the images, but no spoken content. Koyaanisqatsi (part of the Qatsi trilogy ) consists primarily of slow motion and time-lapse photography of cities and many natural landscapes across the United States. Baraka tries to capture
1890-474: Is a separate area. Pathé was the best-known global manufacturer of such films in the early 20th century. A vivid example is Moscow Clad in Snow (1909). Biographical documentaries appeared during this time, such as the feature Eminescu-Veronica-Creangă (1914) on the relationship between the writers Mihai Eminescu , Veronica Micle and Ion Creangă (all deceased at the time of the production), released by
SECTION 20
#17327753947701980-419: Is an anti-Nazi color film created by Stefan Themerson which is both a documentary and an avant-garde film against war. It was one of the first anti-Nazi films in history. Cinéma vérité (or the closely related direct cinema ) was dependent on some technical advances to exist: light, quiet and reliable cameras, and portable sync sound. Cinéma vérité and similar documentary traditions can thus be seen, in
2070-527: Is held at the Academy Film Archive . The archive has preserved two of the Maysleses' films: Showman , in 2012, and Salesman , in 2018. Their only Oscar nomination was for the 1973 short film Christo's Valley Curtain . Albert was awarded a 2013 National Medal of Arts by President Barack Obama on July 28, 2014. He also won a Primetime Emmy for 1991's Soldiers of Music . David won
2160-407: Is similar to cinéma vérité. They broke tradition with mid-century documentary tropes by eschewing narration, inter-titles and extraneous music tracks. The editing process could be interpreted as their narrative "voice," depending on what footage and sound they chose to use and how the timeline of the story unfolded in the final cut. Their success from a technical aspect was based in part on separating
2250-670: The Bucharest chapter of Pathé . Early color motion picture processes such as Kinemacolor (known for the feature With Our King and Queen Through India (1912)) and Prizma Color (known for Everywhere With Prizma (1919) and the five-reel feature Bali the Unknown (1921)) used travelogues to promote the new color processes. In contrast, Technicolor concentrated primarily on getting their process adopted by Hollywood studios for fiction feature films. Also during this period, Frank Hurley 's feature documentary film, South (1919) about
2340-726: The Dorchester neighborhood of Boston , living there until the family moved to Brookline, Massachusetts when Albert was 13. Albert and David's parents, both Jewish, were immigrants to the United States; their father, born in Ukraine, was employed as a postal clerk, while their mother, originally from Poland, was a schoolteacher. The family originally settled in Dorchester to be near relatives (the brothers' great-uncle Josef Maysles and his daughter and son-in-law, Becky and Joe Kandib) who had moved there earlier. Albert originally pursued
2430-666: The Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition was released. The film documented the failed Antarctic expedition led by Ernest Shackleton in 1914. With Robert J. Flaherty 's Nanook of the North in 1922, documentary film embraced romanticism . Flaherty filmed a number of heavily staged romantic documentary films during this time period, often showing how his subjects would have lived 100 years earlier and not how they lived right then. For instance, in Nanook of
2520-514: The Iron Curtain , Russian Close-Up (credited to Albert Maysles alone) and Youth in Poland , the latter of which was broadcast on NBC . By 1960, the Maysles brothers had joined Drew Associates, the documentary film company founded by photojournalist Robert Drew which also included Richard Leacock and D. A. Pennebaker . Albert would film, while David would handle sound. During this time,
2610-884: The 1920s and 1930s. These films were particularly influenced by modern art , namely Cubism , Constructivism , and Impressionism . According to art historian and author Scott MacDonald , city symphony films can be described as, "An intersection between documentary and avant-garde film: an avant-doc "; however, A.L. Rees suggests regarding them as avant-garde films. Early titles produced within this genre include: Manhatta (New York; dir. Paul Strand , 1921); Rien que les heures /Nothing But The Hours ( France ; dir. Alberto Cavalcanti , 1926); Twenty Four Dollar Island (dir. Robert J. Flaherty , 1927); Moscow (dir. Mikhail Kaufman , 1927); Études sur Paris (dir. André Sauvage , 1928); The Bridge (1928) and Rain (1929), both by Joris Ivens ; São Paulo, Sinfonia da Metrópole (dir. Adalberto Kemeny , 1929), Berlin: Symphony of
