Charlotte Zwerin is being celebrated with three-film series at Metrograph (photo courtesy Warner Bros. / Everett)
CHARLOTTE ZWERIN — VÉRITÉ PIONEER: SALESMAN (Albert Maysles, David Maysles, and Charlotte Zwerin, 1969)
Metrograph
7 Ludlow St. between Canal & Hester Sts.
Saturday, May 31, 5:10, and Thursday, June 5, 4:40
metrograph.com
Fifty-six years ago, brothers Albert and David Maysles and Charlotte Zwerin made the highly influential black-and-white documentary Salesman, an intimate portrait of four traveling door-to-door Bible salesmen: Jamie Baker, Raymond Martos, Charles McDevitt, and particularly Boston’s Paul Brennan. “Go out there and get ’em,” their boss, who doesn’t exactly follow the teachings of Jesus, declares as they prepare to spread the word of the Lord, although more to earn a living than as a religious calling. The shots of Brennan singing “If I Were a Rich Man” in the snow are priceless, but the end will haunt you. Without Salesman, there probably never would have been a Glengarry Glen Ross and so many other films. All these years later, this fascinating piece of Americana, which was added to the National Film Registry of the Library of Congress in 1992, still feels fresh and relevant in these hard times.
The Maysles brothers and Zwerin went on to make other documentaries that redefined the nonfiction genre, including Gimme Shelter, and Zwerin scored a major solo success with the unforgettable Thelonius Monk: Straight, No Chaser. Presented by ACE (the American Cinema Editors), Salesman is screening May 31 and June 5 in the Metrograph series “Charlotte Zwerin: Vérité Pioneer,” honoring the Direct Cinema leader, who died in 2004 at the age of seventy-two; the tribute also features Gimme Shelter and Thelonius Monk: Straight, No Chaser. The May 31 showing of Salesman will be followed by a panel discussion with editor-directors Mirra Bank, Deborah Dickson, Susan Froemke, and Muffie Meyer, moderated by Michael Schulman.
[Mark Rifkin is a Brooklyn-born, Manhattan-based writer and editor; you can follow him on Substack here.]