Documentary filmmaker spreads message of film

IU Cinema Director Jon Vickers arrived at the Grant Street Inn on Saturday to say goodbye to documentary filmmaker Albert Maysles, who presented four of his movies this weekend and lectured about his direct cinema style.

“You touched a lot of people this weekend,” Vickers said.

Maysles, who has been making documentaries for 55 years, signed some posters of “Gimme Shelter” and agreed to a photo of him and Jon. But the camera didn’t seem to work.

A woman came out of room 22 behind them.

“I have a camera,” said Lesley Wexler, an associate professor at University of Illinois. She is a little dazed at sharing a hotel, and soon a couch, with the legendary director.

Vickers asked if she’d be willing to take their picture.

“Only if I can have one, too,” she said.

It’s a deal. Wexler held up her camera.

“Just the, just the heads,” Maysles said.

Click.

“Let me see, let me see,” he asked.

She showed him.

“No. Just the heads.”

“You remember he’s a photographer,” Vickers said, smiling.

She took another and showed it.

“Now you’re talking. Perfect,” Maysles said.

Wexler posed with Maysles as Vickers took the photo. He showed it to Maysles.

“Perfect.”

On Thursday and Friday, the IU Cinema screened four films by the director — “Islands,” “Running Fence,” “Grey Gardens” and “Gimme Shelter.” His direct cinema style puts the viewer right next to the subject, establishing an intimate relationship between the two. His advice when making films?

“Get close.”

He quoted Alfred Hitchcock’s saying that in feature films, the director is God. In documentary films, God is the director.

“Well you’ve got a good partner there,” Maysles joked.

He emphasized two qualities that a documentary should have above all else. First, the film should humanize.

“I’ve seen so many films that are technically perfect,” he said in his lecture Friday, “but they don’t have a heart or soul to them.”

Second, the film should convey the experience.

“Just as we’re filming the experience of people, the viewer gets to experience that experience.”

Maysles said he starts shooting right away, and some of that early footage makes it into the film.

In the same vein, he advocated patience.

“When it seems as though everything is over,” Maysles said, it’s crucial to shoot that next moment.

He finished his lecture by clarifying the title of director.

“I think it’s a misnomer to call us directors,” he said, adding that the term is only used practically for awards purposes.

With a selflessness rare in the film-making industry, Maysles shares the director credit with the cameraman, the editor and the producer.

“We’re authors, not directors.”

The audience applauded, and Maysles encouraged people to continue the discussion.

“Anyone who’d like to continue the conversation, gather round here, we’ll do some more talking,” Maysles said, referring to the stage of the cinema.

IU alumnus Jon Galimore asked Maysles to sign his copy of “Grey Gardens.”

“He just has kind of a devastating humanity,” Galimore said.