2700-553: The Belgian coal mining region. Luis Buñuel directed a " surrealist " documentary Las Hurdes (1933). Pare Lorentz 's The Plow That Broke the Plains (1936) and The River (1938) and Willard Van Dyke 's The City (1939) are notable New Deal productions, each presenting complex combinations of social and ecological awareness, government propaganda, and leftist viewpoints. Frank Capra 's Why We Fight (1942–1944) series
2790-743: The Furnaces , from 1968), directed by Octavio Getino and Fernando Solanas , influenced a whole generation of filmmakers. Among the many political documentaries produced in the early 1970s was "Chile: A Special Report", public television's first in-depth expository look at the September 1973 overthrow of the Salvador Allende government in Chile by military leaders under Augusto Pinochet , produced by documentarians Ari Martinez and José Garcia. A June 2020 article in The New York Times reviewed
Albert and David Maysles - Misplaced Pages Continue
2880-489: The IFC mockumentary series Documentary Now! paid homage to Grey Gardens with the episode "Sandy Passage" which follows two women named "Big Vivvy" and "Little Vivvy" and takes "An in depth look at the daily lives of two aging socialites and their crumbling estate." The 2016 episode "Globesman", about globe salesmen in the 1960s, is inspired by Salesman . Episode 3 of the 2024 TV series Feud: Capote vs. The Swans recounts
2970-467: The Maysleses worked closely with film editor Charlotte Zwerin , who received a directing credit for her work on Gimme Shelter . Zwerin eventually stopped working with the Maysleses because, according to Zwerin, they would not let her produce. David Maysles, the younger brother, died of a stroke on January 3, 1987, seven days shy of his 56th birthday, in New York City . Following his death, Albert
3060-574: The North , Flaherty did not allow his subjects to shoot a walrus with a nearby shotgun, but had them use a harpoon instead. Some of Flaherty's staging, such as building a roofless igloo for interior shots, was done to accommodate the filming technology of the time. Paramount Pictures tried to repeat the success of Flaherty's Nanook and Moana with two romanticized documentaries, Grass (1925) and Chang (1927), both directed by Merian C. Cooper and Ernest Schoedsack . The " city symphony " sub film genre consisted of avant-garde films during
3150-680: The North American " direct cinema " (or more accurately " cinéma direct "), pioneered by, among others, Canadians Michel Brault , Pierre Perrault and Allan King , and Americans Robert Drew , Richard Leacock , Frederick Wiseman and Albert and David Maysles . The directors of the movement take different viewpoints on their degree of involvement with their subjects. Kopple and Pennebaker, for instance, choose non-involvement (or at least no overt involvement), and Perrault, Rouch, Koenig, and Kroitor favor direct involvement or even provocation when they deem it necessary. The films Chronicle of
3240-465: The Penguins , and An Inconvenient Truth among the most prominent examples. Compared to dramatic narrative films, documentaries typically have far lower budgets which makes them attractive to film companies because even a limited theatrical release can be highly profitable. The nature of documentary films has expanded in the past 30 years from the cinéma vérité style introduced in the 1960s in which
3330-605: The Rolling Stones as "the greatest rock and roll band in the world", a title he had first bestowed upon them at their concert in London's Hyde Park the previous July. The tour set lists were derived mostly from 1968's Beggars Banquet album and the forthcoming Let It Bleed . The performance itself featured the Stones showmanship that would become familiar: Charlie Watts businesslike drumming leavened by an occasional wry smile, Bill Wyman 's undertaker persona on bass,
3420-412: The Rolling Stones' performance lasted about 75 minutes. Terry Reid , B.B. King (replaced on some dates by Chuck Berry ), and Ike & Tina Turner were the supporting acts; audiences were typically in their seats for three hours, including long delays between acts, before the Rolling Stones materialized on stage. On 23 November, the band appeared on The Ed Sullivan Show . "Gimme Shelter" opened
3510-581: The Romanian professor Gheorghe Marinescu made several science films in his neurology clinic in Bucharest : Walking Troubles of Organic Hemiplegy (1898), The Walking Troubles of Organic Paraplegies (1899), A Case of Hysteric Hemiplegy Healed Through Hypnosis (1899), The Walking Troubles of Progressive Locomotion Ataxy (1900), and Illnesses of the Muscles (1901). All these short films have been preserved. The professor called his works "studies with
