"Salesman" is a documentary released in 1968 and was the first feature film by the Maysles brothers and Charlotte Zweirin, who would go on to make the documentary Gimme Shelter a few years later about the Rolling Stones' ill-fated concert at Altamont. I just watched Salesman today, and was absolutely blown away by it.→[More:]

The film was shot in 1966 and follows four Catholic Bible salesmen from Boston as they attempt to sell large, illustrated, $50 bibles to the working-class folks of Opa-Locka, Florida. It's shot in black-and-white with no narration and no added music, giving it a very stark feel. (Though music plays a part in giving one of my favorite scenes from the movie a sort of hilarious, surreal feel.)

The movie gets darker as it goes along with one of the salesmen, Paul, failing over and over to make any sales. You can feel his desperation building as his pitches get more and more terse, leading to one really uncomfortable encounter with a customer that's almost bullying.

There's no big Hollywood-type payoff at the end, but Paul delivers a mini-rant toward the end about how'd he wasn't one for the "safe" kind of job like his brother, one with a steady income and a pension at the end, that's amazing in its irony as he's clearly talking to himself, trying go tell himself he hasn't made a huge mistake in his choice of how to make a living. It's kind of bleak, but jeez, it's an amazing piece of documentary-making.