Films
A Journey to Jerusalem
Albert Maysles, David Maysles, Michael Mindlin Jr., 1968, 84 min
Leonard Bernstein and violinist Isaac Stern perform with the New York Philharmonic for Israelis and Arabs -- two weeks after the Six-Day War. Music on Mount Scopus inter-cut with refugees, wounded, and old Jerusalem. Co-produced with Filmways, Inc. Shown theatrically in America, televised in Europe and Israel.
A Visit with Truman Capote
Albert Maysles, David Maysles, Charlotte Zwerin, 1966, 29 min
A VISIT WITH TRUMAN CAPOTE (alternate title: WITH LOVE FROM TRUMAN) portrays an intimate meeting with renowned author Truman Capote. As a reporter interviews him in his beachfront home, Capote shares his "self-regarding" personality through hip philosophy and calculated jokes. He offers insights in an endearingly raspy voice about his latest book, In Cold Blood, which Capote declares to be part of a new genre, the "non-fiction novel." Just as the Maysles brothers' direct cinema classics turn real stories into…
Abortion: Desperate Choices
Albert Maysles, Deborah Dickson, Susan Froemke, 1992, 67 min
An intensely personal exploration of an explosive issue -- abortion in America. Wrenching first-person narratives from seven decades of women, each one facing an unplanned pregnancy -- and the dreadful decision that no one wants to make. Both pro-life and pro-choice, both out front on the picket line and inside the clinic, these women's stories turn politics into heart-searing drama: a pregnant 17-year-old and her pro-life mother whose conflict unfolds in front of the camera; a 22-year-old who became a…
Accent on the Offbeat
Albert Maysles, Deborah Dickson, Susan Froemke, 1994, 56 min
A dance and musical collaboration unfolds for the New York City Ballet. Original choreography by Peter Martins to an original score by Wynton Marsalis.
Anastasia
Albert Maysles, David Maysles, 1962, 8 min
An early Maysles Bros. “work for hire” for the NBC network news program Update. Produced at the height of the Cold War by acclaimed screenwriter Bo Goldman, the subject is one Anastasia Stevens, an American dancer in the Bolshoi Ballet.
Baroque Duet
Albert Maysles, Susan Froemke, Peter Gelb, Pat Jaffe, 1992, 78 min
Opera star Kathleen Battle and jazz trumpeter Wynton Marsalis go baroque. Rehearsals and recording sessions bring both singer and trumpeter together to explore 17th century music. Marsalis throughout worries about his intonation and is awed by Battle. The soprano, for her part, is endlessly amused and supportive. The filming team follows Battle to her hometown, where she makes a special appearance with her old church choir. Marsalis spends the break-time in New Orleans coaching young jazz musicians, and performing with…
Christo in Paris
Albert Maysles, David Maysles, Deborah Dickson, Susan Froemke, 1990, 58 min
Christo and Jeanne Claude's first grand-scale urban project, wrapping the oldest bridge in Paris - the same bridge where Christo courted Jeanne-Claude. A love story set in the heart of Paris: between a refugee artist and a French General's daughter; between a 400-year-old bridge and the people of Paris. Since the days of King Henry IV, the Pont Neuf has inspired artists. Now it is the focus of the environmental artists, Christo and his wife Jeanne-Claude - and the millions…
Christo’s Valley Curtain
Albert Maysles, David Maysles, Ellen Giffard [Hovde], 1974, 28 min
Nominated for an Academy Award, CHRISTO'S VALLEY CURTAIN celebrates the Bulgarian-born artist's dramatic hanging of a huge orange curtain between two Colorado mountains. Since the late 1950's, Christo's large-scale temporary works of art have helped change our perception of art and society. CHRISTO'S VALLEY CURTAIN is the permanent record of a project that rocked the artistic community and turned skeptical iron-workers into astonished fans. Conceived and financed by Christo and his wife and partner Jeanne-Claude, this was no ordinary curtain.…
Close-up: Photographers at Work “Portraits”
Albert Maysles, Bradley Kaplan, 2009, 43 min
This series for Ovation Television offers a unique window into the creative state of mind of today's most brilliant photographers, including Bruce Davidson, Brigitte Lacombe, Susan Meiselas, Steve McCurry, Jay Maisel and Miru Kim.