3600-678: The U.S. Army and was stationed in West Germany during the Korean War . In the mid-1950s, he worked as a Hollywood production assistant on the Marilyn Monroe films Bus Stop and The Prince and the Showgirl . David later stated that he grew "disenchanted with conventional filming. The glamour had faded and the filming of take after take had become tedious." By 1957 he had teamed up with Albert to shoot two documentaries behind
3690-617: The absence partly due to drug charges and subsequent complications. Instead of performing in small- and medium-size venues to audiences of screaming girls, the band was playing to sold-out arenas with more mature crowds that were ready to listen to the music. They used a more sophisticated amplification system, and lighting was overseen by Chip Monck . It was Mick Taylor 's first tour with the band; he had replaced Brian Jones that June, shortly before Jones's death, and had only performed one gig (the free concert in Hyde Park ) with them before
Albert and David Maysles - Misplaced Pages Continue
3780-485: The advantage of documentaries lies in introducing new perspectives which may not be prevalent in traditional media such as written publications and school curricula. Documentary practice is the complex process of creating documentary projects. It refers to what people do with media devices, content, form, and production strategies to address the creative, ethical, and conceptual problems and choices that arise as they make documentaries. Documentary filmmaking can be used as
3870-452: The band's performance during the tour at Madison Square Garden. Gimme Shelter also captures Jagger's famous response to a press-conference question about whether he was "any more satisfied now": "Financially dissatisfied, sexually satisfied, philosophically trying." The Rolling Stones Additional musicians Ike & Tina Turner Revue A typical set list for the tour included the following, although there were substitutions (note
3960-501: The brothers worked on Drew Associates films such as Primary and Adventures on the New Frontier . In 1962, Albert and David left Drew Associates to form their own production company, Maysles Films, Inc. The Maysles brothers made over 30 films together. They are best known for three documentaries made in the late 1960s and early 1970s: Salesman (1969), Gimme Shelter (1970), and Grey Gardens (1975). Salesman documents
4050-495: The camera from the sound recording device (David used a Nagra ) by accurately controlling the speed of the camera and the tape recorder, allowing the two devices to be moved independently with respect to each other, an impossibility in commercially available equipment at the time. Long takes with ordinary equipment of the era would invariably lose synchronization. Albert built his own 16 mm camera with existing parts that could be comfortably balanced on his shoulder, eliminating
4140-474: The camera). The American film critic Pare Lorentz defines a documentary film as "a factual film which is dramatic." Others further state that a documentary stands out from the other types of non-fiction films for providing an opinion, and a specific message, along with the facts it presents. Scholar Betsy McLane asserted that documentaries are for filmmakers to convey their views about historical events, people, and places which they find significant. Therefore,
4230-498: The creation of a Film Archive to collect and keep safe visual materials. The word "documentary" was coined by Scottish documentary filmmaker John Grierson in his review of Robert Flaherty 's film Moana (1926), published in the New York Sun on 8 February 1926, written by "The Moviegoer" (a pen name for Grierson). Grierson's principles of documentary were that cinema's potential for observing life could be exploited in
4320-429: The development of "reality television" that occasionally verges on the documentary but more often veers to the fictional or staged. The "making-of" documentary shows how a movie or a computer game was produced. Usually made for promotional purposes, it is closer to an advertisement than a classic documentary. Modern lightweight digital video cameras and computer-based editing have greatly aided documentary makers, as has
4410-407: The director. The commercial success of these documentaries may derive from this narrative shift in the documentary form, leading some critics to question whether such films can truly be called documentaries; critics sometimes refer to these works as " mondo films " or "docu-ganda." However, directorial manipulation of documentary subjects has been noted since the work of Flaherty, and may be endemic to
