Nineteen sixty-eight was a year that many historians of the United States of America see as a turning point in the country's history. Even in the world of Hollywood filmmaking, nineteen sixty-eight saw seminal pieces of work that supported the changing landscape of the culture. Films such as;
2001: A Space Odyssey (Kubrick),
Night of the Living Dead (Romero),
Rosemary's Baby (Polanski,
Head (Rafelson),
Faces (Cassavetes), and many more. These films not only showed the changing landscape of American culture, (some argue the rise of youth culture, others the change from modernism to post-modernism) but also the philosophical and psychological shift in the representation of characters within the films. The general tone and feel of many films in the sixties seemed to personify the difficulties of accepting the "establishment" and the separation of generations seemed to show the gulf that was growing between young and old.
The documentary film
Salesman (Maysles Brothers, 1968) supports the philosophical change in the American psyche that was prevalent in the nineteen sixties.
Salesman, though, shows the pressure of working class salesmen who struggle for financial security. In filmmaking the classical Hollywood big spectacle films offered much in the way of surface appeal. You knew who the characters were and how they would face the challenges that arose in the film. As independents and young film makers infiltrated Hollywood, characters became more complex, and doubt, fear and failure became traits of the hero's in some films. That's if the film even had a hero.
Salesman has no hero but ever presently convey's the doubts, fears and failure that comes with selling door to door.
Now I'm sure for those who are of the documentary mindset,
Salesman is no mystery. But in comparison to the fiction films of nineteen sixty-eight,
Salesman seems other worldly. Maybe it is because of the film stock, the black and white film stock doesn't have the flare of even George Romero's
Night of the Living Dead. Or maybe that other worldliness comes from the fact that the filmmakers follow salesmen who look so unexciting, and don't have the counter culture representation or even appeal as say the characters in Bob Rafelson's
Head. But there is something that
Salesman has that many of the popular films of nineteen sixty-eight doesn't have and that's reality.
Salesman centers around four main Bible salesman, one in particular Paul Brennan, nicknamed "The Badger".
It is his story within the films body that seems to be the center piece. Paul's visits to various houses and attempts at selling a highly ornamented catholic bible are wrought with failure and a half hearted attempt at trying to make a sale. Paul's failures are mixed with other salesmen's success. In one day of selling Paul has no success and at the end of the day he is asked how the battle went? He talks about the day while his fellow salesman watches a boxing match on television. In a way Paul is broken down fighter. He says he used everything he had to try and sell but nothing happened. Paul acknowledges that the business is on the fringe but it is not the business. It is Paul that teeters on the fringe, with each failure he comes closer and closer to breaking. The Maysle brothers capture each failure and the build up tension with close ups of Paul that seem to bottle the anger, disappointment and resignation that Paul vocalizes among his fellow salesman at the end of the day.
From the outset of the film the pressure to sell the Bibles is evident. Excuses are made by Paul about the territory that the salesman are selling in. When addressing an assembly of the salesmen, the general manager chides the salesmen as being the reason for any rejection of a sale. In one sequence as Paul travels by train to the Chicago sales meeting his journey is intercut with fellow salesman pridefully exuding themselves.
At the sales meeting the salesmen are told that they are doing God's work by selling Bibles. The evidence of their work is spiritually lacking and catholicism is used as a tool to try and sell Bibles and Encyclopedias. It seems that the only higher authority that they are working for is a financial deity. The salesmen use the differences between Irish catholics and other european catholics to try and find ways to exploit the consumers emotions. Along with pandering to potential buyers, using two salesman to make a sale, or incessantly pushing the product to create guilt.
One sequence of the film has two of the salesmen using as much spin to sell the Bible to a family that cannot afford the cost. The wife of the family wants the Bible but knows that the cost is out of reach. The salesmen do whatever they can in getting a small down payment. Later in the film Paul visits the poor family and lies about his position as a district manager and then creates a story about penalizing the processor of the order to get money out of the wife of the poor family.
What follows is Paul changing a flat tire. The flat tire is a minor inconvenience compared to making a sale but I can't help but see the flat tire as a symbol for the extent that Paul will go to make a dollar. He roles the tire down a hill and laughs. Paul is no different from the tire, he's used and blown out, his job is a joke and the pressure of selling is too much to take. After a terrible work day he vents about selling and believes he has all of the reasons why people buy and don't buy the Bible. His fellow co-workers treat him as if he is a leper, it is as if the lack of success could be contagious. Paul tags along on a potential sale and tries to help his fellow salesman. What happens is Paul being rejected and then used as selling device by his fellow worker to try and get a family to buy the Bible.
It's the last straw for Paul and he quits being a salesman. He try's to joke with his fellow workers but Paul's attempts are futile, instead of being funny he looks burned out and sounds incoherent.
In an interview the Maysles participated in about documentary they quoted about
Salesman the verse from the Bible, "What profit a man if he gains the world yet loses his soul?" Paul is a man who knows that his soul is gone and traded for the dollar. He sings at one point in the film if I was a rich man, from
Fiddler on the Roof. Paul is a real example of the malaise of living a life that is constantly striving for financial success. Many fictional films of the sixties portrayed characters with a dissatisfaction for established means of living, and characters looking for a freer way of life. The final blank stare that Paul gives in
Salesman does not offer much in the way of hope for his future. The door to door sales business has passed him by, the emasculation of being a failure only leaves Paul with the possibility of retiring. But what is he retiring to? Of the landscape that we see in
Salesman we see the harsh Massachusetts weather of winter. The broken down landscape via train when Paul goes to Chicago for the sales meeting and then finally the bazar world of Florida, with streets named after characters and places from Sinbad's Voyage and the houses residing eclectic residents. Paul is out of place, time and purpose.
Though time has progressed past the sixties and the days of door to door salesman with the nature that is represented in the film,
Salesman still touches upon the challenge of trying to make a living. Grand philosophical and psychological words are never really spoken in
Salesman but the film's content still seems to ask the question, "For what is our purpose, and why do we do what we do?" For every forlorn stare and moment of contemplation that seems to be a product of the environment in which we work, there is a bit of Paul within us. Maybe our souls were not meant for the whole world.
