D. A. Pennebaker
Encyclopedia
Donn Alan Pennebaker is an American
documentary film
maker and one of the pioneers of Direct Cinema
/Cinéma vérité
. Performing arts
and politics
are his primary subjects.
, the son of Lucille Levick (née
Deemer) and John Paul Pennebaker, who was a commercial photographer. Pennebaker served in the Navy and later worked as an engineer, founding Electronics Engineering (the makers of the first computerized airline reservation system) before beginning his film career.
After falling under the influence of experimental filmmaker Francis Thompson, Pennebaker directed his first film, Daybreak Express, in 1953. Set to a classic Duke Ellington
recording of the same name, the five-minute short of the soon-to-be-demolished Third Avenue elevated subway station in New York City is the earliest known example of Pennebaker's penchant for blending together documentary and experimental filmmaking techniques.
In 1959, Pennebaker joined the equipment sharing Filmakers' [sic] Co-op and co-founded Drew Associates with Richard Leacock
and former LIFE
magazine editor and correspondent Robert Drew
. A crucial moment in the development of Direct Cinema, the collective produced documentary films for clients like ABC News
(for their television series, Close-up) and Time-Life
Broadcast (for their syndicated television series, Living Camera). Their first major film, Primary (1960), documented John F. Kennedy
and Hubert Humphrey
's respective campaigns in the 1960 Wisconsin
Democratic Primary election. Drew, Leacock and Pennebaker, as well as photographers Albert Maysles
, Terrence McCartney Filgate and Bill Knoll, all filmed the campaigning from dawn to midnight over the course of five days. Widely considered to be the first candid and comprehensive look at the day-by-day events of a Presidential race, it was the first film in which the sync sound camera could move freely with characters throughout a breaking story, a major technical achievement that laid the groundwork for modern-day documentary filmmaking. It would later be selected as an historic American film for inclusion in the Library of Congress
' National Film Registry
in 1990.
Drew Associates would produce nine more documentaries for Living Camera, including Crisis, which chronicled President Kennedy and Attorney General Robert Kennedy's conflict with governor George Wallace
over school desegregation. Then in 1963, Pennebaker and Leacock left the organization to form their own production firm, Leacock-Pennebaker, Inc. Pennebaker would direct a number of short films over the course of two years. One of them was a rare recording of jazz vocalist Dave Lambert, as he formed a new quintet with singers such as David Lucas
, and auditioned for RCA
. The audition was not successful, and Lambert died suddenly in a car accident shortly thereafter, leaving Pennebaker's film as one of the few visual recordings of the singer, and the only recording of the songs in those rehearsals. The documentary got attention in Europe, and a few weeks later, Bob Dylan
's manager, Albert Grossman
, approached Pennebaker about filming Dylan while he was touring in England.
The resulting work, Dont Look Back
(sic) became a landmark in both film and rock history, "evoking the '60s like few other documents," according to film critic Jonathan Rosenbaum
. The opening sequence alone (set to Dylan's "Subterranean Homesick Blues" with Dylan standing in an alleyway, dropping cardboard flash cards) became a precursor to modern music videos. It would later be included in the Library of Congress
' National Film Registry
in 1998, and it was later ranked at #6 on Time Out magazine's list of the 50 best documentaries of all time.
Pennebaker would also film Dylan's subsequent tour of England in 1966
, but while some of this work has been released in different forms (supplying the framework for Martin Scorsese
's Bob Dylan documentary, No Direction Home
, and re-edited by Dylan himself in the rarely-distributed Eat the Document
), Pennebaker's own film of the tour (Something Is Happening) remains unreleased. Nevertheless, the tour itself has become one of the most celebrated events in rock history, and some of the Nagra recordings made for Pennebaker's film were later released on Dylan's own records.
The same year Dont Look Back
was released in theaters, Pennebaker worked with author Norman Mailer
on the first of many film collaborations. He was also hired to film the Monterey Pop Festival
, which is now regarded as an important event in rock history on par with 1969's Woodstock Festival
. Pennebaker produced a number of films from the event, capturing breakthrough performances from The Jimi Hendrix Experience
, Otis Redding
and Janis Joplin
that remain seminal documents in rock history. The first of these films, Monterey Pop
, was released in 1968 and was later ranked at #42 on Time Out magazine's list of the 50 best documentaries of all time. Other performers like Jefferson Airplane
and The Who
also received major exposure from Pennebaker's work.
Pennebaker continued to film some of the era's most influential rock artists, including John Lennon
(whom he first met while filming Dylan in England), Little Richard
, Jerry Lee Lewis
and most notably David Bowie
during his famous "farewell" concert in 1973
. He also collaborated with Jean-Luc Godard
in 1968 on a film that he eventually finished by himself and released several years later as One PM.
Pennebaker's film company was also a notable distributor of foreign films, including Godard's La Chinoise
(the American opening of which became the context for One PM), but the endeavor was ultimately a short-lived and costly business venture. Then around 1976, Pennebaker met experimental filmmaker turned documentarian Chris Hegedus. The two soon became collaborators and then married in 1982.