4500-478: The disastrous Altamont Free Concert , unexpectedly captured on film the altercation between Altamont attendee Meredith Hunter and Hells Angels member Alan Passaro that resulted in Hunter's death. Film footage shows Hunter drawing and pointing a revolver just before being stabbed by Passaro, who was later acquitted of Hunter's murder on self-defense grounds after the jury viewed the footage. Grey Gardens depicts
4590-506: The documentary in terms of "a filmmaking practice, a cinematic tradition, and mode of audience reception [that remains] a practice without clear boundaries". Early documentary films, originally called " actuality films ", briefly lasted for one minute or less. Over time, documentaries have evolved to become longer in length and to include more categories. Some examples are educational , observational and docufiction . Documentaries are very informative , and are often used within schools as
SECTION 50
#17327753947704680-452: The dramatic drop in equipment prices. The first film to take full advantage of this change was Martin Kunert and Eric Manes ' Voices of Iraq , where 150 DV cameras were sent to Iraq during the war and passed out to Iraqis to record themselves. Films in the documentary form without words have been made. Listen to Britain , directed by Humphrey Jennings and Stuart McAllister in 1942, is
4770-536: The early part of the 20th century. They were often referred to by distributors as "scenics". Scenics were among the most popular sort of films at the time. An important early film which moved beyond the concept of the scenic was In the Land of the Head Hunters (1914), which embraced primitivism and exoticism in a staged story presented as truthful re-enactments of the life of Native Americans . Contemplation
4860-425: The edge of the stage; of the group's reaction to the crowd's fervor, a spokesman said, "They loved it." The US was in political turmoil at the time, and some militant groups tried to portray the tour as a call for radical political action, especially in light of the Rolling Stones' 1968 track " Street Fighting Man ". The Rolling Stones themselves had no such interest, and while on tour Mick Jagger publicly rebuffed
4950-527: The entirety of a famous 1897 prize-fight on cinema screens across the United States. In May 1896, Bolesław Matuszewski recorded on film a few surgical operations in Warsaw and Saint Petersburg hospitals. In 1898, French surgeon Eugène-Louis Doyen invited Matuszewski and Clément Maurice to record his surgical operations. They started in Paris a series of surgical films sometime before July 1898. Until 1906,
5040-565: The film Gimme Shelter in The New Yorker included a harsh accusation that much of Gimme Shelter and Salesman had been staged and that the main subject of Salesman , Paul Brennan, was not a Bible salesman as the film portrayed, but was actually a roofing-and-siding salesman recruited as a professional actor. The Maysles brothers threatened legal action against The New Yorker after this accusation. They also sent an open letter to The New Yorker refuting Kael's claims; however, because
5130-445: The filming of Truman Capote 's 1966 Black and White Ball by the Maysles brothers, which was released as the short film With Love from Truman. Pawel Szajda played Albert and Yuval David played David. Documentary A documentary film or documentary is a non-fictional motion picture intended to "document reality, primarily for instruction, education or maintaining a historical record ". Bill Nichols has characterized
5220-520: The films was so vital that they were often given co-director credits. Famous cinéma vérité/direct cinema films include Les Raquetteurs , Showman , Salesman , Near Death , and The Children Were Watching . In the 1960s and 1970s, documentary film was often regarded as a political weapon against neocolonialism and capitalism in general, especially in Latin America, but also in a changing society. La Hora de los hornos ( The Hour of
5310-568: The first-ever live bootleg recordings . The final show of the tour as initially planned was on 28 November in New York City, but 30 November in West Palm Beach, Florida was added as a gesture to the organiser. The band also organised and headlined the free concert at Altamont on 6 December, which was tacked on at the end of the tour as a response to the high ticket prices of the tour itself. Tour manager Sam Cutler introduced
5400-533: The form due to problematic ontological foundations. Documentary filmmakers are increasingly using social impact campaigns with their films. Social impact campaigns seek to leverage media projects by converting public awareness of social issues and causes into engagement and action, largely by offering the audience a way to get involved. Examples of such documentaries include Kony 2012 , Salam Neighbor , Gasland , Living on One Dollar , and Girl Rising . Although documentaries are financially more viable with
