ChanBot i must have seen a different film!!

Onlinewsma Absolutely Brilliant!

Dirtylogy It's funny, it's tense, it features two great performances from two actors and the director expertly creates a web of odd tension where you actually don't know what is happening for the majority of the run time.

Deanna There are moments in this movie where the great movie it could've been peek out... They're fleeting, here, but they're worth savoring, and they happen often enough to make it worth your while.

imbluzclooby Having faced burnout on the Sales profession myself I decided to Google any good films about the subject. I happened upon this forgotten gem that showed up on a "Top Ten List" of the topic in question. A Youtube channel had it available for free watching and watched I did without interruption. The only people who may find this subject matter interesting are Salesmen, would be salesman and maybe those who are close to a salesman. Otherwise, this documentary may be an excruciating bore to others. We have four characters presented to us who are all haggard, middle aged men trying to hustle a buck for a fancy Bible. The Bible is a publication from the Mid-American Church and is the identifying brand for Church members and Catholics to keep and cherish as a family heirloom and perpetuity. This is what the Sales force is hoping to accomplish by selling these fancy Bibles to low income households. What we learn in these pieces is that Poor people in rural settings are the most susceptible to easy pickings and small time marketing. While the more affluent households are less receptive and harder to sell to. This point is touched upon briefly by one of the fellow salesman, The Gipper, on the team. If anyone has ever worked extensively in sales they can relate to this sad and sardonic fact of American life. But the movie's focus is much more than revealing smarmy sales tactics and cheap cajoling. It explicitly shows how depressing and monotonous the life of a Door to Door salesman is, a profession that has nearly gone obsolete in recent years. These salesmen are matured. The four men are between the ages of 40 and 60, Paul the badger being the eldest, most experienced and least likely to succeed. We see jaded and grown men in suits shuffling around tacky hotel banquet rooms, sharing dingy motel rooms, attending unpleasant sales rallies, enacting the annoying role play scenarios and driving in their rented cars from house to house. Sales is a sad and meaningless profession that is soul-sucking for these men. To add injury to insult we see these same men being emasculated by a boorish and corpulent sales manager, the schoolyard bully who takes pleasure in insulting and condescending his team due to their unsatisfying sales results. Some of us have been there and have witnessed first hand the repugnant confrontations by such people in pep rallies, sales conferences and one-on-one meetings. The quiet desperation seen in these men's faces is palpable and difficult to watch for those who can relate. The cynical hope of making some money or just a meager living is what drives these men to get up every morning. But that hope has dwindled for Paul, the badger, who realizes the waste, futility and hopelessness of his career choice. This is Willy Loman all over again. Paul is presented as the central character that anchors this downbeat story. The overall tone is depressing, even though there are brief moments of sardonic humor. James, the rabbit, comes off as an awkward and goofy sales man yet is still more energetic than Paul. The Gipper is a resilient straight- man who presses forward in his work without getting down. The Bull is the best of the four and even as he comes off as smooth and persuasive in his sales methods, We witness his inability to persuade and win over a couple of people. The Mayslie Brothers are making a statement about the tragedy of how the American Dream has alluded some people. What better way to reveal that debacle than showing us a day in the lives of four traveling Bible salesman? It's brilliant, because it is so real. The camera takes a fly on the wall approach as it focuses on the subjects in their homes. People seem unaware or clueless that the camera is rolling and don't seem affected by it. Unlike reality TV today, this is not fake and the homeowners seem completely detached from wishes to have their fifteen minutes of fame. It's like candid camera where people back in the 60's didn't grasp the concept of how media is alluring. The subject matter is presented so plainly that we see how both the salesman and their targets are victimized. Paying $49.95 for a Bible in monthly installments seems trivial by today's economy, but in the sixties it was quite a sum for lower income folk who most likely didn't qualify and would end up delinquent in their accounts.This documentary is certainly not enjoyable and has the appeal of morbid curiosity. It is a footnote in a bygone era where certain sales models have dwindled. Even though they didn't have the technology of GPS tracking systems and CRM's to aide in their Prospecting management, the basic salesmanship is still there and relevant. This is Cinema Verite and the Mayslie Brothers are credited for this type of genre. The film also has an Avant Garde feel to it that leaves us intrigued and depressed. By the end, as we see Paul lament about his unstable career choice in a motel room among his colleagues,the film ends as the credits flash on a black screen to the industrial noisy sounds of the urban sprawl that leaves us in despair and wonder of what the lack of meaning in a profession can do to some people.

