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Landmark Work

Salesman

Documentary and Nonfiction Film

Salesman is a 1969 documentary directed by Albert Maysles, David Maysles and Charlotte Zwerin, following four door-to-door Bible salesmen working working-class Catholic neighborhoods in the northeastern United States and Florida, centered on one salesman, nicknamed the Badger, whose fortunes decline over the course of filming. Shot in the observational direct cinema style with no narration or staged interviews, the film presents the salesmen's daily rejections, small successes and mounting exhaustion largely without editorial comment. Salesman is widely regarded as a landmark of American direct cinema and one of the defining documentary studies of everyday working life and the pressures of commission-based sales.

Facts
Release YearSourced to the subject's own account
1969 1
CountrySourced to the subject's own account
United States 1
Classification
Original LanguageSourced to the subject's own account
English 1
In the Other Atlases
Sources
1. Salesman (1969 film) (Wikipedia)
Wikipedia
  • Lead sentence, Wikipedia article
    Salesman is a 1969 direct cinema documentary film, directed by brothers Albert and David Maysles and Charlotte Zwerin, about door-to-door Bible salesmen.
  • See also section, Wikipedia article
    List of American films of 1969
  • Salesman, Description, original language
    Salesman is widely regarded as a landmark of American direct cinema and one of the defining documentary studies of everyday working life and the pressures of commission-based sales.
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