5490-494: The great pulse of humanity as it flocks and swarms in daily activity and religious ceremonies. Bodysong was made in 2003 and won a British Independent Film Award for "Best British Documentary." The Rolling Stones American Tour 1969 The Rolling Stones ' 1969 Tour of the United States took place in November 1969. With Ike & Tina Turner , Terry Reid , and B.B. King (replaced on some dates by Chuck Berry ) as
SECTION 60
#17327753947705580-431: The gross box office and demanding a 50% advance, which funded the shows. Schneider's role involved securing box office receipts on behalf of the band. In this way, the band itself (and Schneider, whose interests were aligned with those of the band) was in control of all the money related to a tour. On behalf of the Rolling Stones, Schneider centralized the control, ownership and management of ancillary rights, licensing and
5670-400: The guitar interplay of Mick Taylor with Keith Richards , and most of all Mick Jagger 's prancing, strutting, leering and preening in front of the crowd. "Ah think I've busted a button on my trousers, I hope they don't fall down" he teased the audience. "You don't want my trousers to fall down, now do ya?" At one point in some shows, Jagger motioned for the audience to rush past ushers to
5760-694: The help of the cinematograph," and published the results, along with several consecutive frames, in issues of La Semaine Médicale magazine from Paris, between 1899 and 1902. In 1924, Auguste Lumière recognized the merits of Marinescu's science films: "I've seen your scientific reports about the usage of the cinematograph in studies of nervous illnesses, when I was still receiving La Semaine Médicale , but back then I had other concerns, which left me no spare time to begin biological studies. I must say I forgot those works and I am thankful to you that you reminded them to me. Unfortunately, not many scientists have followed your way." Travelogue films were very popular in
5850-428: The human eye, and created a film philosophy from it. The newsreel tradition is important in documentary film. Newsreels at this time were sometimes staged but were usually re-enactments of events that had already happened, not attempts to steer events as they were in the process of happening. For instance, much of the battle footage from the early 20th century was staged; the cameramen would usually arrive on site after
5940-471: The increasing popularity of the genre and the advent of the DVD, funding for documentary film production remains elusive. Within the past decade, the largest exhibition opportunities have emerged from within the broadcast market, making filmmakers beholden to the tastes and influences of the broadcasters who have become their largest funding source. Modern documentaries have some overlap with television forms, with
6030-665: The landmark 14-hour Eyes on the Prize : America's Civil Rights Years (1986 – Part 1 and 1989 – Part 2) by Henry Hampton, 4 Little Girls (1997) by Spike Lee , The Civil War by Ken Burns , and UNESCO-awarded independent film on slavery 500 Years Later , express not only a distinctive voice but also a perspective and point of views. Some films such as The Thin Blue Line by Errol Morris incorporate stylized re-enactments, and Michael Moore 's Roger & Me place far more interpretive control with
6120-485: The lives of a reclusive upper-class mother and daughter, "Big Edie" and "Little Edie" Beale (who were, respectively, the aunt and cousin of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis ), residing in a derelict mansion in East Hampton , New York. In order to finance these films and others, the Maysleses also made commercials for clients such as IBM , Shell Oil and Merrill Lynch . The Maysleses' films are considered examples of
6210-442: The magazine at the time did not publish letters, the letter did not appear in print until 1996. In the case of Grey Gardens , the brothers were also accused of unfairly exploiting their subjects. Many of the Maysleses' documentaries focus on art, artists and musicians. The Maysleses documented The Beatles ' first visit to the United States in 1964, and a 1965 conceptual art project by Yoko Ono called "Cut Piece" in which she sat on
6300-600: The marketing of posters, T shirts , programs and other concert related materials—-vastly improving the group's revenue base while touring. Many other bands followed suit throughout the 1970s. The 1970 concert album Get Yer Ya-Ya's Out! , mostly based on the Madison Square Garden shows, documented the tour, as did the Maysles brothers ' 1970 documentary Gimme Shelter which, while mostly known for its filming of Altamont, also contains substantial footage of