In 1988, Pennebaker, Hegedus and David Dawkins followed Depeche Mode
at the height of the band's career as they toured the U.S. in support of Music for the Masses
, their commercial breakthrough in America. The resulting film, 101
, was released the following year.
In 1992, during the start of the Democratic primaries, Pennebaker and Hegedus approached campaign officials for Arkansas
governor Bill Clinton
about filming his presidential run. They were granted limited access to the candidate but allowed to focus on lead strategist James Carville
and communications director George Stephanopoulos
. The resulting work, The War Room
, became one of their most celebrated films, winning the award for Best Documentary from the National Board of Review of Motion Pictures
and earning an Academy Award nomination for Best Documentary Feature
.
Pennebaker and Hegedus continue to produce a large number of documentary films through their company, Pennebaker Hegedus Films, most notably Moon Over Broadway
(1998), Down from the Mountain
(2001), Startup.com
(2001), Elaine Stritch: At Liberty (2004) , Al Franken: God Spoke
(2006), and Kings of Pastry
(2009).
In May 2010, they directed their first live show when they directed a YouTube webcast of the National
performing a benefit show at the Brooklyn Academy of Music
. That same year Kings of Pastry
opened at multiple film festivals, including IDFA, Sheffield Doc/Fest, DOX BOX
, the Berlin International Film Festival and Hot Docs, before premiering in New York City.
is "not a documentary at all by my standards." He instead repeatedly asserts that he does not make documentaries, but "records of moments," "half soap operas," and "semimusical reality things."
An accomplished engineer, Pennebaker developed one of the first fully portable, synchronized 16mm camera and sound recording systems which revolutionized modern filmmaking. His aesthetic and technical breakthroughs have also had a major influence on narrative filmmaking, influencing such realist masterworks as Barbara Loden
's Wanda
, which was filmed and edited by one of Pennebaker's proteges, Nicholas Proferes, and even popular satires such as Tim Robbins
' Bob Roberts
.
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
documentary film
Documentary film
Documentary films constitute a broad category of nonfictional motion pictures intended to document some aspect of reality, primarily for the purposes of instruction or maintaining a historical record...
maker and one of the pioneers of Direct Cinema
Direct Cinema
Direct Cinema is a documentary genre that originated between 1958 and 1962 in North America, principally in the Canadian province of Quebec and the United States...
/Cinéma vérité
Cinéma vérité
Cinéma vérité is a style of documentary filmmaking, combining naturalistic techniques with stylized cinematic devices of editing and camerawork, staged set-ups, and the use of the camera to provoke subjects. It is also known for taking a provocative stance toward its topics.There are subtle yet...
. Performing arts
Performing arts
The performing arts are those forms art which differ from the plastic arts insofar as the former uses the artist's own body, face, and presence as a medium, and the latter uses materials such as clay, metal or paint which can be molded or transformed to create some physical art object...
and politics
Politics
Politics is a process by which groups of people make collective decisions. The term is generally applied to the art or science of running governmental or state affairs, including behavior within civil governments, but also applies to institutions, fields, and special interest groups such as the...
are his primary subjects.
Biography
Pennebaker (known as "Penny" to his friends) was born in Evanston, IllinoisEvanston, Illinois
Evanston is a suburban municipality in Cook County, Illinois 12 miles north of downtown Chicago, bordering Chicago to the south, Skokie to the west, and Wilmette to the north, with an estimated population of 74,360 as of 2003. It is one of the North Shore communities that adjoin Lake Michigan...
, the son of Lucille Levick (née
Married and maiden names
A married name is the family name adopted by a person upon marriage. When a person assumes the family name of her spouse, the new name replaces the maiden name....
Deemer) and John Paul Pennebaker, who was a commercial photographer. Pennebaker served in the Navy and later worked as an engineer, founding Electronics Engineering (the makers of the first computerized airline reservation system) before beginning his film career.
After falling under the influence of experimental filmmaker Francis Thompson, Pennebaker directed his first film, Daybreak Express, in 1953. Set to a classic Duke Ellington
Duke Ellington
Edward Kennedy "Duke" Ellington was an American composer, pianist, and big band leader. Ellington wrote over 1,000 compositions...
recording of the same name, the five-minute short of the soon-to-be-demolished Third Avenue elevated subway station in New York City is the earliest known example of Pennebaker's penchant for blending together documentary and experimental filmmaking techniques.
In 1959, Pennebaker joined the equipment sharing Filmakers' [sic] Co-op and co-founded Drew Associates with Richard Leacock
Richard Leacock
Richard Leacock was a British-born documentary film director and one of the pioneers of Direct Cinema and Cinéma vérité.-Early life and career:...
and former LIFE
Life (magazine)
Life generally refers to three American magazines:*A humor and general interest magazine published from 1883 to 1936. Time founder Henry Luce bought the magazine in 1936 solely so that he could acquire the rights to its name....
magazine editor and correspondent Robert Drew
Robert Drew
Robert Lincoln Drew is an American documentary filmmaker known as a pioneer of cinéma vérité, or direct cinema, in the United States....
