RIP Charlotte Zwerin, documentary filmmaker

[maren]

From the New York Times:

Charlotte Zwerin, 72, Maker of Documentaries on Artists, Dies

By Douglas Martin,  January 27, 2004

Charlotte Zwerin, a documentary filmmaker known for insightful depictions of visual and performing artists like Christo, Willem de Kooning, Ella Fitzgerald and Thelonious Monk, died on Thursday at her home in Manhattan. She was 72. The cause was lung cancer, her niece Lisa Tesone said.

Ms. Zwerin worked for many years with David and Albert Maysles, early practitioners of the documentary genre known as cinéma vérité, which uses a small camera to capture the drama of daily experience. Her editing for them was of such quality that they gave her credit as the third director of well-known films like "Gimme Shelter" (1970), an account of the Rolling Stones' 1969 tour of the United States.

It was her decision to include the band members' reactions to the killing of a fan on the stage of a concert at the Altamont Speedway in Livermore, Calif., the site of the tour's last concert.

"The real hero of the making of the film was Charlotte Zwerin, who edited it and got a directing credit," Stephen Lighthill, a cameraman, said in an interview with Salon.com. "I was stunned with what she got out of my footage. She compressed it and gave you a sense of a buildup of tragedy that you otherwise wouldn't have."

Other films she did with the Maysleses included "Salesman" (1969), an account of four real-life sales representatives of the American Bible Company, and "Running Fence" (1978), a chronicle of the successful efforts of the artist Christo and his wife, Jeanne-Claude, to erect a 24-mile fabric fence in the California hills.

Her own films included "Thelonious Monk: Straight No Chaser" (1989), which contained rarely seen clips of the brilliant and eccentric jazz pianist; "Arshile Gorky" (1982), a profile of the abstract painter; "Sculpture of Spaces: Noguchi" (1995); "American Masters — Ella Fitzgerald: Something to Live For" (1999), a biography narrated by Tony Bennett; and "Toru Takemitsu: Music for the Movies" (1994), an examination of the Japanese composer. The Museum of Modern Art had a retrospective of her works last year.

Charlotte Mitchell was born on Aug. 15, 1931, in Detroit and developed her affection for film and music as a child by attending an entertainment event in Detroit called "Big Band and a Movie." First came a live band, then the film, she said in an interview with The New York Times last year.

She attended Wayne State University, where she established a film society before moving to New York and finding work as a librarian at CBS for its documentary series "The 20th Century." She slowly worked her way up to editor, then joined Drew Associates, where Robert Drew was pioneering "direct cinema," as cinéma vérité was also called. She met the Maysleses at Drew.

She told The Times she stopped working with the Maysleses because they would not let her produce. "They cast an awful long shadow, and it came time for me to get out of it," she said.

On her own films she became known for a personal signature characterized by innovative editing. Leonard Feather, a critic for The Los Angeles Times, said that her film on Monk provided "a closer glance behind the veil of this half-hidden, exotically gifted figure than could ever be observed during his sadly aborted career."

Ms. Zwerin was divorced from Michael Zwerin, a jazz critic. She is survived by her brother, Charles Mitchell, and sister, Margaret Tesone, both of Detroit.

[maren]

And this, written last fall about her retrospective:

I gather that Charlotte Zwerin, who was feted with a November 2003 series at the Harvard Film Archive, is shy and reticent, a major reason that hardly anyone knows her lustrous name. That's even though she's the credited filmmaker for Thelonious Monk: Straight No Chaser (1989), perhaps the greatest jazz documentary, and she's a co-director with Albert and David Maysles for their non-fiction masterworks, Salesman, Gimme Shelter, and Running Fence.

Isn't inaccuracy of the press a factor in her obscurity?

Most often, journalists honor the works above as "Maysles' Brothers films." Is sexism a factor? I've heard Albert Maysles speak on at least four occasions; I can't recall, even as he elegized his late brother, David, his discussing Zwerin's contribution. However, there is a quote of praise in one Albert Maysles interview: "And the quality of the work of our editors -- like Charlotte Zwerin -- was so extraordinary that you have to give them a filmmaker's credit."

