Salesman

Last week we viewed a documentary that started the direct cinema movement. Salesman is a 1969 documentary made by the Maysles Brothers. These two followed around four bible salesman that were going door to door attempting to sell extremely expensive bibles to the poor population of America. The cost of just the bible was around fifty dollars. Today's equivalent of fifty dollars is somewhere near 500 dollars. It is astounding that they were even able to sell a single bible to the people.
The way direct cinema works is the director/cameraman attempt to capture reality and represent it truthfully. The filmmakers usually spend countless hours with their subjects. This was a direct cinema because of the long period of time this film was taken over. The film went from the prime of Paul Brennan's selling to his downfall.
The film itself had many different emotions to it. At some points the film was very funny, showing the comical sides of these lowlife bible salesman, but in some cases it was extremely serious. One example of this is when you see how poor some of the Americans are that they are trying to sell to. The people cannot afford even a dollar a week for the gorgeous bible.