"Salesman" Blog

The film Salesman is a documentary made in 1969. It was basically the first film to start laying the foundation for direct cinema filming. This film brings a mix of emotions to its audience by it being depressing and sad but yet humorous. This documentary filmed by the Marsyle brothers is a film about bible salesman and their struggles to make ends meet. There are no narrations used besides the titles of the men’s names at the beginning. The filmmakers attempt at making the documentary as real as possible by doing observational filming, but it is obvious that it is not 100 percent realistic. We know this because people do not always act the same when a camera is on them as oppose to a normal situation. A few scenes in the film, you could sense the awkwardness of the customers as they sit there being filmed and also pestered into buying an extremely expensive bible. It was interesting that the filmmakers picked this subject to film because it is a job that has mostly died off in recent years.

Although the salesmen are liars and very pushy, I cannot help but feel sadness for Paul Brennan (The Badger). He is the loser salesman of the group, and is older than the rest and has the most trouble selling bibles. He is the one who gets turned down by most of the customers and ends up losing his job. This documentary was somewhat interesting, but for the most part really boring.