6390-528: The need for a tripod, allowing him to shoot fluidly in the moment. He added a brace so he could hold the camera steady during long takes. He installed a mirror near the lens and a ring on the focus-pull and could then set the aperture and focus while the camera rolled, ensuring continuity during a take. Albert claimed to have a form of attention deficit disorder that made the leisurely pace of editing difficult for him but benefited him while shooting. Stating that his in-the-moment ability to focus let him, "Zero in on
6480-513: The political documentary And She Could Be Next , directed by Grace Lee and Marjan Safinia. The Times described the documentary not only as focusing on women in politics, but more specifically on women of color, their communities, and the significant changes they have wrought upon America. Box office analysts have noted that the documentary film genre has become increasingly successful in theatrical release with films such as Fahrenheit 9/11 , Super Size Me , Food, Inc. , Earth , March of
6570-549: The presence of " Gimme Shelter " on Live'r Than You'll Ever Be and " Brown Sugar " was performed at Altamont), variations and order switches throughout the tour. All songs by Mick Jagger and Keith Richards , except where noted. Note: The final scheduled date of the tour was Boston, 29 November 1969. The West Palm Beach International Music and Arts Festival on 30 November and the Altamont Free Concert on 6 December were planned as separate events and added while
6660-623: The show. The show closed with "Love in Vain" and "Honky Tonk Women." The band mimed to prerecorded tracks and Jagger sang live. The performance was recorded at the CBS studios in Los Angeles and edited into the show to appear like they were in New York. In his review of the shows on 27 and 28 November at New York City's Madison Square Garden , Francis X. Clines of The New York Times characterized
6750-527: The stage of Carnegie Hall while audience members cut off her clothing with scissors. Several Maysles films document art projects by Christo and Jeanne-Claude over a three-decade period, from 1974 when Christo's Valley Curtain was nominated for an Academy Award , to 2005 when The Gates (started in 1979 and completed by Albert after David's death) headlined New York's Tribeca Film Festival . Other Maysles subjects include Marlon Brando , Truman Capote , Vladimir Horowitz and Seiji Ozawa . For many years,
6840-460: The struggles of a poor African-American family living in the contemporary Mississippi Delta , and was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature; and The Love We Make (2011, co-directed with Bradley Kaplan) which documented Paul McCartney 's experiences in New York City following the September 11, 2001 attacks , and premiered on Showtime on September 10, 2011, the eve of
6930-530: The style include following a person during a crisis with a moving, often handheld, camera to capture more personal reactions. There are no sit-down interviews, and the shooting ratio (the amount of film shot to the finished product) is very high, often reaching 80 to one. From there, editors find and sculpt the work into a film. The editors of the movement – such as Werner Nold , Charlotte Zwerin , Muffie Meyer , Susan Froemke , and Ellen Hovde – are often overlooked, but their input to
7020-498: The style known as direct cinema . The brothers would let the story unfold as the camera rolled, rather than planning what exactly they wanted to shoot, in keeping with Albert Maysles' stated approach, "Remember, as a documentarian you are an observer, an author but not a director, a discoverer, not a controller." However, the brothers also received criticism from those who thought that they had actually planned or otherwise influenced scenes. Most notably, Pauline Kael 's negative review of
7110-458: The supporting acts, rock critic Robert Christgau called it "history's first mythic rock and roll tour", while rock critic Dave Marsh wrote that the tour was "part of rock and roll legend" and one of the "benchmarks of an era." In 2017, Rolling Stone magazine ranked the tour among The 50 Greatest Concerts of the Last 50 Years. This was the Rolling Stones' first US tour since July 1966, with
7200-563: The tenth anniversary of the attacks. Albert continued the series of documentaries begun with David about the public art of Christo and Jeanne-Claude. He also contributed cinematography to Leon Gast 's Academy Award -winning documentary When We Were Kings , about the " Rumble in the Jungle " Muhammad Ali – George Foreman heavyweight championship boxing match. In 2005, Albert founded the Maysles Documentary Center,
