Ten minutes into the documentary Salesman (1969), I had to say out loud, “What a miserable business.” Filmed in the cinema verite style, just following real people without any talking heads interviews or narration, filmmakers Albert and David Maysles and Charlotte Zwerin pioneered the narrative non-fiction film with Salesman, their attempt to do for cinema what Truman Capote did for novels with In Cold Blood. Following a bunch of bible salesmen as they call on potential marks, door to door, through the help of details acquired from church leaders in league with the organisation, it is a big heaping of awkward tension where you feel bad for everyone – the deadbeat salesmen chasing a dollar, the polite families sitting there who are usually too poor to pay for a ridiculously ornate copy of something they generally already have. The depressing result of American capitalism in the 1960s. Paul Brennan, aka “The Badger” (all the salesmen the film focuses are on are giving nick-names in the opening credits: “The ull”, “The Gipper”), becomes the de facto protagonist since he is the most talkative but is also the one who is experiencing a major losing streak. Filmed in black and white, and mainly focused on the crew’s sojourn in Florida, this was very good but utterly depressing. A lot of great moments captured throughout, like when a husband shows off to a salesman by putting on an instrumental record of The Beatles ‘Yesterday’ that is played excessively loud, or when another husband reveals that he is also a salesman, selling vacuum cleaners (to me, I was like, “Oh! Now that’s something a person could use!!” rather than this expensive religious door stops these slobs are peddling). Available to stream on Kanopy. Recommended.
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