Concert of the Wills: Making the Getty Center
Albert Maysles, Bob Eisenhardt, Susan Froemke, 1997, 100 min
Filmed over the course of twelve years, CONCERT OF WILLS chronicles the conception, construction and completion of the most eagerly anticipated architectural undertaking of this century. The film offers a rare look at a creative process in action, where different aesthetic philosophies meet head on and are passionately defended. The Getty Center, a sprawling, six-building hillside complex, fourteen years in the making, was to be the architectural vision of renowned architect Richard Meier -- famous for his grand, minimalist white…
Cut Piece
Albert Maysles, David Maysles, 1966, 8 min
Filmed at New York’s Carnegie Hall, CUT PIECE documents one of Yoko Ono’s most powerful conceptual pieces. Performed by the artist herself, Ono sits motionless on the stage after inviting the audience to come up and cut away her clothing in a denouement of the reciprocity between victim and assailant.
Get Yer Ya-Ya’s Out!
Albert Maysles, Bradley Kaplan, Ian Marciewicz, 2009, 28 min
GET YER YA-YA’S OUT! is a chronicle of The Rolling Stones’ epic performance at Madison Square Garden in November 1969. Albert and David Maysles famously documented the Rolling Stones’ 1969 U.S. tour in the feature documentary GIMME SHELTER, released in 1970. Now, Albert Maysles has put together never-before seen archive footage that shows the band — Mick Jagger, Keith Richards, Charlie Watts, Mick Taylor and Bill Wyman — at its apogee, wowing New York audiences at Madison Square Garden over…
Gimme Shelter
Albert Maysles, David Maysles, Charlotte Zwerin, 1970, 91 min
The landmark documentary about the tragically ill-fated Rolling Stones free concert at Altamont Speedway on December 6, 1969. Only four months earlier, Woodstock defined the Love Generation; now it lay in ruins on a desolate racetrack six miles outside of San Francisco. Before an estimated crowd of 300,000 people, the Stones headlined a free concert featuring Tina Turner, Jefferson Airplane, The Flying Burrito Brothers and others. Concerned about security, members of outlaw biker gang The Hell's Angels were asked to…
Grey Gardens
Albert Maysles, David Maysles, Ellen Hovde, Muffie Meyer, 1976, 94 min
GREY GARDENS is the unbelievable but true story of Mrs. Edith Bouvier Beale and her daughter Edie, the aunt and first cousin of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis. Mother and daughter live in a world of their own behind the towering privets that surround their decaying 28-room East Hampton mansion known as "Grey Gardens," a place so far gone that the local authorities once threatened to evict them for violating building and sanitation codes. The incident made national headlines -- American royalty,…
Horowitz Plays Mozart
Albert Maysles, Susan Froemke, Charlotte Zwerin, 1987, 50 min
In March 1987, pianist Vladimir Horowitz embarked on an extraordinary project. For the first time in 35 years, he agreed to record with a symphony orchestra in a studio. He chose the conductor, Carlo Maria Giulini, the orchestra, the La Scala Philharmonic, and the location, the Abanella recording studio of La Scala in Milan. Horowitz steadfastly refused to allow the month-long sessions to be filmed, until the evening before the last scheduled session when he unexpectedly changed his mind. His…
IBM: A Self Portrait
Albert Maysles, David Maysles, 1964, 35 min
Told in the Maysles’ intimatible style, IBM: A SELF PORTRAIT captures the future corporate juggernaut at an early stage of their development. The emphasis here is on the human ingenuity behind the technology industry-- the colorful technicians and executives working together to create a future design for living.
