Schmuckler: State of the arts STATE OF THE ARTS Entertainment and expression Third Eye Filmmaker Albert Maysles uses the camera like no one before him. BY CAROL SCHMUCKLER each other or out into space as the were the only ones to get into There's no research, no script, no camera simply waits. But later Beales's house in 20 years. All our narrator. First I find a subject that come excruciating moments of subjects recognize that our attitude interests me. The essential thing IFTY-SIX YEAR­ revelation, when people expose is a loving one, that we aren't there about our work is not making old Edie Beale, in their most deeply protected to make fun of them." believe, but finding out." shorts and with a feelings. Establishing that trust is what has It was the 1964 film What's Hap­ F scarf wrapped tight­ "It's impossible to make people made the work of Maysles and his pening! The Beatles in the U.S.A. ly around her head, forget you're there, so you try to brother David (who died in 1987) that first rocketed the Maysles to prances around the room, talking make your presence enhance their remarkable. Maysles fllms have an public attention. They trailed the nonstop. Behind her Edith Beale, ability to be themselves," says immediacy no one else has been Beatles during their first U.S. visit, her mother, all fleshy arms and Albert Maysles, a 1952 graduate of able to duplicate, although many the camera catching everything unkempt gray hair, sits in bed look­ SU's College of Arts and Sciences. have tried. from hordes ofhysterical teenaged ing at old photos, arguing. "The key is developing a real fans to self-conscious moments in Suddenly Edie turns and walks relationship with the people in our AYLES CALLS HIS the hotel, as the four curiously toward the camera, talking direct­ films right from the start. They M work "direct cinema," a sedate rockers watched themselves ly to the unseen cameraman, bring­ aren't acting for the camera. They subjective form that ex­ on television. ing him a photograph to inspect. sense right from the start that it's plores and records first impressions The Mayles' next three films­ A quiet voice answers, and as okay for them to be themselves, that directly. "I never go into a project Salesman, Gimme Shelter, and the camera moves across the room what we're after is life itself. We with very much of an agenda. Grey Gardens-finnly established to Edith, we, the viewers, their dominance in docu­ catch a glimpse in the mir­ mentary fllmmaking. ror of two men, one behind Salesman (1968) fol­ a camera and the other with lowed four door-to-door an elaborate sound recorder Bible salesmen- a revealing over his shoulder. They are look at their lives of quiet Albert and David Maysles, desperation. Critics hailed the most successful docu­ Salesman as touching and mentary filmmakers in the brutally honest. Today United States. Albert Maysles calls it both The camera moves on, his most personal film and and the two eccentrics the purest expression of his resume their endless squab­ particular style. bling, completely un-self­ Gimme Shelter (1970) was conscious before the a chilling account of a Roll­ camera. ing Stones tour across That moment in Grey America, and culminated in Gardens typifies the the infamous fatal stabbing, Maysles' documentary seen on screen , at the style. Instead of scripting the Stones' Altamont concert. story, they have put the The hypnotic Grey camera in place and allowed Gardens (1976) visited a the story to develop at its reclusive mother and own pace. Sometimes ab­ daughter, the aunt and solutely nothing happens; cousin of Jacqueline Ken­ people stare speechlessly at nedy Onassis, who lived in a decaying East Hampton mansion, reliving past CAROL NOIUH SCHMUCK­ glories and blaming one LER, a frequent contributor another for lost oppor­ to this magazine, holds SU tunities. The film was both degrees in English and hilarious and horrifying. advertising and is an M.F.A. candidate in film. These films demonstrate the Maysles' uncanny abili- 40 SYRACUSE UNIVERSITY MA&AZINE Published by SURFACE, 1988 1 Syracuse University Magazine, Vol. 4, Iss. 3 [1988], Art. 10 ty to focus on the individual. Con­ ventional documentaries had always concentrated on groups and broad social movements, but Maysles and his brother changed all that. While they, too, were in­ terested in important themes, they revealed those themes by making the individual the story. They sensed the drama in ordinary lives and used the camera in an intimate way-a way it had never been used before. Maysles has made three ftlms on environmental artist Christo: Christo's Valley Curtain (1974), Running Fence (1978), and Islands (1986). Viewers eavesdrop on the unorthodox artist as