Albert and David Maysles

Albert Maysles (November 26, 1926 – March 5, 2015) and his brother David Maysles (January 10, 1931 – January 3, 1987; /ˈmeɪzɛlz/ MAY-zelz) were an American documentary filmmaking team known for their work in the Direct Cinema style. Their best-known films include Salesman (1969), Gimme Shelter (1970) and Grey Gardens (1975).

The brothers were born in the Dorchester neighborhood of Boston, living there until the family moved to Brookline, Massachusetts when Albert was 13. Albert and David's parents, both Jewish, were immigrants to the United States; their father, born in Ukraine, was employed as a postal clerk, while their mother, originally from Poland, was a schoolteacher. The family originally settled in Dorchester to be near relatives (the brothers' great-uncle Josef Maysles and his daughter and son-in-law, Becky and Joe Kandib) who had moved there earlier.

Albert originally pursued a career as a psychology professor and researcher. After serving in the U.S. Army Tank Corps during World War II, Albert obtained a BA from Syracuse University and MA in psychology from Boston University. He taught psychology at Boston University for three years, also working as a research assistant at a mental hospital and as head of a research project at Massachusetts General Hospital. As an outgrowth of his research work, he traveled to Russia to photograph a mental hospital, and returned the following year with a camera provided by CBS to film his first documentary, Psychiatry in Russia (1955). Although CBS did not air the film, it was televised on NBC, on the public broadcasting station WGBH-TV in Boston, and on Canadian network television.

David also studied psychology at Boston University, receiving a BA. Also like his brother, David served in the U.S. Army and was stationed in West Germany during the Korean War. In the mid-1950s, he worked as a Hollywood production assistant on the Marilyn Monroe films Bus Stop and The Prince and the Showgirl. David later stated that he grew "disenchanted with conventional filming. The glamour had faded and the filming of take after take had become tedious." By 1957 he had teamed up with Albert to shoot two documentaries behind the Iron Curtain, Russian Close-Up (credited to Albert Maysles alone) and Youth in Poland, the latter of which was broadcast on NBC.

By 1960, the Maysles brothers had joined Drew Associates, the documentary film company founded by photojournalist Robert Drew which also included Richard Leacock and D. A. Pennebaker. Albert would film, while David would handle sound. During this time, the brothers worked on Drew Associates films such as Primary and Adventures on the New Frontier. In 1962, Albert and David left Drew Associates to form their own production company, Maysles Films, Inc.

The Maysles brothers made over 30 films together. They are best known for three documentaries made in the late 1960s and early 1970s: Salesman (1969), Gimme Shelter (1970), and Grey Gardens (1975). Salesman documents the work of a group of door-to-door Bible salesmen in New England and Florida. Deeper down, the film is a dissection of the degenerative and devastating effects of capitalism on small towns and individuals, but more than any political statement the film is about normal people in all their ugliness and truthfulness. Gimme Shelter, a film about The Rolling Stones' 1969 United States tour culminating in the disastrous Altamont Free Concert, unexpectedly captured on film the altercation between Altamont attendee Meredith Hunter and Hells Angels member Alan Passaro that resulted in Hunter's death. Film footage shows Hunter drawing and pointing a revolver just before being stabbed by Passaro, who was later acquitted of Hunter's murder on self-defense grounds after the jury viewed the footage. Grey Gardens depicts the lives of a reclusive upper-class mother and daughter, "Big Edie" and "Little Edie" Beale (who were, respectively, the aunt and cousin of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis), residing in a derelict mansion in East Hampton, New York. In order to finance these films and others, the Maysleses also made commercials for clients such as IBM, Shell Oil and Merrill Lynch.

The Maysleses' films are considered examples of the style known as direct cinema. The brothers would let the story unfold as the camera rolled, rather than planning what exactly they wanted to shoot, in keeping with Albert Maysles' stated approach, "Remember, as a documentarian you are an observer, an author but not a director, a discoverer, not a controller." However, the brothers also received criticism from those who thought that they had actually planned or otherwise influenced scenes. Most notably, Pauline Kael's negative review of the film Gimme Shelter in The New Yorker included a harsh accusation that much of Gimme Shelter and Salesman had been staged and that the main subject of Salesman, Paul Brennan, was not a Bible salesman as the film portrayed, but was actually a roofing-and-siding salesman recruited as a professional actor. The Maysles brothers threatened legal action against The New Yorker after this accusation. They also sent an open letter to The New Yorker refuting Kael's claims; however, because the magazine at the time did not publish letters, the letter did not appear in print until 1996. In the case of Grey Gardens, the brothers were also accused of unfairly exploiting their subjects.

Many of the Maysleses' documentaries focus on art, artists and musicians. The Maysleses documented The Beatles' first visit to the United States in 1964, and a 1965 conceptual art project by Yoko Ono called "Cut Piece" in which she sat on the stage of Carnegie Hall while audience members cut off her clothing with scissors. Several Maysles films document art projects by Christo and Jeanne-Claude over a three-decade period, from 1974 when Christo's Valley Curtain was nominated for an Academy Award, to 2005 when The Gates (started in 1979 and completed by Albert after David's death) headlined New York's Tribeca Film Festival. Other Maysles subjects include Marlon Brando, Truman Capote, Vladimir Horowitz and Seiji Ozawa.