. A crucial moment in the development of Direct Cinema, the collective produced documentary films for clients like ABC News
ABC News
ABC News is the news gathering and broadcasting division of American broadcast television network ABC, a subsidiary of The Walt Disney Company...
(for their television series, Close-up) and Time-Life
Time-Life
Time–Life is a creator and direct marketer of books, music, video/DVD, and multimedia products. Its products are sold throughout North America, Europe, Australia, and Asia through television, print, retail, the Internet, telemarketing, and direct sales....
Broadcast (for their syndicated television series, Living Camera). Their first major film, Primary (1960), documented John F. Kennedy
John F. Kennedy
John Fitzgerald "Jack" Kennedy , often referred to by his initials JFK, was the 35th President of the United States, serving from 1961 until his assassination in 1963....
and Hubert Humphrey
Hubert Humphrey
Hubert Horatio Humphrey, Jr. , served under President Lyndon B. Johnson as the 38th Vice President of the United States. Humphrey twice served as a United States Senator from Minnesota, and served as Democratic Majority Whip. He was a founder of the Minnesota Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party and...
's respective campaigns in the 1960 Wisconsin
Wisconsin
Wisconsin is a U.S. state located in the north-central United States and is part of the Midwest. It is bordered by Minnesota to the west, Iowa to the southwest, Illinois to the south, Lake Michigan to the east, Michigan to the northeast, and Lake Superior to the north. Wisconsin's capital is...
Democratic Primary election. Drew, Leacock and Pennebaker, as well as photographers Albert Maysles
Albert and David Maysles
Albert and David Maysles were a documentary filmmaking team whose cinéma vérité works include Salesman , Gimme Shelter and Grey Gardens . Their 1964 film on The Beatles forms the backbone of the DVD, The Beatles: The First U.S. Visit...
, Terrence McCartney Filgate and Bill Knoll, all filmed the campaigning from dawn to midnight over the course of five days. Widely considered to be the first candid and comprehensive look at the day-by-day events of a Presidential race, it was the first film in which the sync sound camera could move freely with characters throughout a breaking story, a major technical achievement that laid the groundwork for modern-day documentary filmmaking. It would later be selected as an historic American film for inclusion in the Library of Congress
Library of Congress
The Library of Congress is the research library of the United States Congress, de facto national library of the United States, and the oldest federal cultural institution in the United States. Located in three buildings in Washington, D.C., it is the largest library in the world by shelf space and...
' National Film Registry
National Film Registry
The National Film Registry is the United States National Film Preservation Board's selection of films for preservation in the Library of Congress. The Board, established by the National Film Preservation Act of 1988, was reauthorized by acts of Congress in 1992, 1996, 2005, and again in October 2008...
in 1990.
Drew Associates would produce nine more documentaries for Living Camera, including Crisis, which chronicled President Kennedy and Attorney General Robert Kennedy's conflict with governor George Wallace
George Wallace
George Corley Wallace, Jr. was the 45th Governor of Alabama, serving four terms: 1963–1967, 1971–1979 and 1983–1987. "The most influential loser" in 20th-century U.S. politics, according to biographers Dan T. Carter and Stephan Lesher, he ran for U.S...
over school desegregation. Then in 1963, Pennebaker and Leacock left the organization to form their own production firm, Leacock-Pennebaker, Inc. Pennebaker would direct a number of short films over the course of two years. One of them was a rare recording of jazz vocalist Dave Lambert, as he formed a new quintet with singers such as David Lucas
David Lucas (composer)
David Lucas is an American rock and roll composer, singer, and music producer. He has written a number of well-known commercial jingles, such as AT&T's "Reach out and touch someone". In 1981, he received a Clio Award for composing the music to Pepsi's "Catch that Pepsi spirit"...
, and auditioned for RCA
RCA
RCA Corporation, founded as the Radio Corporation of America, was an American electronics company in existence from 1919 to 1986. The RCA trademark is currently owned by the French conglomerate Technicolor SA through RCA Trademark Management S.A., a company owned by Technicolor...
. The audition was not successful, and Lambert died suddenly in a car accident shortly thereafter, leaving Pennebaker's film as one of the few visual recordings of the singer, and the only recording of the songs in those rehearsals. The documentary got attention in Europe, and a few weeks later, Bob Dylan
Bob Dylan
Bob Dylan is an American singer-songwriter, musician, poet, film director and painter. He has been a major and profoundly influential figure in popular music and culture for five decades. Much of his most celebrated work dates from the 1960s when he was an informal chronicler and a seemingly...
's manager, Albert Grossman
Albert Grossman
Albert Bernard Grossman was an American entrepreneur and manager in the American folk music scene and rock and roll. He was most famous as the manager of Bob Dylan between 1962 and 1970.-Biography:...
, approached Pennebaker about filming Dylan while he was touring in England.
Dont Look Back
Dont Look Back is a 1967 documentary film by D.A. Pennebaker that covers Bob Dylan's 1965 concert tour in the United Kingdom.In 1998, the film was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically...
