Albert and David Maysles

Albert and David Maysles
File:Maysles Brothers c.1968.jpg David (l.) and Albert (r.) Maysles c. 1968
Born	Albert (1926-11-26)November 26, 1926 David (1931-01-10)January 10, 1931 Boston, Massachusetts, U.S.
Died	David , New York City, U.S. Albert , New York City
Other names	The Maysles Brothers
Occupation	Film directors, producers
Years active	Albert (1955–2015; his death) David (1955–1987; his death)
Style	Documentary, Direct Cinema

Albert (November 26, 1926 – March 5, 2015) and his brother David (January 10, 1931 – January 3, 1987) Maysles (pronounced /ˈmeɪzɛlz/ MAY-zɛlz) 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 (1976).

Biography

Early lives

The brothers were born in 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 a career as a psychology professor and researcher. After serving in WWII, 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 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. He served in the U.S. Army in West Germany. 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 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, 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.

Maysles brothers' collaborative years

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 the work of a group of door-to-door Bible salesmen in New England and Florida. Gimme Shelter, a film about The Rolling Stones' 1969 U.S. tour culminating in the disastrous Altamont Free Concert, unexpectedly captured on film the altercation between Altamont attendee Meredith Hunter and Hells Angel 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 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 Maysles also made commercials for clients such as IBM, Shell Oil, and Merrill Lynch.

The Maysles' films are considered examples of 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 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 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 Maysles 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 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, the Maysles worked closely with film editor Charlotte Zwerin, who received a directing credit for her work on Gimme Shelter. Zwerin eventually stopped working with the Maysles because, according to Zwerin, they would not let her produce.

Death of David Maysles

David Maysles, the younger brother, died of a stroke on January 3, 1987, aged 55, in New York City. Following his death, Albert 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.

Later life and death of Albert Maysles

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 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 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, 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 the time of his death, Albert had also been working on an autobiographical documentary entitled Handheld and From the Heart.

Legacy and contribution to documentary cinema

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.

Albert pioneered the "fly on the wall" perspective in documentary cinema. His success from a technical aspect was based 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, 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.

In May 2002, Ralph Blumenthal in The New York Times referred to Albert as "the dean of documentary film making". Jean-Luc Godard once called Albert Maysles "the best American cameraman".

Awards

In 1999 Eastman Kodak saluted Albert Maysles as one of the world's 100 finest cinematographers. In 2001, Albert received the Sundance Film Festival 2001 Cinematography Award for Documentaries for LaLee's Kin: The Legacy of Cotton as well as the DuPont Columbia Gold Baton Award. In 2005, he was given a lifetime achievement award at the Czech film festival AFO (Academia Film Olomouc). He was awarded a 2013 National Medal of Arts by President Barack Obama on July 28, 2014.

Selected filmography

Selected filmography of Albert and David Maysles

• Youth in Poland (1957)
• Showman (1963) – featuring Joseph E. Levine
• Orson Welles in Spain (1963)
• What's Happening! The Beatles In The U.S.A. (1964) – featuring The Beatles; re-edited and re-released in 1991 as The Beatles: The First U.S. Visit
• IBM: A Self-Portrait (1964)
• Meet Marlon Brando (1965)
• Cut Piece (1965) – featuring Yoko Ono
• With Love from Truman (1966, with Charlotte Zwerin) – featuring Truman Capote
• Salesman (1968, with Charlotte Zwerin)
• Journey to Jerusalem (1968)
• Gimme Shelter (1970, with Charlotte Zwerin) – featuring The Rolling Stones
• Christo's Valley Curtain (1974, with Ellen Hovde)
• Grey Gardens (1976, with Ellen Hovde, Muffie Meyer, Susan Froemke)
• The Burks of Georgia (1976, with Ellen Hovde, Muffie Meyer)
• Running Fence (1978, with Charlotte Zwerin)
• Muhammad and Larry (1980) – featuring Muhammad Ali and Larry Holmes
• Vladimir Horowitz: The Last Romantic (1985, with Susan Froemke, Deborah Dickson, Pat Jaffe)
• Ozawa (1986, with Susan Froemke, Deborah Dickson)
• Islands (1986, with Charlotte Zwerin)
• Christo in Paris (1990, with Deborah Dickson and Susan Froemke)
• The Beales of Grey Gardens (2006, with Ian Markiewicz) – follow-up to Grey Gardens composed entirely of unused footage shot for original documentary

Selected filmography of Albert Maysles

• Psychiatry in Russia (1955)
• Russian Close-Up (1957)
• Six in Paris (1965) – as cinematographer for segment "Montparnasse-Levallois" written and directed by Jean-Luc Godard
• Monterey Pop (1968) – as a cinematographer, with D. A. Pennebaker as director
• Horowitz Plays Mozart (1987, with Susan Froemke, Charlotte Zwerin)
• Jessye Norman Sings Carmen (1989, with Susan Froemke)
• They Met in Japan (1989, with Susan Froemke)
• Soldiers of Music: Rostropovich Returns to Russia (1991, with Susan Froemke, Peter Gelb and Bob Eisenhardt)
• Abortion: Desperate Choices (1992, with Susan Froemke and Deborah Dickson)
• Baroque Duet (1992, with Susan Froemke, Peter Gelb, Pat Jaffe)
• Accent on the Offbeat (1994, with Susan Froemke, Deborah Dickson)
• Umbrellas (1995, with Henry Corra, Grahame Weinbren)
• Letting Go: A Hospice Journey (1996, with Susan Froemke, Deborah Dickson)
• When We Were Kings (1996) – as a cinematographer, with Leon Gast as director
• Concert of Wills: Making the Getty Center (1997, with Susan Froemke, Bob Eisenhardt)
• LaLee's Kin: The Legacy of Cotton (2000, with Susan Froemke, Deborah Dickson)
• The Gates (2005, with Antonio Ferrera)
• Sally Gross: The Pleasure of Stillness (2007)
• Close Up: Portraits (2008)
• Four Seasons Lodge (2008) – as a cinematographer, with Andrew Jacobs as director
• Rufus Wainwright – Milwaukee At Last (2009)
• Hollywood Renegade: The Life of Budd Schulberg (2009) – as a cinematographer, with Benn Schulberg as director
• The Love We Make (2011, with Bradley Kaplan, Ian Markiewicz)
• Iris (2014) – featuring Iris Apfel
• In Transit (2015, with Lynn True, David Usui, Nelson Walker III, and Benjamin Wu)

In popular culture

An HBO film entitled Grey Gardens was released in 2009 that dramatized the story of the Beales and the Maysles brothers' making of the original documentary, with actors portraying the Beales, the Maysles, and other involved parties. The film featured Arye Gross as Albert and Justin Louis as David.

External links

• Official website Maysles Films
• Official website Maysles Documentary Center
• Albert Maysles at the Internet Movie Database
• David Maysles at the Internet Movie Database
• Lifetime Achievement Award Details
• Interview with Albert Maysles in The Brooklyn Rail
• "Grey Gardens Online" Website and Information Database
• Maysles Films at Library of Congress Authorities, with 3 catalog records