D.A. Pennebaker ‘The Very Nature of Film is Musical’

D.A. Pennebaker was a filmmaker, born in 1925, died on August 1, 2019. He was one of a small group of filmmakers who created a new category of vérité (or “truth-telling”) documentary-making in the 1950s, a style of filmmaking that attempts to capture life as directly as possible; “fly-on-the-wall” film making, if you will. This style was expedited by the increasing sophistication of portable film and sound equipment and Pennebaker, who was an engineer, actually developed one of the first portable, synchronized 16mm camera and sound recording systems. While Pennebaker became more famous for his films on Bob Dylan, Monterey Pop, David Bowie, and others, he did make two films that have a strictly jazz theme. Also, he often collaborated with jazz-savvy filmmakers such as Shirley Clarke (The Connection) and Richard Leacock (Jazz Dance) and often used jazz on his sound tracks. The two strictly jazz-oriented films he made represent two poles of his creative approach; one being more visually experimental, the other, straightforwardly narrative. His first jazz film—and in fact the first film of any kind giving sole director credit to Pennebaker—was Daybreak Express (1953), which was essentially a visual accompaniment to Duke Ellington’s musical composition of the same name. In this film, Pennebaker uses a great variety of shots, manipulation of color, and imagery to create a
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