Happy Birthday, Albert Maysles! Born today in 1926, this award-winning American documentary film producer and director was known for his work in the Direct Cinema style.
Born in the Dorchester neighborhood of Boston, Massachusetts, Maysles lived there until his family moved to Brookline years later when he was thirteen.
Almost four years after Maysles' birth, his younger brother David was born on January 10, 1931.
Albert and David's parents, both Jewish, were immigrants to the United States. The family originally settled in Dorchester to be near relatives, of whom had moved there earlier.
Maysles originally pursued a career as a psychology professor and researcher.
After serving in the U.S. Army during World War II in West Germany, he later obtained a B.A. from Syracuse University. Afterwards, he earned an M.A. in psychology from Boston University.
Maysles later 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 with a 16mm camera in hand to photograph a mental hospital, and returned the following year with a camera provided by CBS for his first film.
Traveling through Russian via motorcycle, the film would be an unprecedented view into Soviet mental healthcare.
In the mid-1950s, Maysles worked as a Hollywood production assistant on a couple of Marilyn Monroe films.
These included the 1956 American Technicolor drama/romance film 'Bus Stop'.
This was also along with the 1957 British/American Technicolor comedy/romance film 'The Prince and the Showgirl' (originally called 'The Sleeping Prince'), directed by Laurence Olivier ('Henry V').
By 1957, Maysles had teamed up with Albert to shoot two documentaries behind the Iron Curtain.
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 1960, the Maysles brothers had joined the American independent documentary film company Drew Associates.
The company was founded by American documentary filmmaker and photojournalist Robert Drew, known as one of the pioneers—and sometimes called father—of cinéma vérité, or direct cinema, in the United States.
The company also included British-born documentary film director and one of the pioneers of direct cinema and cinéma vérité Richard Leacock, of whom was also one of the pioneers of direct cinema and cinéma vérité.
Lastly, there was the American documentary filmmaker D. A. Pennebaker, another one of the pioneers of direct cinema.
While working at Drew Associates, Albert would film, while David would handle sound. During this time, the brothers worked on films such as Primary and Adventures on the New Frontier.
In 1962, Albert and David left Drew Associates to form their own industry. The following year, this became the New York City-based American video production company Maysles Films, Inc. in 1963.
After this, the Maysles brothers made over thirty films together. They are best known for three documentaries made in the late 1960s and early 1970s.
These include the 1969 American black and white documentary/cinéma vérité film 'Salesman', the 1970 British-American musical documentary film 'Gimme Shelter', and the 1975 American documentary/drama film 'Grey Gardens'.
In order to finance the aforementioned films, as well as others, the Maysles also made commercials for clients such as th International Business Machines Corporation (IBM), Shell Oil, and BofA Securities.
Of these films, Albert is best known for co-shooting and co-directing 'Gimmie Shelter', along with David. The film (their second documentary) was also co-directed by American film director and film editor Charlotte Zwerin.
This landmark rockumentary recalls the events surrounding a free concert by the Rolling Stones at the Altamont Speedway outside of San Francisco, California in 1969.
The film is named after "Gimme Shelter", the lead track from the group's 1969 album Let It Bleed.
When three hundred thousand members of the Love Generation collided with a few dozen Hells Angels, both Maysles brothers, along with Zwerin, were there to immortalize on film the bloody slash that transformed a decade's dreams into disillusionment.
Worried about the security, the Stones asked the Hell's Angels to keep order for them. However. the day ended tragically as violence broke out.
The moment was unexpectedly captured on film during the Stones' "Under My Thumb" when the altercation between the eighteen-year-old African-American concertgoer Meredith Hunter and notorious Hells Angels member Alan Passaro resulted in Hunter's death.
Film footage shows Hunter approaching the stage, drawing and pointing a revolver just before being stabbed by Passaro.
Passaro was later acquitted of Hunter's murder on self-defense grounds after the jury viewed the footage.
The credited camera operators for Altamont included a young George Lucas. At the concert, Lucas' camera jammed after shooting about one hundred feet of film. None of his footage was incorporated into the final cut.
The following year, 'Gimme Shelter' was screened out of competition as the opening film of the 24th Cannes Film Festival in May.
The counterculture era documentary is associated with the Direct Cinema movement of the 1950s and 1960s. During that time, the Maysles Brothers were strong figures of the era.
