Salesman

Four men go door to door selling Bibles. What is sold is an expensive edition and the buyers are mostly Catholic families who cannot afford it. The camera rides in the car with the men, stays in the motels, sits in on the sales meetings and goes as far as the customer's living room. All four have nicknames; the most striking is Paul Brennan, called the Badger. While the others make sales, Brennan's numbers fall. The territory changes, they go to Florida, and nothing improves. The man starts talking to himself. Albert and David Maysles and Charlotte Zwerin direct. It is an American production. The documentary is a principal example of the direct cinema method; no narrating voice, no interviews, no music. The camera stands inside the event and does not comment. It was shot with light cameras and synchronised sound equipment; the technique was new in those years and changed the form of documentary. The matter it treats is the sales work itself; the narrative shows it not as a trade but as a system of pressure. The motivational speeches at the sales meetings are not staged and are hard to watch today. The film was taken into the National Film Registry. Its limit is form; the narrative does not direct and the viewer is expected to draw the conclusion. Who it is for: anyone curious about the history of documentary and direct cinema. Who it is not for: it is slow, bleak, and has no plot.