D. A. Pennebaker  

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Donn Alan Pennebaker (July 15, 1925 – August 1, 2019) was an American documentary filmmaker and one of the pioneers of direct cinema. Documentaries about performing artists and politics were his primary subjects. He was known for his hand-held camera aesthetic.

Pennebaker was an important chronicler of sixties counterculture.

To the general audience, he is probably best-known for the film clip to "Subterranean Homesick Blues", in which Dylan displays and discards a series of cue cards bearing selected words and phrases from the lyrics of the song.

Process and style

Pennebaker's films, usually shot with a hand-held camera, often eschew voice-over narration and interviews in favor of a "simple" portrayal of events typical of the direct cinema style Pennebaker helped popularize in the U.S. Of such an approach, Pennebaker told interviewer G. Roy Levin published in 1971 that "it's possible to go to a situation and simply film what you see there, what happens there, what goes on, and let everybody decide whether it tells them about any of these things. But you don't have to label them, you don't have to have the narration to instruct you so you can be sure and understand that it's good for you to learn." In that same interview with Levin, Pennebaker goes so far as to claim that Dont Look Back is "not a documentary at all by my standards". He instead repeatedly asserts that he does not make documentaries, but "records of moments", "half soap operas", and "semimusical reality things".

An accomplished engineer, Pennebaker developed one of the first fully portable, synchronized 16mm camera and sound recording systems which revolutionized modern filmmaking. His aesthetic and technical breakthroughs have also had a major influence on narrative filmmaking, influencing such realist masterworks as Barbara Loden's Wanda, which was filmed and edited by one of Pennebaker's protégés, Nicholas Proferes, and even popular satires such as Tim Robbins' Bob Roberts.

Filmography

• Daybreak Express (1953)
• Baby (1954)
• Opening in Moscow (1959)
• Breaking It Up at the Museum (1960)
• Anatomy of Cindy Fink (1960)
• Primary (1960)
• Jingle Bells (1964) with Robert F. Kennedy
• You're Nobody Till Somebody Loves You (1964)
• Lambert & Co., or "Audition at RCA" (1964)
• Dont Look Back (1967, filmed 1965) with Bob Dylan
• Something Is Happening (unreleased, filmed 1966) with Bob Dylan
• Eat the Document (limited release, filmed 1966) with Bob Dylan
• Monterey Pop (1968, filmed 1967)
• Rainforest (1968)
• Sweet Toronto (1971, filmed 1969) with The Plastic Ono Band
• Alice Cooper (1970)
• Queen of Apollo (1970)
• 1 PM (1971)
• Original Cast Album: Company (1971) with Stephen Sondheim
• Keep on Rockin’ (1969) – a film involving Little Richard
• Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars (1973) with David Bowie
• The Energy War (1978)
• Town Bloody Hall (1979)
• DeLorean (1981) with John DeLorean
• Dance Black America (1983)
• Jimi Plays Monterey (1986) with Jimi Hendrix
• Shake! Otis at Monterey (1987) with Otis Redding
• 101 (1989) with Depeche Mode
• The War Room (1993)
• Woodstock Diary (1994)
• Keine Zeit (1996) with German artist Marius Müller-Westernhagen
• Victoria Williams – Happy Come Home (1997) with singer Victoria Williams
• Moon Over Broadway (1997)
• Bessie (1998)
• Down from the Mountain (2000)
• Startup.com (2001)
• Only the Strong Survive (2002)
• Elaine Stritch: At Liberty (2004) Emmy-winning portrait of Elaine Stritch
• Al Franken: God Spoke (2006) as executive producer
• Rock N Roll Music – a film involving Chuck Berry
• 65 Revisited (2007) – a one-hour documentary accompanying the new DVD release of Dont Look Back
• Kings of Pastry (2009)
• Unlocking the Cage (2016)