(sic) became a landmark in both film and rock history, "evoking the '60s like few other documents," according to film critic Jonathan Rosenbaum
Jonathan Rosenbaum
Jonathan Rosenbaum is an American film critic. Rosenbaum was the head film critic for the Chicago Reader from 1987 until 2008, when he retired at the age of 65...
. The opening sequence alone (set to Dylan's "Subterranean Homesick Blues" with Dylan standing in an alleyway, dropping cardboard flash cards) became a precursor to modern music videos. It would later be included in the Library of Congress
Library of Congress
The Library of Congress is the research library of the United States Congress, de facto national library of the United States, and the oldest federal cultural institution in the United States. Located in three buildings in Washington, D.C., it is the largest library in the world by shelf space and...
' National Film Registry
National Film Registry
The National Film Registry is the United States National Film Preservation Board's selection of films for preservation in the Library of Congress. The Board, established by the National Film Preservation Act of 1988, was reauthorized by acts of Congress in 1992, 1996, 2005, and again in October 2008...
in 1998, and it was later ranked at #6 on Time Out magazine's list of the 50 best documentaries of all time.
Pennebaker would also film Dylan's subsequent tour of England in 1966
Bob Dylan World Tour 1966
The Bob Dylan World Tour 1966 was a concert tour undertaken by American musician Bob Dylan, from February to May 1966. Dylan's 1966 World Tour was notable as the first tour where Dylan employed an electric band backing him, following his "going electric" at the 1965 Newport Folk Festival...
, but while some of this work has been released in different forms (supplying the framework for Martin Scorsese
Martin Scorsese
Martin Charles Scorsese is an American film director, screenwriter, producer, actor, and film historian. In 1990 he founded The Film Foundation, a nonprofit organization dedicated to film preservation, and in 2007 he founded the World Cinema Foundation...
's Bob Dylan documentary, No Direction Home
No Direction Home
No Direction Home is a documentary film by Martin Scorsese that traces the life of Bob Dylan, and his impact on 20th century American popular music and culture. The film does not cover Dylan's entire career; it concentrates on the period between Dylan's arrival in New York in January 1961 and his...
, and re-edited by Dylan himself in the rarely-distributed Eat the Document
Eat the Document
Eat the Document is a documentary of Bob Dylan's 1966 tour of the United Kingdom with the Hawks. It was shot under Dylan's direction by D. A. Pennebaker, whose groundbreaking documentary Dont Look Back [sic] chronicled Dylan's 1965 British tour...
), Pennebaker's own film of the tour (Something Is Happening) remains unreleased. Nevertheless, the tour itself has become one of the most celebrated events in rock history, and some of the Nagra recordings made for Pennebaker's film were later released on Dylan's own records.
The same year Dont Look Back
Dont Look Back
Dont Look Back is a 1967 documentary film by D.A. Pennebaker that covers Bob Dylan's 1965 concert tour in the United Kingdom.In 1998, the film was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically...
was released in theaters, Pennebaker worked with author Norman Mailer
Norman Mailer
Norman Kingsley Mailer was an American novelist, journalist, essayist, poet, playwright, screenwriter, and film director.Along with Truman Capote, Joan Didion, Hunter S...
on the first of many film collaborations. He was also hired to film the Monterey Pop Festival
Monterey Pop Festival
The Monterey International Pop Music Festival was a three-day concert event held June 16 to June 18, 1967 at the Monterey County Fairgrounds in Monterey, California...
, which is now regarded as an important event in rock history on par with 1969's Woodstock Festival
Woodstock Festival
Woodstock Music & Art Fair was a music festival, billed as "An Aquarian Exposition: 3 Days of Peace & Music". It was held at Max Yasgur's 600-acre dairy farm in the Catskills near the hamlet of White Lake in the town of Bethel, New York, from August 15 to August 18, 1969...
. Pennebaker produced a number of films from the event, capturing breakthrough performances from The Jimi Hendrix Experience
The Jimi Hendrix Experience
The Jimi Hendrix Experience were an English-American psychedelic rock band that formed in London in October 1966. Comprising eponymous singer-songwriter and guitarist Jimi Hendrix, bassist and backing vocalist Noel Redding and drummer Mitch Mitchell, the band was active until June 1969, in which...
, Otis Redding
Otis Redding
Otis Ray Redding, Jr. was an American soul singer-songwriter, record producer, arranger and talent scout. He is considered one of the major figures in soul and R&B...
and Janis Joplin
Janis Joplin
Janis Lyn Joplin was an American singer, songwriter, painter, dancer and music arranger. She rose to prominence in the late 1960s as the lead singer of Big Brother and the Holding Company and later as a solo artist with her backing groups, The Kozmic Blues Band and The Full Tilt Boogie Band...
that remain seminal documents in rock history. The first of these films, Monterey Pop
Monterey Pop
Monterey Pop is a 1968 concert film by D. A. Pennebaker that documents the Monterey Pop Festival of 1967. Among Pennebaker's several camera operators were fellow documentarians Richard Leacock and Albert Maysles...
