How D.A. Pennebaker captures a moment
When I first think of the spirit and experiences of D.A. (Don Allen) Pennebaker’s documentaries, I’m just really happy that it was documented at all. Like how someone has their video on their phone just at the right time to entertain something remarkable found in a viral video. Not to say Pennebaker is a documentarian filled with spontaneity, but it feels like the cameras could have just as easily been off during his films.
Pennebaker, along with collaborating with wife and partner Chris Hegedus, was a pioneer with 16mm filmmaking. A look with not much of a visual panache but its excellent contribution coming in a “fly on the wall” perspective in people we typically don’t get to see behind the curtain like musicians or politicians or writers. He isn’t one for voiceover or interview confessionals, nor for judging those he documents or preaches a message. It’s as if high school graduation is being filmed with how little stylishness is being added.
With the lack of narrative instructions, the audience becomes more of a participant with seeking their own opinion on the subjects rather than being told a conclusion. Like Original Cast Recording: Company had a temptation to diverge into a damning portrait of Steven Sondheim, given his polarizing personality at the time and how the shows are directly correlated to him. I love how Pennebaker explains this method here, telling 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 Don't Look Back 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 “semi-musical reality things”.
Taking my first exposure to Pennebaker was for the Original Cast Album: Company which I knew from its Documentary Now parody Original Cast Album: Co-Op. Knowing very little about broadway or the process of recording musical production I was still to learn the process itself. It doesn’t expect to come in with any preconceived notions or acting as a filmed Wikipedia page of broadway history. Really, it isn’t all that cinematic or arresting as we may come to expect for a doc this critically acclaimed. Almost like the classic vision of old school broadway coming to fruition: Sondheim being your toxic best friend, everyone is smoking like a chimney and Elaine Stritch’s showstopping final performance all adding up to something that is often that is brushed aside for it being less of a revelation just catharsis. Even looking at Dean Jones knocking a rendition out of “Being Alive” out of the park, lending itself to being that feeling that performing even without an audience is still excruciating. Like Steven Sondheim comparing it to a flower fully bloomed, the performance is now ready to be admired.
However, with Town Bloody Hall, we are now actually in front of an audience but it's not a musical, instead of a panel with four feminists (Jacqueline Ceballos, Germaine Greer, Jill Johnston, Diana Trilling) debating author Norman Miller, fresh off penning his article “Prisoner of Sex” which critiques the women liberation movement. Similarly to Company, Pennebaker isn’t here with an agenda or expects you to be an expert in women’s lib to understand the topics being debated. Nor does it come across as scathing as it could be with another filmmaker, even as we see Norman take the countless blows to his logic from the women on the panel as well as the audience, he isn’t there to laugh it off or combust in anger. As feminism rages on in a variety of ways in 2020 (even telling the story of Phyllis Schlafly with Mrs. America earlier this year) issues aren’t so black and white as they where now a little over 40 years ago, so how should the remaining problems be discussed in the grey area? I love how all the women didn’t come off as homogenous as had genuine ideas to bring to the table, like Jill Johnston being the stand out as she goes on to link lesbianism and feminism with the grace and cadence of a stand-up routine, it's delightful. All in all, Town Bloody Hall offers so much to chew on with need much visual panache to keep us attentive to just people speaking into microphones.
Now we’ll go to a fireworks-filled title sequence and Fleetwood Mac’s “Don’t Stop” with The War Room, the unfiltered, behind the curtain look into the Bill Clinton campaign strategy which went on to be nominated for best documentary the following Oscars. Of course, getting Bill Clinton to be president is the ultimate goal but it's James Carville and George Stephanopoulos that are the main characters. Clinton and Gore are just reduced to montages of kissing babies and shaking hands and one-liners from their rally speeches, only to quickly jump back to Carville and Stephanopoulos on the phone and answering questions from the press that morph them into greater characters than the person they’re campaigning for. The War Room may very well be the very best blend of Pennebaker’s Cinéma vérité style and the material to approach it with. If this were to be cut in with say, talking head confessionals or voiceover narration, which Pennebaker is constantly rejecting, it wouldn’t lose the inherent acidity that we recognize comes with political games. Of course, politics is a lot right now, but it was thrilling to just be present with Carville’s firecracker southern euphemisms and Stephanopoulos light levity to mold the story of the people that made the comeback kid comeback. (Bill Hader and Fred Armisen paid homage to this one as well in Documentary Now like Company with season 2’s The Bunker)
From one culturally relevant figure with Bill Clinton to another in Bob Dylan and the seminal Don’t Look Back. Penny is given unprecedented access to the American icon within the England tour of 1965 in sort of a cycle of events as the narrative is constructed. Dylan is seen playing music for crowds big and small, testing the patience of well-meaning journalists and interacting with various fans. All with just spewing philosophical verbiage and confidence of someone in changing times who was ahead of his time. It had always seemed like Dylan is a timeless fascination with a certain generation, Scorsese made Rolling Thunder Revue just last year, Todd Haynes made I’m Not There, even James Mangold and Timothée Chalamet are going to be collaborating on a new Dylan biopic. Yet Penny crafted something definitive here, proving why exactly Dylan sought him out in the first place, in a way, the two are very similar artists in general. Pennebaker with his cinema vertè filmmaking approach that is still seeming without a filter and Dylan speaking what's on his mind with brashness and conviction that now become infamous. A young Bob Dylan might come off bratty but it's now surprisingly tame, and Penny eases you into his rebellious persona with grace.
And finally, we have the downright explosive and electric Monterey Pop. For a monumental musical lineup like we see here, it seems like a work of madness to cut this down to just 80 minutes, but for me, it can almost be seen as you’re put in the view of an audience member with a sensory overloaded experience like this can’t last very long, just like the length of a concert goes by in an instant. If Pennebaker is a master at capturing a moment, then this just might be the best moments he ever captured, with iconic performances from Janis Joplin, Jimi Hendrix, Ottis Redding, The Who, Mammas and Pappas, Simon and Garfunkel, and Ravi Shankar with a riveting performance to top it all off. Obviously, the highlight has to be Jimi Hendrix’s arresting performance of “Wildthing” that then leads him to light the guitar on fire and smashing it. Not in a fit of rage, but almost like a non-vocal expression after he begins to be tired of the song. The ’60s were batshit and this is just another reminder of the performing those present where granted accesses too. All of the musicians are still so good, even with Penny denying us the privilege to see the audience there who are likely just losing their shit and tripping balls, its further proof of Monterey Pop being a sensory overload that witnessed everyone giving their soul to the stage.
When looking back, D.A. Pennebaker has five documentaries that, if any other director had made one of these, it would be considered their best. Monterey Pop, Don’t Look Back, The War Room, Town Bloody Hall, and Original Cast Album: Company is all exceptional and timeless snapshots of America and impartial examinations of important moments in pop culture. It’s unusual to call a documentarian an auteur but Pennebaker might have found a filmmaking technique so singular that he has never felt homogenous.
All five films are now currently streaming on the criterion channel
