Albert Maysles

Letting Go: A Hospice Journey

Deborah Dickson, Susan Froemke

Our medical system is geared toward healing patients. But what if there's no cure available? This moving, intimate documentary uses three cases to explore how hospice care prepares both terminally ill patients and their families for a gentle, safe passage. While patients are given comfort, companionship, dignity and peace, families are prepared for their inevitable loss.

Horowitz Plays Mozart

Charlotte Zwerin, Susan Froemke

Vladimir Horowitz

In March 1987, pianist Vladimir Horowitz embarked on an extraordinary project. For the first time in 35 years, he agreed to record with a symphony orchestra in a studio. He chose the conductor, Carlo Maria Giulini, the orchestra, the La Scala Philharmonic, and the location, the Abanella recording studio of La Scala in Milan. Horowitz steadfastly refused to allow the month-long sessions to be filmed, until the evening before the last scheduled session when he unexpectedly changed his mind. His manager, Peter Gelb, immediately telephoned Albert Maysles and Susan Froemke in New York, the co-filmmakers of "Vladimir Horowitz: The Last Romantic." That same night, the Maysles film crew flew from New York.

Ozawa

Deborah Dickson, David Maysles

Seiji Ozawa, Rudolf Serkin

This intimate portrait of the legendary conductor Seiji Ozawa focuses on the Japanese master and teacher's career, his advocacy of modern composers and the behind-the-scenes world of the symphony orchestra.

The Beatles: The First U.S. Visit

Kathy Dougherty, Susan Froemke

Paul McCartney, John Lennon

The Beatles First US Visit uniquely chronicles the inside story of the two remarkable weeks when Beatlemania first ignited America. The pioneering Maysles Brothers who filmed at the shoulders of John, Paul, George and Ringo, innovated an intimate documentary style of film-making which set the benchmark for rock and roll cinematography that remains to this day.

Jessye Norman Sings Carmen

Peter Gelb, Charlotte Zwerin

Jessye Norman

Jessye Norman Sings Carmen is a gripping vérité study of the famous dramatic soprano’s approach to mastering Bizet’s heroine in recording sessions with Seiji Ozawa and the Orchestre National de France. Musical segments include performances of three arias and the great duets between Carmen and Don José

Umbrellas

Grahame Weinbren, Henry Corra

Christo, Jeanne-Claude

A documentary about artists Christo and Jeanne-Claude's 1991 grand-scale environmental art project in Japan and California.

Gimme Shelter

David Maysles, Charlotte Zwerin

Mick Jagger, Keith Richards

A detailed chronicle of the famous 1969 tour of the United States by the British rock band The Rolling Stones, which culminated with the disastrous and tragic concert held on December 6 at the Altamont Speedway Free Festival, an event of historical significance, as it marked the end of an era: the generation of peace and love suddenly became the generation of disillusionment.

Concert of Wills: Making the Getty Center

Albert Maysles

This acclaimed documentary traces the building of the Getty Center—one of the most ambitious cultural undertakings of the twentieth century. Spanning fourteen years, from the early blueprints to the groundbreaking to the public opening of the Center in December 1997, the film takes viewers from California to a rock quarry in Italy where the Center's signature travertine originated.

LaLee's Kin: The Legacy of Cotton

Deborah Dickson, Susan Froemke

This heartbreaking documentary depicts the extreme poverty of an African-American family and their Mississippi Delta school district. LaLee's Kin takes us deep into the Mississippi Delta and the intertwined lives of LaLee Wallace, a great-grandmother struggling to hold her world together in the face of dire poverty, and Reggie Barnes, superintendent of the embattled West Tallahatchie School System. The film explores the painful legacy of slavery and sharecropping in the Delta.

Horowitz: A Reminiscence

Wanda Toscanini Horowitz, Vladimir Horowitz

Wanda Horowitz reminisces about her husband, the great pianist Vladimir Horowitz, with clips from his television appearances.

In Transit

Lynn True, David Usui

The Empire Builder is America’s busiest long-distance train route, running from Chicago to Seattle. Throughout these corridors sit runaways, adventurers, and loners – a myriad of passengers waiting to see what their journey holds. A touching and honest observation, co-directed by the iconic Albert Maysles, In Transit breathes life into the long commute, and contemplates the unknowns that lie at our final destination.

Salesman

David Maysles, Charlotte Zwerin

Paul Brennan, Charles McDevitt

This documentary from Albert and David Maysles follows the bitter rivalry of four door-to-door salesmen working for the Mid-American Bible Company: Paul "The Badger" Brennan, Charles "The Gipper" McDevitt, James "The Rabbit" Baker and Raymond "The Bull" Martos. Times are tough for this hard-living quartet, who spend their days traveling through small-town America, trying their best to peddle gold-leaf Bibles to an apathetic crowd of lower-middle-class housewives and elderly couples.

Grey Gardens

Muffie Meyer, David Maysles

Edith Bouvier Beale, Edith Ewing Bouvier Beale

Edie Bouvier Beale and her mother, Edith, two aging, eccentric relatives of Jackie Kennedy Onassis, are the sole inhabitants of a Long Island estate. The women reveal themselves to be misfits with outsized, engaging personalities. Much of the conversation is centered on their pasts, as mother and daughter now rarely leave home.

Running Fence

David Maysles, Charlotte Zwerin

Christo, Jeanne-Claude

Second in the series by the Maysles brothers documenting the monuments/sculptures of Christo, whose art projects are landscape-scaled, and more "pop" performance art designed to question how we relate to art in the public sphere, especially when it's as oblique, non-political (at least, that is what he would claim), and neutral as running a fence through a landscape.

Christo in Paris

Deborah Dickson, David Maysles

Christo, Jeanne-Claude

Documentary about conceptual artist Christo and his wife Jeanne-Claude's attempt to "wrap" the Pont-Neuf in Paris.

Meet Marlon Brando

David Maysles, Albert Maysles

Marlon Brando, Rex Morgan

Journalists from all over America meet Marlon Brando in a New York hotel room to interview him about his new film, Morituri. Seeing this as an opportunity to let the legendary actor promote the film, they find Brando unwilling to talk about it, instead he is more interested in larking about and turning on the charm when being interviewed by a former winner of the Miss USA competition.