, was released in 1968 and was later ranked at #42 on Time Out magazine's list of the 50 best documentaries of all time. Other performers like Jefferson Airplane
Jefferson Airplane
Jefferson Airplane was an American rock band formed in San Francisco in 1965. A pioneer of the psychedelic rock movement, Jefferson Airplane was the first band from the San Francisco scene to achieve mainstream commercial and critical success....
and The Who
The Who
The Who are an English rock band formed in 1964 by Roger Daltrey , Pete Townshend , John Entwistle and Keith Moon . They became known for energetic live performances which often included instrument destruction...
also received major exposure from Pennebaker's work.
Pennebaker continued to film some of the era's most influential rock artists, including John Lennon
John Lennon
John Winston Lennon, MBE was an English musician and singer-songwriter who rose to worldwide fame as one of the founding members of The Beatles, one of the most commercially successful and critically acclaimed acts in the history of popular music...
(whom he first met while filming Dylan in England), Little Richard
Little Richard
Richard Wayne Penniman , known by the stage name Little Richard, is an American singer, songwriter, musician, recording artist, and actor, considered key in the transition from rhythm and blues to rock and roll in the 1950s. He was also the first artist to put the funk in the rock and roll beat and...
, Jerry Lee Lewis
Jerry Lee Lewis
Jerry Lee Lewis is an American rock and roll and country music singer-songwriter and pianist. An early pioneer of rock and roll music, Lewis's career faltered after he married his young cousin, and he afterwards made a career extension to country and western music. He is known by the nickname 'The...
and most notably David Bowie
David Bowie
David Bowie is an English musician, actor, record producer and arranger. A major figure for over four decades in the world of popular music, Bowie is widely regarded as an innovator, particularly for his work in the 1970s...
during his famous "farewell" concert in 1973
Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars (film)
Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars is a 1973 documentary and concert movie by D.A. Pennebaker. It features David Bowie and his backing group The Spiders from Mars performing at the Hammersmith Odeon, July 3, 1973...
. He also collaborated with Jean-Luc Godard
Jean-Luc Godard
Jean-Luc Godard is a French-Swiss film director, screenwriter and film critic. He is often identified with the 1960s French film movement, French Nouvelle Vague, or "New Wave"....
in 1968 on a film that he eventually finished by himself and released several years later as One PM.
Pennebaker's film company was also a notable distributor of foreign films, including Godard's La Chinoise
La Chinoise
La Chinoise is a 1967 French political film directed by Jean-Luc Godard about young revolutionaries in Paris.-Plot summary:La Chinoise is a loose adaptation, if not parody, of Fyodor Dostoyevsky's 1872 novel, The Possessed...
(the American opening of which became the context for One PM), but the endeavor was ultimately a short-lived and costly business venture. Then around 1976, Pennebaker met experimental filmmaker turned documentarian Chris Hegedus. The two soon became collaborators and then married in 1982.
In 1988, Pennebaker, Hegedus and David Dawkins followed Depeche Mode
Depeche Mode
Depeche Mode are an English electronic music band formed in 1980 in Basildon, Essex. The group's original line-up consisted of Dave Gahan , Martin Gore , Andy Fletcher and Vince Clarke...
at the height of the band's career as they toured the U.S. in support of Music for the Masses
Music for the Masses
Music for the Masses is the sixth studio album by Depeche Mode. It was released by Mute Records on September 28, 1987, and was supported by the Music for the Masses Tour.-Mainstream success in the United States:...
, their commercial breakthrough in America. The resulting film, 101
101 (album)
-Disc one:A Side# "Pimpf" – 0:58# "Behind the Wheel" – 5:55# "Strangelove" – 4:49# "Something to Do" – 3:54# "Blasphemous Rumours" – 5:09B Side# "Stripped" – 6:45# "Somebody" – 4:34...
, was released the following year.
In 1992, during the start of the Democratic primaries, Pennebaker and Hegedus approached campaign officials for Arkansas
Arkansas
Arkansas is a state located in the southern region of the United States. Its name is an Algonquian name of the Quapaw Indians. Arkansas shares borders with six states , and its eastern border is largely defined by the Mississippi River...
governor Bill Clinton
Bill Clinton
William Jefferson "Bill" Clinton is an American politician who served as the 42nd President of the United States from 1993 to 2001. Inaugurated at age 46, he was the third-youngest president. He took office at the end of the Cold War, and was the first president of the baby boomer generation...
about filming his presidential run. They were granted limited access to the candidate but allowed to focus on lead strategist James Carville
James Carville
Chester James Carville, Jr. is an American political consultant, commentator, educator, actor, attorney, media personality, and prominent liberal pundit. Carville gained national attention for his work as the lead strategist of the successful presidential campaign of then-Arkansas governor Bill...
and communications director George Stephanopoulos
George Stephanopoulos
George Robert Stephanopoulos is an American television journalist and a former political advisor.Stephanopoulos is most well known as the chief political correspondent for ABC News – the news division of the broadcast television network ABC – and a co-anchor of ABC News's morning news...
