Albert Maysles /Joe McElhaney.
- Urbana : University of Illinois Press, (c)2009.
- 1 online resource.
- Contemporary film directors .
-- Works of Art and Factual Material -- Hard-Working People: Salesman, Showman, Meet Marlon Branda -- "It's a Funny Place, This America": What's Happening: The Beatles in the USA and Gimme Shelter -- "I Feel Something Slipping": Grey Gardens, The Burk Family of Georgia, Lalee's Kin -- Democratic Art Forms: A Visit with Truman Capote, A Journey to Jerusalem, Muhammad and Larry, Ozawa, Vladimir Horowitz: The Last Romantic, Horowitz Plays Mozart, Soldiers of Music: Rostropovich Retums to Russia, and the Christo and Jeanne-Claude films -- Interview With Albert Maysles -- Comparison of What's Happening: The Beatles in the USA and The Beatles: The First U.S. Visit.
Albert Maysles has created some of the most influential documentaries of the postwar period. Such films as Salesman, Gimme Shelter, and Grey Gardens continue to generate intense debate about the ethics and aesthetics of the documentary form. In this in-depth study, Joe McElhaney offers a novel understanding of the historical relevance of Maysles. By closely focusing on Maysles's expressive use of his camera, particularly in relation to the filming of the human figure, this book situates Maysles's films within not only documentary film history but film history in general, arguing for their broad-ranging importance to both narrative film and documentary cinema. Complete with an engaging interview with Maysles and a detailed comparison of the variant releases of his documentary on the Beatles (What's Happening: The Beatles in the U.S.A. and The Beatles: The First U.S. Visit), this work is a pivotal study of a significant filmmaker.