Albert Maysles
From the Rolling Stones in concert to the work of Christo and Jeanne-Claude; from the lives of Bible salesmen to the final days of patients in hospice care: these and many others have been the subject of the penetrating documentary gaze of Albert Maysles. Born in Boston, Massachusetts in 1926, Albert Maysles was initially drawn to the study of psychology, teaching for three years at Boston University. In 1955, his interest in psychology crossed over into an interest in film, when he traveled to the Soviet Union to document mental healthcare in that country (Psychiatry in Russia, 1955). Joining forces with his brother David, the team soon caught the eye of the film world with their movie Showman (1963), a portrait of then up-and-coming movie producer Joe Levine. Multiple successful documentaries followed, covering a wide range of subjects, including the Beatles (What's Happening! The Beatles in the U.S.A., 1964), IBM (IBM: A Self Portrait, 1964), Marlon Brando (Meet Marlon Brando, 1965), Yoko Ono (Cut Piece, 1965), and Truman Capote (With Love from Truman, 1966). A trilogy of films cemented the brothers' reputation in the public eye: Salesman (1968) where four door-to-door Bible salesmen pitch their wares in Boston, Chicago, and Miami; Gimme Shelter (1970) documenting the disastrous Rolling Stones free concert at the Altamont Speedway; and Grey Gardens (1976), the story of the unusual lives of Mrs. Edith Bouvier Beale and her daughter Edie, aunt and first cousin of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis. The collaboration between Albert and David continued throughout the seventies and into the eighties, focusing on musical figures such as pianist Vladimir Horowitz and conductor Seiji Ozawa, as well as an ongoing multifilm project documenting the works of Christo and Jeanne-Claude. After David's death in 1987, Albert continued to make documentaries, continuing the profiles of musical performers (Jessye Norman Sings Carmen, 1989; Soldiers of Music: Rostropovich Returns to Russia, 1991; Baroque Duet, 1992) and the Christo project, as well as extending into new areas, such as abortion in America (Abortion: Desperate Choices, 1992), patients and families facing death (Letting Go: A Hospice Journey, 1996), and the legacy of slavery and sharecropping in the Mississippi Delta (LaLee's Kin: The Legacy of Cotton, 2000). Albert Maysles remains active today, with multiple projects in progress, including a documentary celebrating a half-century of his cinematographic accomplishments.
