Documentary
American
1969 · Directed by David Maysles & Albert Maysles & Charlotte Zwerin · 90 min
Four door-to-door salesmen sell expensive Bibles to ordinary families across the American Northeast and Florida. A documentary crew follows them with no narrator, no interviews and no staging. The result plays like a quiet drama about work, faith and money.
Why it matters in cinema history
It stands with the key works of direct cinema, the movement that took lightweight sync-sound equipment into real situations and trusted observation over commentary, and it helped establish the feature-length observational documentary.
Watch with intention
Watch it as a study of performance: how each salesman presents himself, and how his customers respond.
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