IN TRANSIT
A film by Albert Maysles, Lynn True, Nelson Walker, Ben Wu, David Usui 2015, U.S., 76 minutes
IN TRANSIT is a journey into the hearts and minds of passengers aboard Amtrak's Empire Builder, the busiest long-distance train route in America. Filmed over multiple trips in 2014-15 with unique access from Amtrak, IN TRANSIT unfolds as a series of interconnected vignettes, ranging from overheard conversations to moments of great intimacy, ultimately revealing a deeply personal portrait of America. As the train traverses the country, passing through major cities, suburbs, farmland, oil fields, mountains and forest, the diverse landscape…
Iris
Albert Maysles, 2014, 78 min
IRIS pairs legendary 87-year-old documentarian Albert Maysles with Iris Apfel, the quick-witted, flamboyantly dressed 93-year-old style maven who has had an outsized presence on the New York fashion scene for decades. More than a fashion film, the documentary is a story about creativity and how, even in Iris' dotage, a soaring free spirit continues to inspire. IRIS portrays a singular woman whose enthusiasm for fashion, art and people are life's sustenance and reminds us that dressing, and indeed life, is…
Islands
Albert Maysles, David Maysles, Charlotte Zwerin, 1986, 56 min
For two brief weeks in May of 1983, Christo and Jeanne-Claude's piece entitled Surrounded Islands blossomed on the waters of Biscayne Bay, Florida. Eleven scrub- pine islands were surrounded by 6.5 million square feet of bright pink fabric. A three-year struggle, a work of art; a political drama interwoven with two other projects-in-progress; the wrapping of the Pont Neuf in Paris and the Reichstag in Berlin. This film goes beyond art. In each one of their projects, Christo and Jeanne-Claude…
Jessye Norman Sings Carmen
Albert Maysles, Susan Froemke, Peter Gelb, Charlotte Zwerin, 1989, 57 min
The epic tale of seduction and betrayal known as Carman was brought to life in a new and radiant interpretation when the great talent, Jessye Norman, sings the role for the first time. Filmed in Paris during the summer of 1988 in special closed recording sessions with Seiji Ozawa and the Orchestre National de France, JESSYE NORMAN SINGS CARMEN presents the opera's greatest musical moments in their entirety, coupled with a compelling portrait of Miss Norman's approach to mastering the…
Lalee’s Kin: The Legacy of Cotton
Albert Maysles, Deborah Dickson, Susan Froemke, 2001, 88 min
LALEE's KIN takes us deep into the Mississippi Delta and the intertwined lives of LaLee Wallace, a great-grandmother struggling to hold her world together in the face of dire poverty, and Reggie Barnes, superintendent of the embattled West Tallahatchie School System. The film explores the painful legacy of slavery and sharecropping in the Delta. 62 -year old LaLee Wallace is the lifeblood of this film. Matriarch to an extended family that moves in and out of her house, LaLee is…
Letting Go: A Hospice Journey
Albert Maysles, Deborah Dickson, Susan Froemke, 1996, 90 min
In our society, death fills the airwaves, it targets strangers, creates statistics. Yet when it finally gets personal, we are ill-equipped. Coping with the inevitability of death is the subject of LETTING GO: A HOSPICE JOURNEY. Exploring this almost taboo subject through the stories of three hospice patients, the film creates an understanding of the hospice movement -- physical, emotional and spiritual assistance to terminally ill people and their families. In Sonoma County, California, 62-year-old Ralph Armstrong lies in a…
Meet Marlon Brando
Albert Maysles, David Maysles, 1966, 29 min
MEET MARLON BRANDO is a delightful, unusually candid portrait of the world-famous movie star: A tongue-in-cheek confrontation with the press. While television journalists interview him about his most recent film, Brando counters their futile questions with wit and insight, a man unwilling to sell himself. "It's a wonderful show," one woman comments about the new project. "Did you see it?" he asks. "No, I haven't seen it yet." "Then how do you know?" Always smiling and never modest, Marlon Brando…
More Than a Paycheck: America’s Hardest Workers
Albert Maysles, Bradley Kaplan, 2011, 25 min
Albert Maysles turns his lens on some of the country's greatest unsung heroes in this documentary special featuring five individuals who have raised the bar for hard work in America today. Featuring a cattle rancher in South Dakota, a baker in Brooklyn, and including the winner of Mitchum's Hardest Working Person in America contest, Chad Pregracke of East Moline, IL (who has removed over 7 million pounds of garbage from the Mississippi River), Maysles Films gives us a unique, behind-the-scenes…
Muhammad and Larry
Albert Maysles, David Maysles, Bradley Kaplan, 1980/2009, 27 min/52 min
An integral part of ESPN’s “30 For 30” Anniversary Film Series, MUHAMMAD AND LARRY (2009) combines one-of-a-kind, never- before-seen archival footage from 1980 with newly-produced reflective conversations with boxing experts, luminaries, and those who were at the fight. Maysles intimately documented both Muhammad Ali and Larry Holmes, from sparring matches to private moments at home, as they prepared for their upcoming fight in 1980. MUHAMMAD AND LARRY takes a closer look at the connection that evolved, inside and out of…
Orson Welles In Spain
Albert Maysles, David Maysles, 1963, 10 min
Orson Welles pitches to potential investors his vision of a largely improvised bullfighter movie about an existential, James Dean type, troubadour who sets himself apart from other matadors. In front of an audience of wealthy arts patrons, Welles pontificates on the state of cinema, the filmmaking process and the art of bullfighting.
