Sales Compendium

Albert Maysles died earlier today. Together with his brother David, they made a number of pioneering documentaries in the 60s and 70s. The one that interests us was called ‘Salesman’. According to Rolling Stone: “the story of door-to-door Bible salesmen canvassing Boston and Florida… gave the duo their first classic. Building off the cinematic style of Jean Rouch and Dziga Vertov, Salesman pioneered cinéma vérité, the observational strain of documentary filmmaking that eschews narrative voiceover in favor of fly-on-the-wall, non-judgmental spectating“.