Famed Documentarian Albert Maysles Dies At 88, Albert Maysles, who with his brother, David, helped redefine documentary filmmaking with such stark, slice-of-life movies as “Gimme Shelter,” about the Rolling Stones, and “Grey Gardens,” about an eccentric mother and daughter, died March 5 at his home in New York City. He was 88.
The death was confirmed by filmmaker Barbara Kopple, a close friend. The cause was pancreatic cancer.
Mr. Maysles (pronounced MAY-zuls) and his brother formed a partnership in the 1960s and produced dozens of films that were rigorous in their emotional detachment, yet often powerful in depicting real-life drama. They were considered masters of the cinema verité style, in which stories unfold without interference from the filmmakers.
Before David Maysles’s death in 1987, the brothers made films on musicians, social issues, celebrities and Bible salesmen. Albert Maysles was the cinematographer, carrying a lightweight camera on his shoulder, and his brother recorded the sound.
They were nominated for an Academy Award for best documentary for their 1973 film, “Christo’s Valley Curtain,” about the artist Christo, which New Yorker critic Calvin Tomkins called “by far the finest film I have seen about an artist and his work.”
Regardless of subject, all of the brothers’ films were made without scripts, interviews and predetermined plots. They derived their dramatic strength from the intimate presence of the handheld camera and the revelations of unguarded dialogue. The films have left a lasting influence on other cinema verité documentarians and on directors of feature films in Hollywood.
Perhaps the brothers’ most memorable work was “Grey Gardens” (1976), which explored the lives of an aging mother and daughter living in a dilapidated mansion on Long Island. Edith Bouvier was in her 80s at the time and her coquettish daughter, Edith Bouvier Beale, was in her late 50s. They were cousins of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis.
The women lived amid squalor, with dozens of cats, half-eaten meals and stacks of paper throughout the ramshackle house. They led lives marked by faded dreams, vanished wealth and self-delusion, and bickered like characters in a Tennessee Williams play.
Some critics charged that the Maysles brothers were exploiting the women, who clearly seemed to be in need of some kind of institutional help. But the mother and daughter never complained and seemed to relish the attention of the camera.
“The film is a Rorschach test for people’s acceptance of the unconventional and eccentric,” Mr. Maysles told the Boston Globe in 2001.
Entertainment Weekly magazine ranked “Grey Gardens” as the No. 33 cult film of all time. (The women’s decrepit house was later purchased and restored by the late Washington Post executive editor Benjamin C. Bradlee and his wife, Sally Quinn.)
The Maysles brothers had stirred critical dissent earlier with their 1970 documentary about the Rolling Stones, “Gimme Shelter.” The film captured the killing of a spectator near the stage at the Stones’ 1969 concert in Altamont, Calif.
The death was confirmed by filmmaker Barbara Kopple, a close friend. The cause was pancreatic cancer.
Mr. Maysles (pronounced MAY-zuls) and his brother formed a partnership in the 1960s and produced dozens of films that were rigorous in their emotional detachment, yet often powerful in depicting real-life drama. They were considered masters of the cinema verité style, in which stories unfold without interference from the filmmakers.
Before David Maysles’s death in 1987, the brothers made films on musicians, social issues, celebrities and Bible salesmen. Albert Maysles was the cinematographer, carrying a lightweight camera on his shoulder, and his brother recorded the sound.
They were nominated for an Academy Award for best documentary for their 1973 film, “Christo’s Valley Curtain,” about the artist Christo, which New Yorker critic Calvin Tomkins called “by far the finest film I have seen about an artist and his work.”
Regardless of subject, all of the brothers’ films were made without scripts, interviews and predetermined plots. They derived their dramatic strength from the intimate presence of the handheld camera and the revelations of unguarded dialogue. The films have left a lasting influence on other cinema verité documentarians and on directors of feature films in Hollywood.
Perhaps the brothers’ most memorable work was “Grey Gardens” (1976), which explored the lives of an aging mother and daughter living in a dilapidated mansion on Long Island. Edith Bouvier was in her 80s at the time and her coquettish daughter, Edith Bouvier Beale, was in her late 50s. They were cousins of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis.
The women lived amid squalor, with dozens of cats, half-eaten meals and stacks of paper throughout the ramshackle house. They led lives marked by faded dreams, vanished wealth and self-delusion, and bickered like characters in a Tennessee Williams play.
Some critics charged that the Maysles brothers were exploiting the women, who clearly seemed to be in need of some kind of institutional help. But the mother and daughter never complained and seemed to relish the attention of the camera.
“The film is a Rorschach test for people’s acceptance of the unconventional and eccentric,” Mr. Maysles told the Boston Globe in 2001.
Entertainment Weekly magazine ranked “Grey Gardens” as the No. 33 cult film of all time. (The women’s decrepit house was later purchased and restored by the late Washington Post executive editor Benjamin C. Bradlee and his wife, Sally Quinn.)
The Maysles brothers had stirred critical dissent earlier with their 1970 documentary about the Rolling Stones, “Gimme Shelter.” The film captured the killing of a spectator near the stage at the Stones’ 1969 concert in Altamont, Calif.