. The resulting work, The War Room
The War Room
The War Room is a 1993 American documentary film about Bill Clinton's campaign for President of the United States during the 1992 presidential election.-Background:...
, became one of their most celebrated films, winning the award for Best Documentary from the National Board of Review of Motion Pictures
National Board of Review of Motion Pictures
The National Board of Review of Motion Pictures was founded in 1909 in New York City, just 13 years after the birth of cinema, to protest New York City Mayor George B. McClellan, Jr.'s revocation of moving-picture exhibition licenses on Christmas Eve 1908. The mayor believed that the new medium...
and earning an Academy Award nomination for Best Documentary Feature
Academy Award for Documentary Feature
The Academy Award for Documentary Feature is among the most prestigious awards for documentary films.- Winners and nominees:Following the Academy's practice, films are listed below by the award year...
.
Pennebaker and Hegedus continue to produce a large number of documentary films through their company, Pennebaker Hegedus Films, most notably Moon Over Broadway
Moon Over Buffalo
Moon Over Buffalo is a 1995 comic play by Ken Ludwig set in Buffalo, New York in 1953. This play marked the return of Carol Burnett to the Broadway stage, after 30 years.- Characters :*George Hay, a traveling actor....
(1998), Down from the Mountain
Down from the Mountain
The soundtrack album, Down from the Mountain: Live Concert Performances by the Artists & Musicians of O Brother, Where Art Thou? was released to complement the documentary concert film...
(2001), Startup.com
Startup.com
Startup.com is a 2001 documentary film that chronicles the dot-com start-up phenomenon and its eventual end. The film follows e-commerce website govWorks and its founders Kaleil Isaza Tuzman and Tom Herman from 1999-2000 as the Internet bubble was bursting.-Production:The film was made by...
(2001), Elaine Stritch: At Liberty (2004) , Al Franken: God Spoke
Al Franken: God Spoke
Al Franken: God Spoke is a 2006 documentary film starring political commentator and current United States Senator Al Franken. The film was made by the same producers of The War Room...
(2006), and Kings of Pastry
Kings of Pastry
Kings of Pastry is a film by D.A. Pennebaker and Chris Hegedus that follows a group of world-class French pastry chefs as they compete for France's most prestigious craftsmen award: Meilleur Ouvrier de France, awarded by French President Nicolas Sarkozy...
(2009).
In May 2010, they directed their first live show when they directed a YouTube webcast of the National
The National (band)
The National is an indie rock band formed in Cincinnati, Ohio in 1999 and currently based in Brooklyn, New York. The band's lyrics are written and sung by Matt Berninger, a baritone...
performing a benefit show at the Brooklyn Academy of Music
Brooklyn Academy of Music
Brooklyn Academy of Music is a major performing arts venue in Brooklyn, a borough of New York City, United States, known as a center for progressive and avant garde performance....
. That same year Kings of Pastry
Kings of Pastry
Kings of Pastry is a film by D.A. Pennebaker and Chris Hegedus that follows a group of world-class French pastry chefs as they compete for France's most prestigious craftsmen award: Meilleur Ouvrier de France, awarded by French President Nicolas Sarkozy...
opened at multiple film festivals, including IDFA, Sheffield Doc/Fest, DOX BOX
DOX BOX
DOX BOX is an annual independent documentary film festival established in Syria and launched in February 2008.DOX BOX is supported by a wide spectrum of professional international organizations and festivals and organized by a Syrian production company, Proaction Film, as a non-profit, free...
, the Berlin International Film Festival and Hot Docs, before premiering in New York City.
Process and style
Pennebaker's films, usually shot with a hand-held camera, often eschew voice-over narration and interviews in favor of a "simple" portrayal of events typical of the direct cinema style Pennebaker helped popularize in the U.S. Of such an approach, Pennebaker told interviewer G. Roy Levin published in 1971 that "it's possible to go to a situation and simply film what you see there, what happens there, what goes on, and let everybody decide whether it tells them about any of these things. But you don't have to label them, you don't have to have the narration to instruct you so you can be sure and understand that it's good for you to learn." In that same interview with Levin, Pennebaker goes so far as to claim that Dont Look BackDont Look Back
Dont Look Back is a 1967 documentary film by D.A. Pennebaker that covers Bob Dylan's 1965 concert tour in the United Kingdom.In 1998, the film was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically...
is "not a documentary at all by my standards." He instead repeatedly asserts that he does not make documentaries, but "records of moments," "half soap operas," and "semimusical reality things."
An accomplished engineer, Pennebaker developed one of the first fully portable, synchronized 16mm camera and sound recording systems which revolutionized modern filmmaking. His aesthetic and technical breakthroughs have also had a major influence on narrative filmmaking, influencing such realist masterworks as Barbara Loden
Barbara Loden
Barbara Loden was an American film and stage actress and film director....
's Wanda
Wanda (film)
Wanda is an independent 1970 drama film that was written and directed by Barbara Loden, who also stars in the title role. It is set in the anthracite coal region of eastern Pennsylvania.-Plot:...
