Michael Chaiken

Chronicling the trials of a door-to-door salesman in midcentury America, this incisive portrait of consumer culture revolutionized the art of documentary filmmaking.

The late D. A. Pennebaker once dreamed of being a jazz musician, but he instead found his instrument in a news camera that allowed him to change documentary filmmaking forever.

With D. A. Pennebaker’s groundbreaking concert film, rock music solidified its status as a universal language.

In the inaugural installment of his new column, archivist Michael Chaiken examines the Nobel Prize–winning icon’s unique artistic process through a collection of ephemera.

In the 1960s, Mailer, already a literary legend, was inspired by the avant-garde film movement to take a stab at his own, anti-Warholian underground cinema.