Avis Metacritic

A vérité masterpiece of the bulls**t that America sells itself, Albert and David Maysles’ Salesman, from 1968, documents a way of life that was dying even then — the soiling grind of getting by as a door-to-door salesman, talking people who don’t want you there into buying junk they don’t need with money they’re almost certainly short on.

An uncompromising documentary which simply lays its subject bare and dares us not be moved by the raw humanity on display.

More than 30 years removed from its theatrical release, Salesman looks less like the story of four traveling salesmen than the story of America itself.

It’s such a fine, pure picture of a small section of American life that I can’t imagine its ever seeming irrelevant, either as a social document or as one of the best examples of what’s called cinema verite or direct cinema.

Beautifully edited by Charlotte Zwerin, this film is required viewing for anyone concerned with documentary.

If you want a genuinely Millerian cinematic experience, the best way to go is to get hold of Salesman, a 1968 documentary made by Albert and David Maysles, along with Charlotte Zwerin.

The filmmakers, despite their rueful gaze, inspire empathy for all parties to this miserable commerce.

A subtler and less bombastic companion piece to Arthur Miller's most famous play, Salesman is an exemplar of nonfictional material shaped and illuminated by sophisticated filmmakers who have absorbed the devices of fictional storytelling.

An immersive drama that bridges real-life details with the catharses of parables with expressionistic on-the-fly camerawork, a blend of the textural and the poetic that’s hallucinatory and profound.

You'll never see a more depressing tale than Salesman. Glengarry Glen Ross has nothing on this 1968 documentary about sad-sack door-to-door Bible salesmen by the Maysles brothers. [07 Sep 2001]