, which was filmed and edited by one of Pennebaker's proteges, Nicholas Proferes, and even popular satires such as Tim Robbins
Tim Robbins
Timothy Francis "Tim" Robbins is an American actor, screenwriter, director, producer, activist and musician. He is the former longtime partner of actress Susan Sarandon...
' Bob Roberts
Bob Roberts
Bob Roberts is a 1992 film written and directed by Tim Robbins. It is a satirical mockumentary, chronicling the rise of Bob Roberts, a conservative politician who is a candidate for an upcoming United States Senate election...
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Filmography
- Daybreak Express (1953)
- Baby (1954)
- Opening In Moscow (1959)
- Breaking It Up at the Museum (1960)
- Anatomy of Cindy Fink (1960)
- Primary (1960)
- Happy Mother’s Day (1963)
- Jingle Bells (1964) with Robert F. KennedyRobert F. KennedyRobert Francis "Bobby" Kennedy , also referred to by his initials RFK, was an American politician, a Democratic senator from New York, and a noted civil rights activist. An icon of modern American liberalism and member of the Kennedy family, he was a younger brother of President John F...
- Campaign Manager (1964)
- You’re Nobody Till Somebody Loves You (1964)
- Lambert & Co., or "Audition at RCA" (1964)
- A Stravinsky Portrait (1965) with Igor StravinskyIgor StravinskyIgor Fyodorovich Stravinsky ; 6 April 1971) was a Russian, later naturalized French, and then naturalized American composer, pianist, and conductor....
- Dont Look BackDont Look BackDont Look Back is a 1967 documentary film by D.A. Pennebaker that covers Bob Dylan's 1965 concert tour in the United Kingdom.In 1998, the film was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically...
(1967, filmed 1965) with Bob DylanBob DylanBob Dylan is an American singer-songwriter, musician, poet, film director and painter. He has been a major and profoundly influential figure in popular music and culture for five decades. Much of his most celebrated work dates from the 1960s when he was an informal chronicler and a seemingly... - Something Is Happening (unreleased, filmed 1966) with Bob DylanBob DylanBob Dylan is an American singer-songwriter, musician, poet, film director and painter. He has been a major and profoundly influential figure in popular music and culture for five decades. Much of his most celebrated work dates from the 1960s when he was an informal chronicler and a seemingly...
- Eat the DocumentEat the DocumentEat the Document is a documentary of Bob Dylan's 1966 tour of the United Kingdom with the Hawks. It was shot under Dylan's direction by D. A. Pennebaker, whose groundbreaking documentary Dont Look Back [sic] chronicled Dylan's 1965 British tour...
(limited release, filmed 1966) with Bob DylanBob DylanBob Dylan is an American singer-songwriter, musician, poet, film director and painter. He has been a major and profoundly influential figure in popular music and culture for five decades. Much of his most celebrated work dates from the 1960s when he was an informal chronicler and a seemingly... - Monterey PopMonterey PopMonterey Pop is a 1968 concert film by D. A. Pennebaker that documents the Monterey Pop Festival of 1967. Among Pennebaker's several camera operators were fellow documentarians Richard Leacock and Albert Maysles...
(1968, filmed 1967) - Chiefs (1968)
- Hickory Hill (1968)
- Rainforest (1968)
- Sweet TorontoSweet TorontoSweet Toronto is a documentary by D.A. Pennebaker of the Toronto Rock and Roll Revival, a one day festival held September 13, 1969 at Varsity Stadium on the campus of the University of Toronto and attended by some 20,000 persons. The event was produced by John Brower and Ken Walker...
(1971, filmed 1969) with The Plastic Ono BandThe Plastic Ono BandThe Plastic Ono Band is a conceptual supergroup formed by John Lennon and Yoko Ono in 1969 before the dissolution of the Beatles. Among the various other members of the band were Eric Clapton, artist Klaus Voormann, future Yes drummer Alan White, Delaney and Bonnie Bramlett, & friends, the Who's... - Alice CooperAlice CooperAlice Cooper is an American rock singer, songwriter and musician whose career spans more than four decades...
(1970) - Queen of Apollo (1970)
- 1 PM (1971)
- Company: Original Cast AlbumCompany (musical)Company is a musical with a book by George Furth and music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim. The original production was nominated for a record-setting fourteen Tony Awards and won six....
(1971) with Stephen SondheimStephen SondheimStephen Joshua Sondheim is an American composer and lyricist for stage and film. He is the winner of an Academy Award, multiple Tony Awards including the Special Tony Award for Lifetime Achievement in the Theatre, multiple Grammy Awards, a Pulitzer Prize and the Laurence Olivier Award... - Keep On Rockin (1969) - a film involving Little RichardLittle RichardRichard Wayne Penniman , known by the stage name Little Richard, is an American singer, songwriter, musician, recording artist, and actor, considered key in the transition from rhythm and blues to rock and roll in the 1950s. He was also the first artist to put the funk in the rock and roll beat and...
- Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from MarsZiggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars (film)Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars is a 1973 documentary and concert movie by D.A. Pennebaker. It features David Bowie and his backing group The Spiders from Mars performing at the Hammersmith Odeon, July 3, 1973...