The Direct Cinema movement revolves around the philosophy of being a "reactive" filmmaker, recording events as they unfold naturally and spontaneously rather than investigating the subject matter through documentary techniques such as interviews, reconstruction and voiceover.
Today, the Maysles brothers' films are considered as modern examples of the style known as Direct Cinema.
They would let the story unfold as the camera rolled, rather than planning what exactly they wanted to shoot, in keeping with Albert's 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 of whom thought that they had actually planned or otherwise influenced scenes.
Most notably, American film critic Pauline Kael's negative review of 'Gimme Shelter' in The New Yorker included a harsh accusation that much of the rockumentary, as well as 'Salesman', had been staged.
She also wrote 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 later 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 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 Maysles' documentaries focus on art, artists and musicians. The brothers documented The Beatles' first visit to the United States in 1964.
This also included a 1965 conceptual art project by Yoko Ono called "Cut Piece", in which she sat on the stage of Carnegie Hall while audience members cut off her clothing with scissors.
Several Maysles films document art projects by Bulgarian and Moroccan-born married environmental artists Christo and Jeanne-Claude over a three-decade period.
This started in the mid-1970s when Albert shot, produced and co-directed the twenty-eight-minute 1974 American documentary short film 'Christo's Valley Curtain'.
The following year, it was nominated for an Oscar for Best Documentary Short Subject. However, the film did not win. This occurred at the 47th Academy Awards in early April 1975.
In the late 1980s, David had passed from a stroke on January 3, 1987 in New York, New York. He was 55. This was just a week shy of his 56th birthday. After his brother's death, Albert continued to make films.
In 1992, 'Salesman' was selected for the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant."
In May 2002, American journalist, author, lecturer and reporter Ralph Blumenthal in The New York Times referred to Albert as "the dean of documentary film making".
Jean-Luc Godard once called Albert "the best American cameraman".
In 2010, 'Grey Gardens' was selected by the Library of Congress for preservation in the United States National Film Registry as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".
In a 2014 Sight & Sound poll, film critics voted 'Grey Gardens' the joint ninth best documentary film of all time.
In the mid-2010s, Albert directed the 2014 American historical documentary film 'Iris'. It told about American businesswoman, interior designer, and fashion icon Iris Apfel. The film was released in late April,
On July 30, 2014, 44th President Barack Obama presented a 2013 National Medal of Arts to Maysles in a White House ceremony.
The following year, Albert directed the 2015 American news documentary film 'In Transit'. It told about the busiest, long-distance train route in the United States.
Later that same year, Albert passed from pancreatic cancer at his home in Manhattan, New York City, New York on March 5, 2015. He was 88.
It was this film and 'Iris' of which were released posthumously in the year of his passing.
During that time, Maysles had also been working on an autobiographical documentary film entitled 'Handheld and From the Heart'. It was self-portrait of the legendary documentarian and cinematographer in his own words and images.
For many years, the Maysles brothers had worked closely with Zwerin. However, she eventually stopped working with the Maysles because, according to her, they would not let her produce.
Throughout the years, other subjects for the Maysles brothers included Marlon Brando, Truman Capote, American classical pianist and composer born in the Russian Empire Vladimir Horowitz, and Japanese conductor Seiji Ozawa.
By letting real-life action unfold on camera without interference from the crew, the Maysles brothers 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.
The genre 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 the camera from the sound recording device (David used a Nagra) by accurately controlling the speed of the camera and the tape recorder.
This allowed 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 had built his own 16mm camera with existing parts that could be comfortably balanced on his shoulder, eliminating the need for a tripod, allowing him to shoot fluidly in the moment.
He also 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 once claimed to have a form of attention deficit disorder that made the leisurely pace of editing difficult for him but benefited him while shooting.
He stated that his in-the-moment ability to focus let him, "Zero in on 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 moving image collection of Albert and David Maysles is currently held at the Academy Film Archive.
Albert, along with his brother David, were pioneers of direct cinema. They have offered authentic depictions of people and communities across the globe for nearly sixty years.
Both brothers had worked in a cinema verité style that was sensitive and compassionate as well as revelatory.
Both had played important roles in the development of cinema verité documentary-making by designing highly portable cameras and sound equipment that allowed them to record events with minimal intrusion.
By capturing raw emotions and representations, Albert's work reflects the unfiltered truths of our shared humanity.
Maysles had been active from 1955–2015.
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