Ozawa
Albert Maysles, David Maysles, Deborah Dickson, Susan Froemke, Ellen Hovde, 1985, 66 min
A backstage look at one of classical music's best- known yet least understood figures. Ozawa has been music director of the Boston Symphony since 1973, and as one of the world's top maestros he appears in such musical capitals as Berlin, Paris and Milan. Yet the first East Asian to succeed in a quintessentially Western art form remains solidly Japanese in temperament and outlook. It is this contrast of cultures-and its effect on his music making-that makes him such a…
Psychiatry In Russia
Albert Maysles, 1955, 14 min
In 1955, Albert Maysles traveled by motorcycle throughout Russia. During this trip, he shot what was to become his first film, PSYCHIATRY IN RUSSIA, an unprecedented view into Soviet mental healthcare. Originally televised in 1956 by the David Garroway Show on NBC-TV and WGBH public television.
Running Fence
Albert Maysles, David Maysles, Charlotte Zwerin, 1978, 57 min
A celebration of Christo and Jeanne-Claude's vision; first a four-year struggle, then 24 1/2 miles of white nylon fabric, rising from the Pacific and stretching like a white sail across California. RUNNING FENCE depicts the long struggle by the artists, Christo and Jeanne-Claude, to build a 24 mile fence of white fabric over the hills of California disappearing into the Pacific. Cost: 3 million dollars. The idea at first must seem the limit of absurdity for the fence was taken…
Russian Close-Up
Albert Maysles, 1957, 33 min
Albert Maysles' visual diary of the faces and places encountered along a cross country motorscooter ride through the Soviet Union in the late 1950s.
Safari Ya Gari
Albert Maysles, 1961, 10 min
This early travelogue film, made in a Kenyan train station, captures an impromptu musical performance. Some passengers eagerly join in while others sleep-- blissfully unaware of the performance taking place around them.
Salesman
Albert Maysles, David Maysles, Charlotte Zwerin, 1969, 90 min
SALESMAN follows four door-to-door Bible salesmen as they walk the line between hype and despair. Paul "The Badger" Brennan, Charles "The Gipper" McDevitt, James "The Rabbit" Baker, and Raymond "The Bull" Martos, are so nicknamed for their particular selling styles -- on their rounds. First making calls in and around Boston, where the company is based, then in Chicago at a sales conference, and finally in the promising new "territory" of Miami and vicinity. Their mission is simple: to convince…
Sally Gross – The Pleasure of Stillness
Albert Maysles, Kristen Nutile, 2007, 60 min
SALLY GROSS - THE PLEASURE OF STILLNESS is an intimate portrait about the life and work of critically acclaimed dancer and choreographer Sally Gross. Called "the most poetic of minimalist modern-dance choreographers" by New York Times dance critic Jennifer Dunning, Sally Gross has been dancing for more than fifty years. The film gives the audience an insight into the life and creative process of a true New York artist who has been involved in a number of groundbreaking art movements…
Showman
Albert Maysles, David Maysles, 1963, 53 min
A mogul in-the-making. SHOWMAN follows movie merchant, Joe Levine during the ballyhoo of Two Women and Sofia Loren's Oscar-winning performance. Levine wheels and deals his way through daily life - surrounded by movie stars, fellow tycoons and yes-men. Levine grew up in the slums of Boston where he became a small-time distributor of films. Only a few years ago he could be seen toting a can of film under his arm. New England was his territory. Today (at the time…
Soldiers of Music: Rostropovich Returns to Russia
Albert Maysles, Bob Eisenhardt, Susan Froemke, Peter Gelb, 1991, 88 min
When the cellist and conductor Mstislav Rostropovich returned to the Soviet Union, after 16 years in exile, he could barely restrain his tears or his laughter. He downed a full glass of vodka in celebration, as he was welcomed at a dinner in the Moscow apartment that was once his home; he leaped through two feet of snow, eager to reach the door of his dacha behind which he had once harbored the Nobel-prize winning novelist, Alexander Solzhenitsyn; and he…
