|
|
SALESMAN |
|
|||
|---|---|---|---|---|
|
Salesman follows four door-to-door Bible salesmen as they walk the line between hype and despair. 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 people to buy what one of them calls "still the best seller in the world." But although their customers are
mostly middle, working-class Catholics recommended by the local church, the Bible is a hard sell. Talking, pushing, cajoling, telling jokes and stories, throwing out compliments, the salesmen make their "pitches"
to a wide range of customers -- lonely widows, married couples, Cuban immigrants, bored housewives -- from those who clearly cannot afford the $50 book to those who, in the end, are convinced by the salesman's
somewhat too-cheerful patter. Expertly directed by the Maysles brothers (Gimme Shelter) and Charlotte Zwerin, Salesman remains the classic American documentary.
|
||||