David Maysles Movies

From "wrapping" the Berlin Reichstag to transforming South Seas islands into massive pink water lilies to hanging drapes between the Colorado mountains, Christo qualifies as one of the most dynamic, innovative, and ambitious conceptual artists in modern history. Documentarians Albert and David Maysles have a long-running professional association with Christo (having co-directed such pictures as Christo's Valley Curtain and Christo's Islands); now, with their film The Gates, Albert Maysles and co-director Antonio Ferrera cover Christo and wife Jeanne-Claude's 26-year project to create a "golden river" of 7,500 fabric-paneled "gates" running through Central Park in February 2005. The endeavor began in 1979, but didn't overcome the necessary bureaucratic hurtles for 26 years, and only received a final go-ahead with a green light from New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg. The film reveals how Christo and Jeanne-Claude's 21-million-dollar project transforms the environment from one of winter bleakness to one of brisk, vibrant, and springlike colors. Though David Maysles (brother of Albert) did die in 1987, he received posthumous credit on this film for a sequence that the siblings co-directed in 1979. ~ Nathan Southern, All Movie Guide

In February of 1964, Beatlemania began to spread to American shores with the first U.S. visit of John, Paul, George and Ringo to play a short American tour and make two appearances on The Ed Sullivan Show. Noted documentary filmmakers David and Albert Maysles had the presence of mind to realize there was a story here, and they followed The Beatles with their cameras throughout their first American adventure, capturing the magic of their music and the glorious madness that was Beatlemania. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

Albert and David Maysles, pioneers in the cinéma vérité movement of documentary filmmaking, chose for their subjects of this film a mother and daughter with celebrity connections. Edith Bouvier Beale and her daughter, Edie (or, as they are called by the brothers, Big Edie and Little Edie), are aunt and cousin to Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis. In the early '70s, their 28-room mansion in Long Island's tony community of East Hampton was found to be a health hazard, and the two women, in their seventies and fifties, were threatened with eviction. Jacqueline Onassis paid for the house to be put in good order, and two years later, the Maysles paid the ladies a series of follow-up visits. This is not fly-on-the-wall filmmaking; the brothers are sometimes shown on-camera, and both women talk directly to them. Big Edie reminisces about her husband (from whom she has long been separated) and her youthful singing career; Little Edie ruminates over memories of her thwarted romances and confides that she has to get out of Grey Gardens (the name of their estate), although she has been living there since 1952; and the two women pick at each other for transgressions past and present. The women share their home with at least five cats and several raccoons, for whom Little Edie leaves out food in the attic. They are not recluses; they host a modest 79th birthday party for Big Edie, they employ a gardener, and they are often visited by Jerry, a young handyman/lost soul whom Little Edie calls "the Marble Faun," after the Nathaniel Hawthorne story. "It's very difficult to keep the line between the past and the present," Little Edie says near the beginning of the film, and it becomes clear that both women are much more comfortable reliving their respective youths (in some ways, Little Edie has never left hers) than facing their rather bleak old and middle age. ~ Tom Wiener, All Movie Guide

This musical documentary concerns the Rolling Stones and their tragic free concert at Altamont Speedway near San Francisco in early December 1969. The event was all but destroyed by violence that marked the end of the peace and love euphoria of the 1960s. The night began smoothly, with the supercharged Flying Burrito Brothers opening up for the Rolling Stones and performing the truck-driving classic "Six Days on the Road" and Tina Turner giving a sensually charged performance. But on this particular evening, the Stones made the fateful (and disastrous) decision to hire the Oakland chapter of the Hell's Angels motorcycle gang as bodyguards and bouncers. It was a foolhardy, careless choice that turned the night into an unmitigated disaster; halfway through the Stones' act, the Angels killed one black spectator, and injured several others who were present (including Jefferson Airplane's lead singer Marty Balin). In the film, we watch Mick Jagger -- ere an ebullient, charismatic performer of bisexual charm -- reduced to standing on stage like a frightened child with his finger in his mouth in wake of the violence. Unsurprisingly, the Grateful Dead refused to perform after the violence erupted; the picture ends on a despairing note, with the Stones repeatedly watching a film of the murder. Celebrated documentarians Albert and David Maysles directed and Haskell Wexler shot the film, with heightened instinct and control; as a result, this film is considered one of the greatest rock documentaries ever made. Stones songs performed include "Brown Sugar," "Under My Thumb," and "Sympathy for the Devil." ~ Dan Pavlides, All Movie Guide

Sandwiched in between 1968's Monterey Pop and 1970s Gimme Shelter was documentary filmmaking brothers Albert and David Maysles' groundbreaking 1969 look at door-to-door salesmen in America, About Salesman. With themes covered previously in the fictional Death of a Salesman and later in Glengarry Glen Ross, the Maysles' film attempts to unflinchingly present a window into the harsh realities of the life of the American salesman by following around several door-to-door Bible peddlers. While a handful of participants are featured, the main focus is on Paul Brennan, an aging salesman who, after a successful career, has begun to suspect that he's lost his gift for selling expensive Bibles to his lower-class customers. ~ Matthew Tobey, All Movie Guide