1953–1963 After falling under the influence of experimental filmmaker
Francis Thompson, Pennebaker directed his first film,
Daybreak Express, in 1953. Set to a classic
Duke Ellington recording of the same name, the five-minute short features a shadowy montage of the soon-to-be-demolished
Third Avenue elevated subway in New York City. It was released in 1958. According to Pennebaker, Ellington responded favourably to the film. In 1959, Pennebaker joined the equipment-sharing Filmakers’ Co-op and co-founded Drew Associates with
Richard Leacock and former
LIFE magazine editor and correspondent
Robert Drew. A crucial moment in the development of direct cinema, the collective produced documentary films for clients like
ABC News (for their television series,
Close-up) and
Time-Life Broadcast (for their syndicated television series,
Living Camera). Their first major film,
Primary (1960), documented
John F. Kennedy and
Hubert Humphrey's respective campaigns in the 1960
Wisconsin Democratic Primary election. Drew, Leacock and Pennebaker, as well as photographers
Albert Maysles, Terrence McCartney Filgate and Bill Knoll, all filmed the campaigning from dawn to midnight over the course of five days. Widely considered to be the first candid and comprehensive look at the day-by-day events of a Presidential race, it was the first film in which the sync sound camera could move freely with characters throughout a breaking story, a major technical achievement that laid the groundwork for modern-day documentary filmmaking. It would later be selected as an historic American film for inclusion in the
Library of Congress'
National Film Registry in 1990. Inspired by the depiction of Kennedy, Pennebaker received an assignment in 1963 to film a profile on the newly-elected Prime Minister of Canada,
Lester B. Pearson, for the
Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. Due to the unflattering portrayal of the Prime Minister, the documentary,
Mr. Pearson, was not shown until 1969—a year after Pearson had retired from office.
1963–1968 Drew Associates would produce nine more documentaries for
Living Camera, including
Crisis, which chronicled President Kennedy and Attorney General
Robert F. Kennedy's conflict with governor
George Wallace over school
desegregation. Then in 1963, Pennebaker and Leacock left the organization to form their own production firm, Leacock-Pennebaker, Inc. Pennebaker would direct a number of short films over the course of two years. One of them was a rare recording of jazz vocalist
Dave Lambert as he formed a new quintet with singers such as
David Lucas and auditioned for
RCA. The audition was not successful, and Lambert died suddenly in a car accident shortly thereafter, leaving Pennebaker's film as one of the few visual recordings of the singer, and the only recording of the songs in those rehearsals. The documentary got attention in Europe, The resulting work
Dont Look Back (there is no apostrophe in the title) became a landmark in both film and rock history, "evoking the '60s like few other documents", according to film critic
Jonathan Rosenbaum. The opening sequence alone (set to Dylan's "
Subterranean Homesick Blues" with Dylan standing in an alleyway, dropping cardboard flash cards) became a precursor to modern music videos. It was even used as the theatrical trailer. It would later be included in the
Library of Congress'
National Film Registry in 1998, and it was later ranked at No. 6 on
Time Outs list of the 50 best documentaries of all time. Pennebaker would also film
Dylan's subsequent tour of England in 1966, but while some of this work has been released in different forms (supplying the framework for
Martin Scorsese's Dylan documentary
No Direction Home and re-edited by Dylan himself in the rarely distributed
Eat the Document), Pennebaker's own film of the tour (
Something Is Happening) remains unreleased. Nevertheless, the tour itself has become one of the most celebrated events in rock history, and some of the
Nagra recordings made for Pennebaker's film were later released on Dylan's own records. All of the Nagra recordings made during the 1966 European appearances were made by
Richard Alderson, who, for years, never received recognition. All of his tapes are what comprise the 36-CD box set
Bob Dylan: The 1966 Live Recordings, released in 2016. It is Alderson who notes that many of the UK concerts were, in fact, filmed by
Howard Alk. The same year
Dont Look Back was released in theaters, Pennebaker worked with author
Norman Mailer (who would later appear in 1979's
Town Bloody Hall) on the first of many film collaborations. He was also hired to film the
Monterey Pop Festival, which is now regarded as an important event in rock history on par with 1969's
Woodstock Festival. Pennebaker produced a number of films from the event, capturing breakthrough performances from
the Jimi Hendrix Experience,
Otis Redding and
Janis Joplin that remain seminal documents in rock history. The first of these films,
Monterey Pop, was released in 1968 and was later ranked at No. 42 on
Time Outs list of the 50 best documentaries of all time. Other performers including
Jefferson Airplane and
the Who also received major exposure from Pennebaker's work. In August 2021 a physical edition was released, including new commentary by Sondheim and commentary recorded in 2001 by Pennebaker, original director
Hal Prince, and
Company star
Elaine Stritch. Pennebaker was one of many participants in
John Lennon and
Yoko Ono's 1971 film
Up Your Legs Forever. He also collaborated with
Jean-Luc Godard, who had been impressed by
Primary. Their initial plan was to film "whatever we saw happening around us" in a small town in France, but this never came to fruition. In 1968, the two worked on a film that Godard initially conceived as "One AM" (One American Movie) on the subject of anticipated mass struggles in the United States – similar to the
uprisings in France that year. When it became clear that Godard's assessment was incorrect, he abandoned the film. Pennebaker eventually finished the project himself and released it several years later as
One P.M., meaning "One Perfect Movie" to Pennebaker and "One Pennebaker Movie" to Godard. In 1988, Pennebaker, Hegedus and David Dawkins followed
Depeche Mode as they toured the U.S. in support of
Music for the Masses, the band's commercial breakthrough in America. The resulting film,
101, was released the following year, and prominently features a group of young fans travelling across America as winners of a "be-in-a-Depeche-Mode-movie-contest," which culminates at Depeche Mode's landmark concert at the
Rose Bowl in Pasadena. Because of this, the film is widely considered to be the impetus for the "reality" craze that swept MTV in the following years, including
The Real World and
Road Rules. In various interviews, DVD commentaries and on their own website, both Pennebaker and Hegedus have cited
101 as "their favorite" and "the one that was the most fun to make" out of all their films to date. at
BAM during the webcast directed by Pennebaker and Hegedus In 1992, during the start of the Democratic primaries, Pennebaker and Hegedus approached campaign officials for
Arkansas governor
Bill Clinton about filming his presidential run. They were granted limited access to the candidate but allowed to focus on lead strategist
James Carville and communications director
George Stephanopoulos. The resulting work,
The War Room, became one of their most celebrated films, winning the award for Best Documentary from the
National Board of Review of Motion Pictures and earning an
Academy Award nomination for Best Documentary Feature.
Later career Pennebaker and Hegedus continued to produce a large number of documentary films through their company, Pennebaker Hegedus Films, most notably
Moon Over Broadway (1998),
Down from the Mountain (2001),
Startup.com (2001),
Elaine Stritch: At Liberty (2004),
Al Franken: God Spoke (2006), and
Kings of Pastry (2009). In May 2010, they directed their first live show when they directed a YouTube webcast of
the National performing a benefit show at the
Brooklyn Academy of Music. That same year
Kings of Pastry opened at multiple film festivals, including IDFA,
Sheffield Doc/Fest,
DOX BOX, the Berlin International Film Festival and Hot Docs, before premiering in New York City. In 2012 he was awarded a Governors Award, introduced by
Michael Moore. In 2014 it was reported that Pennebaker, in collaboration with his wife, was working on a documentary focused on the
Nonhuman Rights Project and its efforts to have certain animals, such as
cetaceans, elephants, and apes, be classified as legal persons. ==Process and style==