Zwerin grew up in Detroit, attended Wayne State University, where she started a film society. She came to New York, slowly became an editor, worked for television in the 1950s including at Drew Associates, run by the pioneer of cinema verite, Robert Drew, and there she met the Maysles. At one time, she was married to the jazz critic, Michael Zwerin, and took his last name. She edited for others, including an Academy Award-winning film about Robert Frost, but she really came into her own employed on Salesman.

The Maysles provided the picture and sound of four door-to-door, Boston-based Bible salesmen, and Zwerin, far away in an editing suite, figured out brilliantly how to structure the story. Her ignorance of knowing the real-life salesmen was, she's since explained, her secret strength: she made a narrative, without sentimentality or directorial regrets for what hadn't been shot, adhering to the footage before her. "I think this removal from the scene," Zwerin has said, "helped my judgment and helped me to understand more clearly what the viewer would feel."

Zwerin directs, only rarely being on the set! Even the Thelonious Monk film was put into her hands, by producer Bruce Ricker, with much of the fabulous Monk material already in the can, photographed by Michael and Christian Blackwood. Ricker, a Cambridge resident, is the person responsible for the Zwerin retrospective, the first ever in America, which premiered in June 2003 at the Museum of Modern Art. He will lead a conversation about Zwerin at the Nov.1 HFA Straight, No Chaser screening. Ricker told me, "Clint Eastwood has contributed his brand new private print."

I ask Ricker about his pal, Zwerin. "Charlotte's a pioneer of cinema verite, and this tribute is way overdue. She's in the tradition of directors who come out of editing, like Hal Ashby and Robert Parrish. She once said that her major influences are David Maysles and jazz pianist, Tommy Flanagan. She gathers all the material and shapes it into a piece of work that's musical in nature. She's got a keen eye and she's a great arranger, like Gil Evans working with Miles Davis. Also, she's a very good listener, the key to making a good documentary."

Several Zwerin works were unavailable for advance screening: Sculpture of Space: Noguchi, celebrating the sculpture-without-boundaries of Isamu Noguchi, and Toru Takemitsu: Music for the Movies, about the Japanese composer for films of Kurosawa and Oshima. A major revelation is De Kooning on de Kooning, in which the audience eavesdrops on conversations at his East Hampton home with the great Abstract Expressionist, and, for five miraculous minutes at the end, watches a deeply absorbed De Kooning paint away. I never knew that such footage existed, this intimate visit with a laid-back, humorous Willem De Kooning and his intense, intellectually driven wife, Elaine De Kooning, her spouse's biggest promoter.

The subject of Arshile Gorky (1982) had been long dead when Zwerin made this 29-minute film. Much time is devoted to a poignant interview with Gorky's surviving wife, Agnes Fielding, dealing with the many demons precipitating her artist husband's suicide. Ella Fitzgerald: Something to Live For (1999) suffers because Zwerin is boxed into the impersonal format of a PBS American Experience. But the jazz-loving filmmaker subverts TV requirements by giving over long segments to uncut Ella singing away, with, among others, Nat "King" Cole, Sinatra, and, most thrillingly, the Duke Ellington Band.

GERALD PEARY

(Boston Phoenix – November, 2003)

[Adam]

Transferred from the other thread that I started on this, and now deleting:

http://www.latimes.com/news/obituaries/la-...news-obituaries

Charlotte Zwerin, 72; Worked on Stones Film 'Gimme Shelter'

By Dennis McLellan, Times Staff Writer

Charlotte Zwerin, who was in the vanguard of American documentary filmmaking for four decades as an editor and director and who collaborated with David and Albert Maysles on the landmark "Gimme Shelter," has died. She was 72.

Zwerin, whose documentaries frequently focused on visual artists and jazz legends, died of lung cancer Jan. 22 at her home in Manhattan.

Zwerin's talent for structuring narratives in the editing room earned her a co-director credit after she edited the Maysleses' documentaries "Meet Marlon Brando" and "A Visit with Truman Capote" (both 1966).

