Maysles’ lens was revealing
Albert Maysles and D.A. Pennebaker would go on to become pioneers in Direct Cinema, working with Robert Drew of Life magazine, and moving on to illustrious documentary careers, but in 1959, they were just two young filmmakers with a keen interest in what lay beyond the Iron Curtain. Pennebaker planned to travel to the Soviet Union to document the American National Exhibition trade show that was coming to Moscow that summer. Maysles — who died at 88 on March 5 — asked if he could accompany him.
When he discovered that Maysles had already been to Russia, on a motorcycle, with his brother David and had even shot a film in a mental health hospital there, something thought to be nearly impossible for a Westerner in that closed society, Pennebaker was intrigued. As he got to know his new friend over the four months they spent in the USSR, he discovered something even more impressive — the way that Maysles connected to people.
“Al, I recognized very soon when we were in Russia, was a great watcher. He liked to watch things,” says Pennebaker, 89, whose landmark documentaries include “Don’t Look Back.”
“He kept trying to get to Vladivostok on the Siberian railroad, which is an amazing railroad. It’s not like any other railroad. The tracks are wider and the wheels are wider and it goes for thousands of miles. When you get on it, you live on it for quite a while to get to the other end. It was Al’s idea of a perfect film, because there were all these people around, and he could watch them and talk to them and find out what their lives were like. To him, that curiosity about people you run into, not heavy hitters or important people, just people that you’d run into on a train, particularly a train that’s going to take days to get to where it’s going, that was interesting to him. That makes him so unique.”
Portrait of fashion maven
Maysles’ powers of observation and that generosity of spirit are about to be on full display in the Bay Area. On Friday, May 8, Maysles penultimate documentary, “Iris,” a warm-hearted portrait of 93year-old fashion maven Iris Apfel opens in local theaters. That same day, the Albert Maysles Memorial Film Festival, a week-long celebration of Maysles’ work and the brainchild of local documentarian David L. Brown, gets underway at San Francisco’s Vogue Theatre.
The program includes wellknown works, such as “Salesman” (1968) about a Florida Bible salesman; “Gimme Shelter” (1970), Albert and David Maysles’ Rolling Stones documentary climaxed by the chilling violence and bad vibes of the band’s 1969 Altamont Speedway concert; “Grey Gardens” (1976), the brothers’ acclaimed chronicle of Jacqueline Kennedy’s eccentric aunt and cousin, Edith and Edie Beale; and “Running Fence” (1977), about the artist Christo’s 24-mile art installation.
There are plenty of less wellknown films in the mix as well, including “Meet Marlon Brando” (1965), in which the actor meets the press; “Orson Welles in Spain” (1966), a portrait of the artist in the middle of a pitch as he tries to raise money for a film; and “Anastasia” (1962), a news program feature about an American dancer with the Bolshoi Ballet.
“I think the Maysles Brothers influenced my generation of documentary filmmakers and every generation of docu- mentary filmmakers since,” says Brown. “I think Direct Cinema influenced all filmmakers who are seeking truth through documentary.”
After David Maysles died at 55 in 1987, Albert Maysles continued to work in collaboration with other filmmakers, and he also brought his family — his wife, Gillian Walker, and their children, Rebekah, Sara, and Philip — into the business. Rebekah Maysles recalls that it started in the early 2000s when her father asked for their help.
Daughter focuses on archive
These days, Rebekah Maysles, who is also an artist, is Maysles Films’ managing director with a focus on archive preservation. She also illustrated and co-edited with her sister Sara “Grey Gardens,” a 2009 companion book to her father and uncle’s documentary. With “Iris,” she came on board as a producer, enjoying an intimate look at her dad at work.
“He had this amazing ability to just be in the room and then just kind of disappear a little bit,” Rebekah Maysles says. “Occasionally, in ‘Iris’ he is brought back (on camera), but he was very sensitive to that kind of stuff. You could watch him work. He would just kind of set up a shot and then just be happy to left alone and just film.
“Laura (Coxson), one of the other producers, and I always talk about how ‘Iris’ is a film by an 88-year-old about a 94-yearold and her 100-year-old husband. Their ages together — I’m not very young, but our crew together doesn’t match up to that. I think that was great. Also, I think that because both he and Iris are good, generous people, they didn’t do anything crazy, but they were able to get away with whatever they wanted.
“They weren’t fake at all. They were true people and