(1973) with David BowieDavid BowieDavid Bowie is an English musician, actor, record producer and arranger. A major figure for over four decades in the world of popular music, Bowie is widely regarded as an innovator, particularly for his work in the 1970s... - The Energy War (1978)
- Town Bloody Hall (1979)
- DeLoreanDeLoreanDeLorean may refer to:* John DeLorean, American businessman who founded the DeLorean Motor Company* DeLorean Motor Company, an automobile manufacturer, based in North America* DeLorean DMC-12, the single automobile produced by the DeLorean Motor Company...
(1981) with John DeLorean - Jimi Plays Monterey (1986) with Jimi HendrixJimi HendrixJames Marshall "Jimi" Hendrix was an American guitarist and singer-songwriter...
- 101101 (album)-Disc one:A Side# "Pimpf" – 0:58# "Behind the Wheel" – 5:55# "Strangelove" – 4:49# "Something to Do" – 3:54# "Blasphemous Rumours" – 5:09B Side# "Stripped" – 6:45# "Somebody" – 4:34...
(1989) with Depeche ModeDepeche ModeDepeche Mode are an English electronic music band formed in 1980 in Basildon, Essex. The group's original line-up consisted of Dave Gahan , Martin Gore , Andy Fletcher and Vince Clarke... - The War RoomThe War RoomThe War Room is a 1993 American documentary film about Bill Clinton's campaign for President of the United States during the 1992 presidential election.-Background:...
(1993) - Woodstock DiaryWoodstock DiaryWoodstock Diary is the third live album released of the 1969 Woodstock Festival concert. It was released at the same time as the 4-CD box set titled Woodstock: Three Days of Peace and Music, but contains some tracks not available on the box set....
(1994) - Keine Zeit (1996) with German artist Marius Müller-WesternhagenMarius Müller-WesternhagenMarius Müller-Westernhagen is a German actor and musician.Possibly best known for the maudlin hit "Johnny Walker", Marius Müller Westernhagen has been a feature in German rock music since the mid seventies...
- Moon Over BroadwayMoon Over BuffaloMoon Over Buffalo is a 1995 comic play by Ken Ludwig set in Buffalo, New York in 1953. This play marked the return of Carol Burnett to the Broadway stage, after 30 years.- Characters :*George Hay, a traveling actor....
(1997) - Bessie (1998)
- Down from the MountainDown from the MountainThe soundtrack album, Down from the Mountain: Live Concert Performances by the Artists & Musicians of O Brother, Where Art Thou? was released to complement the documentary concert film...
(2000) - Startup.com (2001)
- Elaine Stritch: At Liberty (2004) Emmy-winning portrait of Elaine StritchElaine StritchElaine Stritch is an American actress and vocalist. She has appeared in numerous stage plays and musicals, feature films, and many television programs...
- Only the Strong Survive (2003)
- Al Franken: God SpokeAl Franken: God SpokeAl Franken: God Spoke is a 2006 documentary film starring political commentator and current United States Senator Al Franken. The film was made by the same producers of The War Room...
(2006) as executive producerExecutive producerAn executive producer is a producer who is not involved in any technical aspects of the film making or music process, but who is still responsible for the overall production... - Rock N Roll Music - a film involving Chuck BerryChuck BerryCharles Edward Anderson "Chuck" Berry is an American guitarist, singer, and songwriter, and one of the pioneers of rock and roll music. With songs such as "Maybellene" , "Roll Over Beethoven" , "Rock and Roll Music" and "Johnny B...
- 65 Revisited65 Revisited65 Revisited is a 2007 American documentary film by D. A. Pennebaker, made from footage the director shot for his famous 1967 film, Dont Look Back. Both films show Bob Dylan and entourage during their 1965 concert tour of the U.K...
(2007) - a one-hour documentary accompanying the new DVD release of Dont Look BackDont Look BackDont Look Back is a 1967 documentary film by D.A. Pennebaker that covers Bob Dylan's 1965 concert tour in the United Kingdom.In 1998, the film was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically... - Kings of PastryKings of PastryKings of Pastry is a film by D.A. Pennebaker and Chris Hegedus that follows a group of world-class French pastry chefs as they compete for France's most prestigious craftsmen award: Meilleur Ouvrier de France, awarded by French President Nicolas Sarkozy...
(2009)
Further reading
- Aitken, Ian ed. Encyclopedia of the Documentary Film. Routledge (2005)
- Dave Saunders, Direct Cinema: Observational Documentary and the Politics of the Sixties, London, Wallflower Press 2007
- Pennebaker, D.A. "Interview with Donn Alan Pennebaker by G. Roy Levin." In Documentary Explorations: 15 Interviews with Film-makers, 221-70. Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1971.
- Jeanne Hall. "Don't You Ever Just Watch?: American Cinema Verite and Don't Look Back." In Documenting the Documentary: Close Readings of Documentary Film and Video, 223-37. Detroit: Wayne State UP, 1998.