st-shot Salesman is a grainy documentary consisting of a crew of two (The Maysles brothers) following four door to door salesman selling high end bibles to struggling Catholic families. It is a gloomy watch as well as uncomfortable one as we barge in the front door with the wheeler dealers and sit through the pitch. It is also one of the finest representations of the genre in the history of medium.The Badger, the Gipper, The Bull and the Rabbit make their way through the frozen snow lined streets of Boston in search of customers outed by their local parish to sell ornate bibles. Business has been slow and shows little sign of picking up from the home visits we are witness to. They decide to try out new territory in sunny Florida but first attend an employees conference in Chicago where publisher Ivan K Feltman delivers a canned speech to rally the troops. Florida's welcoming warmth (they rent convertibles)energizes the boys but sales remain cold especially for traveling vet Badger, Paul Brennan.Within its raw simplicity Salesman blossoms with irony, metaphor and a touch of surrealism where the beleaguered Brennan finds himself lost in Opa Loka, a Moorish themed community with street names such as Ali Baba Drive and yes Sesame Street. The unctuous but affable quartet wear their glum existence on their sleeves slogging through slush, crashing at drab motels, chain smoking and going over the days disappointments. Brennan in particular is a remarkable watch as he rides his losing streak into near complete melt down in front of customers near film's end. It is one thing to be emotionally moved and impressed by a performance the likes of Lee J. Cobb in Death of a Salesman or anyone else playing the role well. In Brennan we are witnessing the real thing and it is devastating.The days of door to door shilling for the most part have long been replaced by cable home shopping networks and the internet. Instead of attempting to get his foot in the door he is now sitting in the living room twenty four, seven. Salesman is a superb document and time capsule on the way it used to be even if it is a journey through the past grimly.

tonyinjapan Every time I see a documentary I wonder about the editing process - the choice of what we were *allowed* to see, and the order in which we are permitted to see it. I have the same feeling with "Salesman", but in this case it's what we get to hear. At times it seems like the audio has beenpost-recorded, rather than what was spoken on the spot. It may have had something to do with the sound recording equipment that they were using, but some dialogue clearly does not have the same acoustic quality as other piece of dialogue in the same scene. While most of the dialogue is influenced by the environments in which the participants speak (home, on the road, motel room), some dialogue sounds like it was produced in a neutral environment, like a studio.Point in case is when Paul is dissecting the day in his motel room with his roommate (19 minutes in). Paul steps into the bathroom and his speaking continues. However, given that he was most likely going to the bathroom to relieve himself, we get a dialogue free of bathroom noise, and one that was most likely re-recorded at another time in another location (this might have been so that people's 1969 sensibilities weren't offended). Now, this is clearly a manipulation of reality, which distracts from the 'real' nature of documentary - and, of course, documentaries are what the documentarians allow us to see/hear. This is not intended to devalue the movie for me , but it does serve as a reminder that documentaries are not as 'real' as many believe them to be.In any respect, I'd love to know what became of these guys. I watched a version of Salesman without any such information. Does anybody know?

MisterWhiplash Albert and David Maysles, apparently working from a personal source (the four men, nicknamed the Gipper, the Rabbit, the Bull, and the quasi-lead being the Badger, all come from or around the Irish-Boston section that the Maysles came from as well), found themselves a kind of theatrical core to what is, in terms of the actual shooting, about as straight-on as can be in documentary cinema. Al Maysles, especially, would make the bulk of his work in the future just like this- shooting with just him on camera and a sound-guy (in this case David)- and it has the feel of being right there and up front in the situations. What the Maysles called "direct-cinema", as opposed to the term Cinema Verite. It's not exactly a news program, but it's not your run-of-the-mill documentary either. While the brothers put their subjective view on the material by, of course, choosing what not to show (who knows if the men made more sales than were actually shown, or if there were more quiet moments or conversations in the motel rooms that rambled further), and in the editing process of who to cut to or what to close-in or back away from, it feels always fresh in perspective.We're really right there seeing what is going on during the sale, as well as seeing how the men "unwind" by complaining about the sales they didn't make, the things that kept them from what they had to do, which was put forward the "#1 bestselling book in the world" for 49.99 a month to your average Joe or Mrs. Joe down the street. What the Maysles don't ask is to make you really put a very harsh judgment either way; by both sides presented, of the men in the desperate but completely professional and slick act of selling (selling themselves probably just as much as the bible, and how getting the sale or not suddenly changes them in front of the prospective customer), and how they are behind closed doors, shooting the s***, playing cards, or driving in their cars. Most especially fascinating, however, is that the Maysles put a theatrical ring to the proceedings, like watching characters from a stage play ala O'Neill in the great drama of life- characters, by the way, who can be talked about just as real people as figures in a film.Seeing Salesman gives a glimpse not so much into religion- they're not sermonizing here, the Maysles- but into a specific world that doesn't exist the way it used to, where men followed along leads from previous sellers, and sometimes made it through the door or not at all. There's a disarming quality to the production; we should think that these guys aren't the ones to like or identify with, that we're the ones getting peddled to and made to feel like we MUST get this or else and so on. By opening it up just by a glimpse, and how the 16mm camera goes around with the freedom of the fly-on-the-wall, it opens up the perspective. It's one of the Maysles's very best, a piece of true Americana as a time capsule.