Salesman (1969)
Directed by: Albert
Maysles & David Maysles & Charlotte Zwerin.
It is odd
to think that a film made in 1969, about a profession that has all but become
extinct in the decades since (and was already on its way out at the time) still
feels very much like a portrait of modern America. Salesman is a documentary
that follows a few Bible salesmen, who work door-to-door, trying to sell their
expensive, illustrated bibles to people who don’t really need them, and cannot
really afford them. They do this with the help of local churches – that’s where
the names come from – and on behalf of a company who we see sell the salesmen
themselves on a life that are assuredly never going to have. Wealth is not
coming to any of these guys – no matter how good they are at selling. The film
really is about how the salesmen exploit the people they are selling to, at the
same time as being exploited by the company they work for. And what is the filmmaker’s
role in all of this? After all, when the salesmen show on the doorstep of the
people they are trying to convince to buy bibles, they are doing so with a film
crew in tow. And remember, this is 1969, when people didn’t obsessively
document every moment of their lives – and the equipment needed to film it all
was large and cumbersome. The reactions of all involved certainly changed
because they were being filmed.
Salesman
was the first feature film by the Maysles Brothers, Albert and David, who
alongside co-director and editor Charlotte Zwerin would follow this up with
Gimme Shelter (1970) – one of the greatest of all rock documentaries, and a
definitive statement on the end of the 1960s, and who (with different filmmakers,
not Zwerin) would make Grey Gardens (1975) – one of the most highly regarded
documentaries of all time just a few years later. Salesman is probably not
quite as well-known as those other two – it doesn’t have the benefit of the
Rolling Stones, or the eccentricities of Big and Little Edie to make it as
iconic as those films. But it is, in its way, a quietly sad film about its
subjects – all of whom are chasing their version of the American Dream, and not
really getting anywhere.
The sales
tactics the salesman use on the poor people whose houses they invade could be
described as high pressured, but friendly. They pretend to never hear the word
no, but they quite clearly hear every word they say, because everything they do
say, the salesmen turn it back on them, as another reason why they simply have
to have this bible. Isn’t it beautiful? Don’t you think you would get a lot of
use out of this? And who cannot afford just a couple of dollars a week – for
months on end. The people they meet almost all try and be friendly – even if
they know they don’t want it – they don’t want to say they don’t want it.
The film
ends up focusing on four salesmen – but really hones in on Paul – aka The
Badger (they all have animal names) who on the surface seems like the happiest
of the salesman – he is full of little jokes and one liners, he sings to
himself in the car – but is also the one who probably more than anyone else
sees through what they are doing. And yet, he is the saddest of them all as
well – a Willy Loman type, but one who realizes that he is Willy Loman, and is
just tired of it all. Where the rest of them are at least going through the
motions of trying to be successful, The Badger no longer much cares. There is
stench of desperation about him, and perhaps that’s why his sales are down.
Because,
of course, in America the confident man usually wins. Everyone knows, on some
level, that all of these salesmen are there to take advantage of them. No one
really needs a $50 bible – especially when you struggle to put food on the
table, and already have a bible of you own. But if you can confidentially sell
your crap, people want to buy, they want to believe – even if they know
somewhere they shouldn’t. Hell, you can become President that way.
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