D. A. Pennebaker by Keith Beattie (review)

D. A. PENNEBAKER Keith Beattie. Champaign: University of Illinois Press, 2011, 176 pp.The idea of permeates every chapter of a new book exploring career of documentary filmmaker D. A. Pennebaker, latest in Contemporary Film Directors series published by University of Illinois Press. What at first seems an odd framing device for a direct cinema pioneer becomes glaringly appropriate and enlightening as an effective mode of cat- egorization.Even as D. A. Penny Pennebaker's films employ an observational style, author Keith Beattie notes that those in front of camera are uniquely performing real-an implicit, often-unspoken interaction between filmmaker and subject, standing out as hallmark of Pennebaker's nearly sixty-year body of work.From concert films (clearly performed) to celebrity portraits (can famous people ever be real?) to experimental collaborations that blur line between documentary and fiction (where real people act as other real people), D. A. Pennebaker is a master at capturing those who provide him access to their inner selves, personas that are nonetheless often specifi- cally enacted for camera. But doesn't this notion of defy tenets of observational cinema? Does this make document less true? Not so, Beattie posits throughout D. A. Pennebaker. Rather, the pres- ence of camera is basis of a license or a warrant for a subject to extend an off-camera performance before camera. The underlying position in this assessment . . . is that per- formed self is real or authentic self (14).This thesis is demonstrated clearly in concert films such as Monterey Pop (1968), Ziggy Star- dust and Spiders from Mars (1973), Sweet Toronto (1971), Depeche Mode 101 (1989), Down from Mountain (2000), and Only Strong Survive (2003). The sheer number of these clas- sic music documentaries is enough to justify a retrospective examination, yet they encompass simply most easily defined arena where heavily plays out in front of Pennebaker team's multiple cameras.Beattie delights reader with a break- down of who shot what, where, and with what tricked-out 16mm camera. Pennebaker's rock- umentaries had direct cinema pioneer Albert Maysles wielding his signature handheld style in front of stage or roaming through crowd, with partner Ricky Leacock filming from rooftops, while Pennebaker stayed onstage to capture audience reactions and remain close to performers.And list of performers is astonishing: John Lennon, David Bowie, Chuck Berry, Jerry Lee Lewis, Ralph Stanley, Bo Diddley, Emmylou Harris, Wilson Pickett, Ravi Shankar, Who, Jefferson Airplane, and of course, holy trin- ity captured in Monterey Pop-Jimi Hendrix, Joplin, and Otis Redding-whose short ca- reers were launched by vanguard performances at festival. For Redding, who died before film was released, Monterey Pop stands as a rare document of an extraordinary talent, one not filmed extensively. And as Pennebaker candidly notes in an interview at end of book, television wasn't ready for Jimi Hendrix and Janis (135). Although film was originally made for ABC, network rejected Monterey Pop, declaring it meet indus- try standards. Leacock's reply-'I didn't know you had any' sealed fate (41), spurring entrepreneurial documentary team of Leacock and Pennebaker to undertake a successful in- dependent self-distribution strategy, at a time when few filmmakers knew how to do this.Beattie extensively examines Pennebaker's classic film Don't Look Back, made with a twenty-three-year-old Bob Dylan, providing cogent insight into filming itself. More importantly, he directly addresses canons of documentary by underscoring a clear-eyed understanding between filmmaker and subject: A compact-in form of a conspiracy, col- laboration, and collusion-between Dylan and Pennebaker was struck (98). …

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