The Beales of Grey Gardens
Albert Maysles, David Maysles, Ian Markiewicz, 2006, 90 min
A love letter to the fans of the original film and to the two women at its heart, THE BEALES OF GREY GARDENS is drawn entirely from never-before-seen material from the Maysles archive. Edited from hours and hours of footage shot between 1973 and 1976, it captures ‘Big’ Edie and ‘Little’ Edie at their resplendent, dazzling and exasperating best—philosophizing on God, love and war amidst the disorder of their ramshackle East Hampton mansion, with a montage tribute to Little Edie’s…
The Burk Family of Georgia
Albert Maysles, David Maysles, Ellen Hovde, Muffie Meyer, 1978, 55 min
Televised nationwide as part of the groundbreaking PBS series "Six American Families.", THE BURK FAMILY OF GEORGIA (alternate title: THE BURKS OF GEORGIA) tells the story of three generations of The Burks, a poor white family struggling to feed and clothe thirteen children, living in rural Georgia.
The Gates
Albert Maysles, David Maysles, Antonio Ferrera, Matthew Prinzing, 2007, 87 min
Albert Maysles and his brother David began filming for THE GATES in 1979, as Christo and Jeanne-Claude began actively pushing their project forward. Maysles’ team attended community board hearings, capturing the emerging controversy as the Park’s poorer communities to the North voted in favor of the project, while the Park’s richest neighborhoods to the East and South opposed it. Parks Commissioner Gordon Davis denied the artists permission, citing the risk of setting a dangerous public use precedent, despite the city’s…
The Love We Make
Albert Maysles, Bradley Kaplan, Ian Markiewicz, 2011, 91 min
Directed by Albert Maysles and Bradley Kaplan, THE LOVE WE MAKE follows Paul McCartney through the streets of New York City in the immediate aftermath of the 9/11 attacks as he organizes an all-star benefit concert, The Concert for New York City. On the morning of September 11, 2001 McCartney was in a plane on the tarmac, about to leave NYC when the attacks occurred. Grounded, he returned to the city and witnessed first-hand the shock and devastation that overtook…
The Met in Japan
Albert Maysles, Susan Froemke, 1989, 21 min
A visit to Japan by the New York Metropolitan Opera. Kathleen Battle and Placido Domingo sing Mozart, Offenbach and Verdi, conducted by Maestros Levine and Rudel.
Umbrellas
Albert Maysles, Henry Corra, Grahame Weinbren, 1994, 81 min
UMBRELLAS takes a poignant, in-depth look at the concept and realization of Christo and Jeanne-Claude's project, Umbrellas: Joint Project for Japan and U.S.A presenting the artist at his most triumphant and most vulnerable moments - from the exaltation of the project's opening day through unexpected tragedies at the end. The artists chose sites with contrasting cultures, among people who were unsophisticated about art; a rice-farming valley in the Japanese province of lbaraki, 72 miles north of Tokyo, and a cluster…
Vladimir Horowitz: The Last Romantic
Albert Maysles, David Maysles, Deborah Dickson, Susan Froemke, Patricia Jaffe, 1985, 88 min
Horowitz explores his latest passion - Mozart - during his first studio recording in over 35 years. Wit, wisdom and a maestro performance.
What’s Happening! The Beatles in the USA
Albert Maysles, David Maysles, 1964, 74 min
A humorous, freewheeling and candid account of The Beatles arrival in America in February 1964. The Maysles follow the Fab Four for five days, from the crazed JFK airport reception to unguarded moments inside the Plaza Hotel in preparation for their landmark Ed Sullivan Show appearance to their equally frenzied homecoming. Inspiring Richard Lester’s A HARD DAY'S NIGHT (1964), WHAT'S HAPPENING! THE BEATLES IN THE USA was subsequently rereleased by Apple Corps. in an edited version as THE BEATLES: THE…