Tag Archives: documentary film

RIP D. A. “direct cinema” Pennebaker (1925 – 2019)

D. A. Pennebaker was an American documentary filmmaker and one of the pioneers of direct cinema. Documentaries about performing artists and politics were his primary subjects. He was known for his hand-held camera aesthetic.

Pennebaker was an important chronicler of sixties counterculture.

To the general audience, he is probably best-known for the film clip to “Subterranean Homesick Blues“, in which Dylan displays and discards a series of cue cards bearing selected words and phrases from the lyrics of the song.

Domina Catherine Robbe-Grillet

The Ceremony (2014) is a documentary film directed by Lina Mannheimer which examines Catherine Robbe-Grilletnity (as dominatrix organizing ‘ceremonies’).

Catherine Robbe-Grillet (born 1930) is a French actress, photographer and writer best-known for her sadomasochistic novel L’Image.

For those of you who speak French, here is an interesting interview with Catherine when she published Alain (2012), a book on her marriage to her husband, Alain Robbe-Grillet, which lasted more than 50 years.

RIP Albert Maysles (1926 – 2015)

Albert Maysles was an American documentary filmmaker best-known for the documentaries Gimme Shelter (1970) Grey Gardens (1975).

He is best known for the direct cinema/cinéma vérité – documentaries he made with his brother.

You can watch Gimme Shelter[1] and Grey Gardens[2] in their totalities on YouTube. And Salesman[3] too (practically).

If your new to the Maysles, I’d start with Grey Gardens, the story of an eccentric mother and daugther.

The Love Life of the Octopus

The Love Life of the Octopus (1965, French: Amours de la pieuvre) is a film on octopi by Jean Painlevé, who is also the narrator. The music is by Pierre Henry.

Last year, or two years ago, I saw Microcosmos and for a while I was very much into the love lives of animals[1].

The Love Life of the Octopus has also a scene of lovemaking of octopi.