"When it comes to editing documentary material, she was the best by far," Albert Maysles told The Times this week.

Zwerin's most notable collaborations with the Maysles brothers as co-director were "Salesman" (1969), a feature-length chronicle about four Boston-based door-to-door Bible salesmen; and "Gimme Shelter" (1970), a feature-length documentary on the Rolling Stones' 1969 American tour.

The tour ended with the Stones' notorious free concert at Altamont Speedway in Livermore, Calif., where members of the Hells Angels, serving as security guards, brawled with out-of-control fans in the crowd of 300,000 and stabbed a black teenager to death after the youth charged the stage with a gun.

After learning that the Rolling Stones wanted to view footage of the concert, Zwerin suggested to the Maysleses that they film the Stones' reactions to what they were viewing in the editing room and use that sequence as a structuring device for the documentary.

"It gave us a way to let the audience know right away that what they were about to see was something very disturbing and not just a music documentary," she told the New York Times last year.

Stephen Lighthill, one of the cameramen for the film, said in an interview with Salon.com in 2000 that Zwerin had been "the real hero of the making of the film."

"I was stunned with what she got out of my footage," Lighthill said. "She compressed it and gave you a sense of a buildup of the tragedy that you otherwise wouldn't have."

Zwerin told the New York Times that using the teenager's death to her professional advantage had caused her many sleepless nights.

"But what happened, happened, and, yes, you're taking advantage of it. But as a filmmaker, you can't just walk away from something like that," she said.

Among the other films Zwerin co-directed with the Maysleses are two on the artist Christo: "Running Fence" (1978) and "Islands" (1987).

Zwerin told the New York Times that she had quit working with the Maysleses because they would not let her produce. "They cast an awful long shadow, and it came time for me to get out of it," she said.

Among Zwerin's solo films are "De Kooning on de Kooning" (1981) about the abstract expressionist painter Willem de Kooning; and "Sculpture of Spaces: Noguchi" (1995), a look at sculptor Isamu Noguchi's gardens, playgrounds and other public spaces.

Tapping her lifelong love of music, she made, among others, "Thelonious Monk: Straight, No Chaser" (1989), a portrait of the eccentric and enigmatic jazz pianist; and "Ella Fitzgerald: Something to Live For" (1999), a biography of the legendary First Lady of Song that was originally shown as part of the PBS "American Masters" series.

"She was definitely the filmmaker I wanted for that film," said Susan Lacy, creator and executive producer of "American Masters."

"She was a great storyteller, a great editor and she really knew and loved jazz: It was her world. I think she made one of our best films ever."

Describing Zwerin as "very laconic, witty and wise," Lacy said Zwerin was a pioneer woman in the documentary field and "a mentor to many women filmmakers."

"I adored Charlotte," Lacy said. "She was a great person and a great loss to the filmmaking world."

Born in Detroit in 1931, Zwerin fell in love with film and music at an early age. Her passions for both were fueled when her mother took her to downtown Detroit to see what was billed as "Big Band and a Movie" — a live band performance that preceded the feature film.

After attending Wayne State University, where she launched a film society, she moved to New York City in the mid-'50s.

There she became the librarian for the CBS documentary series "The 20th Century." She was later promoted to assistant film editor but left, she told the New York Times last year, because women were expected to wear hose and heels and fill subsidiary roles.

She joined Drew Associates, whose founder, Robert Drew, was a pioneer of cinema verite, or direct cinema, in which documentary filmmakers used hand-held cameras and unobtrusive techniques to capture reality on film. She met the Maysles brothers there.

Zwerin, who also worked early in her career as a film editor for ABC and NBC, returned to NBC in 1984 as a producer for the magazine show "First Camera."

Last spring, the Museum of Modern Art in New York City presented a retrospective of her work. She leaves behind an unfinished portrait of a fellow Detroit native, jazz pianist Tommy Flanagan.

Zwerin, who was divorced from jazz critic Michael Zwerin, is survived by her brother, Charles Mitchell, and sister, Margaret Tesone, both of Detroit.