Four salesmen selling Bibles door to door seek out devout and, in the main, working-class Catholics and try to convince them to buy what is – in the words of one of them – “the world’s bestseller.” Following them on their daily rounds to make ends meet, Salesman fills its shots with a tender sorrow, invisible and universal, that emerges as a bitter distillate from the realization that the world of work (in contrast to the well-ordered sin-salvation dialectic threaded through the Bible) is not underpinned by any kind of divine providence. Short interlocutory “battles” between sellers and possible buyers, and pressures camouflaged behind guarded jokes and teasing, rebukes and endless condescension, fleeting victories and dispiriting defeats: the ongoing, underlying, and exhausting angst of those who must sell to live turns Salesman into a kind of covert existential thriller. The silence of God has never been better concealed behind so many words.
Salesman
Salesman
Screening Schedule
No physical screenings scheduled. |
- Direction: Albert Maysles, David Maysles, Charlotte Zwerin
- Cinematography: Albert Maysles
- Editing: David Maysles, Charlotte Zwerin
- Production: Maysles Films
- Producers: Albert Maysles, David Maysles
- Format: DCP
- Color: B/W
- Production Country: USA
- Production Year: 1969
- Duration: 90'
- Contact: Maysles Films
- Awards/Distinctions: National Film Registry – Library of Congress 1993
Albert Maysles
Filmography
1966 A Visit with Truman Capote (short, co-direction)
1969 Salesman (co-direction)
1970 Gimme Shelter (co-direction)
1976 Grey Gardens (co-direction)
1978 Running Fence (co-direction)
1986 Islands (co-direction)
1987 Horowitz plays Mozart (co-direction)
1989 Jessye Norman Sings Carmen (co-direction)
1992 Abortion: Desperate Choices (co-direction)
2006 The Beales of Grey Gardens (co-direction)
2014 Iris
1969 Salesman (co-direction)
1970 Gimme Shelter (co-direction)
1976 Grey Gardens (co-direction)
1978 Running Fence (co-direction)
1986 Islands (co-direction)
1987 Horowitz plays Mozart (co-direction)
1989 Jessye Norman Sings Carmen (co-direction)
1992 Abortion: Desperate Choices (co-direction)
2006 The Beales of Grey Gardens (co-direction)
2014 Iris
David Maysles
Filmography
1966 A Visit with Truman Capote (short, co-direction)
1969 Salesman (co-direction)
1970 Gimme Shelter (co-direction)
1976 Grey Gardens (co-direction)
1978 Running Fence (co-direction)
1986 Islands (co-direction)
1987 Horowitz plays Mozart (co-direction)
2006 The Beales of Grey Gardens (co-direction)
1969 Salesman (co-direction)
1970 Gimme Shelter (co-direction)
1976 Grey Gardens (co-direction)
1978 Running Fence (co-direction)
1986 Islands (co-direction)
1987 Horowitz plays Mozart (co-direction)
2006 The Beales of Grey Gardens (co-direction)
Charlotte Zwerin
Filmography
1966 A Visit with Truman Capote (short, co-direction)
1969 Salesman (co-direction)
1970 Gimme Shelter (co-direction)
1978 Running Fence (co-direction)
1986 Islands (co-direction)
1987 Horowitz plays Mozart (co-direction)
1989 Jessye Norman Sings Carmen (co-direction)
1969 Salesman (co-direction)
1970 Gimme Shelter (co-direction)
1978 Running Fence (co-direction)
1986 Islands (co-direction)
1987 Horowitz plays Mozart (co-direction)
1989 Jessye Norman Sings Carmen (co-direction)
