Product Description

Documents the lives of four Bible salesmen, their attempts at success, and their journeys through America's living rooms.
Genre: Documentary
Rating: NR
Release Date: 4-SEP-2001
Media Type: DVD

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #43333 in DVD
• Brand: MAYSLES,ALBERT
• Released on: 2001-09-04
• Rating: NR (Not Rated)
• Aspect ratio: 1.33:1
• Formats: Black & White, Closed-captioned, DVD, Special Edition, Subtitled, NTSC
• Original language: English
• Subtitled in: English
• Number of discs: 1
• Dimensions: .36 pounds
• Running time: 85 minutes

Amazon.com
Arguably the best American documentary of the 1960s, Salesman was the pivotal film of the "direct cinema" movement championed by such influential filmmakers as Richard Leacock, D.A. Pennebaker, and (in this case) the Maysles brothers and their longtime collaborator Charlotte Zwerin. It catapulted Albert and David Maysles to international fame (later intensified with Gimme Shelter), and it remains the most powerful document of working-class America in the post-Kennedy era. As compelling as any fictional drama, the film follows four salesmen (nicknamed the Badger, the Gipper, the Rabbit, and the Bull, based on their particular on-the-job attributes) from Boston to Florida as they struggle to sell lavishly illustrated Bibles to reluctant, blue-collar customers as desperate to keep their money as the salesmen are to take it.

The film focuses on the anguished plight of Paul "the Badger" Brennan, an aging Boston-Irish veteran of the salesman circuit, weary of his job and unable to hide his exhaustion from customers and colleagues alike. "I don't want to seem negative," he says in one of the film's many dreary motel rooms, but Paul is negative, and meager sales reflect his attitude. The resulting portrait serves as a two-way mirror of hard-scrabble American survival, simultaneously humorous and heartbreaking, and so honestly revealing that no performance (with the possible exception of Jack Lemmon's in Glengarry Glen Ross) could ever hope to match its level of richly nuanced humanity. Door-to-door salesmen became dinosaurs with the advent of telemarketing and Internet retail, but Salesman is a timeless masterpiece of cinematic truth. --Jeff Shannon

Customer Reviews

"EVERYTHING BUT THE CHINESE FENCE".
A few months ago I rented the Criterion edition of Gimme Shelter. The DVD included a fascinating preview for another film by the Maysles brothers called SALESMAN. I had never heard of the film but after seeing the preview I had to see it. Much to my dismay SALESMAN was not available, nor does it appear to have ever had an official release on video. Thankfully, Criterion has seen fit to release this long lost American masterpiece. I was completely won over by this tragic but hysterical documentary about door-to-door Bible salesmen. The Maysles brothers focus most of the film on Paul Brennan aka The Badger. Brennan appears to be the the main inspiration for Gil, the unlucky salesman on The Simpsons. Brennan rarely scores a sale and when he doesn't his fellow (and more successful) salesmen have to endure his bizarre Irish rants and mumbled complaints. SALESMAN is full of strange lingo, strong Irish accents, and tons of smoking. I don't smoke but by the end of the film I felt in need of a light. Most of the banter between the Bible sellers and their prospective buyers is very funny. One woman declared that she was the "literal" person of the household. Criterion's presentation is excellent. The disc includes an interview with the two brothers by Jack Kroll. Kroll's interviewing skills are terrible at best. More than once he cuts off the two filmmakers to plunge the shallow depths of his scary thoughts. Even worse he goes on to tell them what they mean to say. The commentary track by Albert Maysles and Charlotte Zwerin is interesting and informative. Highly Recommended.

Sad/beautiful?
The Maysles Bros. did a wonderful job with this film. The b/w photography is sharp and smartly orchestrated making _Salesman_ a must see in my book. Shot with a custom made handheld camera and portable boom mic, _Salesman_ is the story of four door-to-door bible salesmen in the late sixties. The film falls in to the documentary category, though the Maysles have coined their own term for their style of filming: direct cinema.

The "salesmen" themselves are unforgetable; their performances in the homes of anyone who will let them get a foot in the door are fascinating and nerve wracking as you find yourself sympathizing both with the salesmen and the prospective buyers at the same time. It's this dynamic tension that gives the film some real drama. Better than what could have been scripted.

I never saw this film on video so I can't comment on any improvements in quality. But I will say this: the film looks and sounds beautiful on DVD. Also, with the DVD is an interview (mostly pretentious banter revolving around the distinction of "direct cinema"), commentary with the Maysles and Charlotte Zwerin (editor) and film trailers.

Makes "Glengarry Glen Ross" look like nursery school.
This is fascinating, harrowing stuff -- I remain haunted by these men, these door-to-door Bible salesmen, peddling their wares, themselves, their humanity. It's after "Death of a Salesman," but plenty of Willy Loman stuff going on here, and obviously a wellspring of material for David Mamet, for Barry Levinson's "Tin Men," for so many other tales of salesmen.

This is written pre-release, but I'm sure that the folks at Criterion will do an extraordinary job with this.