Quartile rating: 7.5/10 · 1 rating
This documentary from Albert and David Maysles follows the bitter rivalry of four door-to-door salesmen working for the Mid-American Bible Company: Paul "The Badger" Brennan, Charles "The Gipper" McDevitt, James "The Rabbit" Baker and Raymond "The Bull" Martos. Times are tough for this hard-living quartet, who spend their days traveling through small-town America, trying their best to peddle gold-leaf Bibles to an apathetic crowd of lower-middle-class housewives and elderly couples.
Salesman is a landmark of direct cinema and observational documentary filmmaking. The Maysles brothers capture the quiet desperation of American salesmanship with an almost novelistic intimacy, making it one of the most distinctive nonfiction films ever made. The cinematography — handheld, unobtrusive, and remarkably naturalistic — is genuinely exceptional for its era and remains influential. The film's novelty is undeniable: its fly-on-the-wall approach, its subject matter, and its melancholy portrait of the American Dream feel utterly singular. Plot and ending are somewhat constrained by the documentary form — there's no dramatic arc so much as a slow accumulation of mood and character, and the conclusion, while tonally resonant, doesn't deliver a strong payoff. Acting is a non-category here since these are real people, though Paul Brennan's naturalistic presence borders on the uncanny.