he cajoles bemused landowners and cagily negotiates with local politicians in order to hang a quarter-mile-long orange curtain across a California valley, or stretch an 18-foot-high swath of fabric across 24 miles of California, or surround ll Biscayne Bay islands with pink fabric that When the Beatles visited America in 1964, the Maysles (background) traveled by their sides. turns them into a glorious attraction. Citibank film, he shot an irate while, and then took a camera to Maysles when building it. He is customer closing her account. It Russia to explore mental health always unobtrusive and uses very HILE THRUTHFUL­ was Maysles who discovered Lee care, without knowing anything few, if any, lights. W ness is appropriate to Iacocca's flair for straight-from­ about filmmaking. Today Maysles Films is located documentaries, it the-shoulder talk. "I was a good observer and I had in a penthouse on the west side of would not seem to translate well to Because of his searching, relent­ no prejudices about what I'd find. Manhattan, and the 14-person staff the advertising world. But (sur­ less filmmaker's eye, Albert I thought that instead of writing the is constantly busy. In 1987 alone prise!) Maysles has made "real peo­ Maysles has been accused ofbeing story I'd discover there, I'd go a step they created more than 30 commer­ ple" commercials and industrial exploitative. The intimate glimps­ further and let the camera record cials and 15 corporate industrials; films for a blue-ribbon list of clients es he gives into people's lives make it for me." and they were in post-production that includes Procter & Gamble, viewers uneasy. But Maysles insists His brother, David, was already on from three to five documentaries IBM, American Express, Ragu, that what he's after is truth, and that working in film, and the two at any one time. Kai-Kan, Citibank, Chrysler, and no one in the world can tell the truth teamed in 1956 and filmed their Although Maysles feels the loss General Motors. as well as the truth can tell itself. motorcycle journey from Munich of his brother deeply, he's already His commercial work is as dar­ "One kind of truth is in the raw to Moscow. When they returned, very involved in new projects. ing as his serious nonfiction films, material, the footage- it's im­ David went back to Hollywood and Feature works in progress include and advertising agencies and ner­ mediate and no one has tampered Albert joined a documentary film a film on the Getty Museum; a look vous industrial clients have with it. Then there's the other kind unit at Time-Life to get more ex­ at black author James Baldwin; a learned to trust his instincts. oftruth that comes in extracting and perience. Within a few years they'd film exploring the reversal ofheart In a Ragu TV spot, an Italian juxtaposing the raw material into formed their own company. Their disease through changes in life­ mother, tasting the sauce, spon­ a more meaningful and coherent first production was Showman, a style; and Pont Neuf, Christo's first taneously pronounced it "gor­ storytelling form." controversial portrait of movie grand-scale urban project, the geous"; no copywriter could have Arthur LeGacy, who teaches film mogul Joseph E. Levine. wrapping of the oldest bridge in invented that one. In another, an en­ history at SU, thinks Maysles' work Developing proper equipment Paris. thusiastic dog eating Kal-Kan exposes something more. was important to Maysles' career. But the new work closest to his knocked his dish across the kitchen "Maysles takes pain as the center Cameras used then were bulky and heart is Fellow Passengers, a film floor and down a step, then, not of many of his pieces," LeGacy obtrusive, and synchronous sound that will tell the stories of people missing a mouthful, grabbed it with says. "He's more emotionally in­ didn't exist. Salesman became who ride trains all over the world. his teeth and pulled it right back volved with human beings than possible only after he adapted the They are intimate portraits of peo­ up. Both commercials were un­ others because he's not intimidated claw movement in a 16-millimeter ple arriving and leaving, coming premeditated expressions, although by suffering. That's actually very Auricon camera to make it quieter, together and parting. For Albert they were so "right" that many compassionate and very involved." and actually changed the shape of Maysles, it is the ultimate journey think they were scripted. Nope. "It the camera so it would balance bet­ of discovery. was the dog's idea," Maysles says. HEN ALBERT MAY­ ter on his shoulder (Albert always Maysles looks for the offbeat, the W sles studied psych­ acted as cameraman; his brother entertaining, the truthful.