7290-452: The time of his death, Albert had also been working on an autobiographical documentary Handheld and from the Heart . By letting real-life action unfold on camera without interference from the crew, the Maysleses pioneered the "fly on the wall" perspective in documentary cinema. This perspective is typical with the genre of documentary known as Direct Cinema which they helped pioneer. This genre
7380-557: The tour as "the major rock event of the year." Ike & Tina Turner were a fan favorite, and they reportedly upstaged the Rolling Stones. Janis Joplin joined the Turners on stage for an impromptu performance of " Land of 1000 Dances " at one of the Madison Square Garden shows. Another well-known show from the tour was the second concert in Oakland, California on 9 November, which was captured on Live'r Than You'll Ever Be , one of
7470-436: The tour. Some rehearsals for this tour occurred in the basement of Stephen Stills ' Laurel Canyon home. The tour began on 7 November with a warm-up show at Colorado State University , and then proceeded generally west to east, often playing two shows a night. The tour's second stop, at The Forum in Los Angeles, attracted national media attention as the outing's formal opening. Shows sometimes ran past midnight, and
7560-432: The use of portable camera and sound equipment allowed an intimate relationship between filmmaker and subject. The line blurs between documentary and narrative and some works are very personal, such as Marlon Riggs 's Tongues Untied (1989) and Black Is...Black Ain't (1995), which mix expressive, poetic, and rhetorical elements and stresses subjectivities rather than historical materials. Historical documentaries, such as
7650-471: The work of a group of door-to-door Bible salesmen in New England and Florida. Deeper down, the film is a dissection of the degenerative and devastating effects of capitalism on small towns and individuals, but more than any political statement the film is about normal people in all their ugliness and truthfulness. Gimme Shelter , a film about The Rolling Stones ' 1969 United States tour culminating in
7740-494: The year of his last film, Doyen recorded more than 60 operations. Doyen said that his first films taught him how to correct professional errors he had been unaware of. For scientific purposes, after 1906, Doyen combined 15 of his films into three compilations, two of which survive, the six-film series Extirpation des tumeurs encapsulées (1906), and the four-film Les Opérations sur la cavité crânienne (1911). These and five other of Doyen's films survive. Between July 1898 and 1901,
7830-687: Was a newsreel series in the United States, commissioned by the government to convince the U.S. public that it was time to go to war. Constance Bennett and her husband Henri de la Falaise produced two feature-length documentaries, Legong: Dance of the Virgins (1935) filmed in Bali , and Kilou the Killer Tiger (1936) filmed in Indochina . In Canada, the Film Board , set up by John Grierson,
7920-479: Was among those who identified the mode of documentary film. He wrote two of the earliest texts on cinema, Une nouvelle source de l'histoire ("A New Source of History") and La photographie animée ("Animated photography"). Both were published in 1898 in French and were among the earliest written works to consider the historical and documentary value of the film. Matuszewski is also among the first filmmakers to propose
8010-533: Was involved in litigation with David's widow over the terms of a financial settlement. According to David's daughter Celia Maysles, this resulted in the family developing a "code of silence" regarding David. In 2007, Celia released a documentary about her father, Wild Blue Yonder , which included interviews with Albert. After his brother's death, Albert Maysles continued to make films. His notable works include LaLee's Kin: The Legacy of Cotton (2001, co-directed with Deborah Dickson and Susan Froemke), which focused on
8100-610: Was set up for the same propaganda reasons. It also created newsreels that were seen by their national governments as legitimate counter-propaganda to the psychological warfare of Nazi Germany orchestrated by Joseph Goebbels . In Britain, a number of different filmmakers came together under John Grierson. They became known as the Documentary Film Movement . Grierson, Alberto Cavalcanti , Harry Watt , Basil Wright , and Humphrey Jennings amongst others succeeded in blending propaganda, information, and education with
#769230