Primary and Crisis

Some time in the late 1950s, an ambitious editor at LIFE magazine named Robert Drew began making films. His intention was to make observational documentaries with a minimum of obtrusive interviews and narration. In essence, he wanted to make films in the spirit of LIFE magazine pictorials. Robert Drew didn't officially direct these early works of cinema verite (there were no credited directors), he conceived and supervised them.

The film that first brought significant attention to this practice was Primary, a film about Hubert Humpherey and John F. Kennedy's race for the Democratic presidential nomination in 1960. Drew and his associates followed Kennedy and Humpherey for a week during the 1960 Wisconsin presidential primary, observing the proceedings and assembling the footage with a minimum of explanation.

The film turned out well and received an extremely favorable response but it was easily surpassed by another project featuring JFK, a few years later. Shot only a few months before JFK's assassination, Crisis deals with the showdown between the federal government -- represented by President John F. Kennedy and Attorney General Robert Kennedy - and Alabama Governor George Wallace. To the federal government's dismay, Wallace intended to physically block black students from entering the all-white University of Alabama. This tense and involving documentary covers the final days before the students attempt to enroll for summer classes in June 1963.

In spite of its important place in the history of documentary filmmaking, Primary doesn't live up to its lofty reputation. The DVD compensates for this with several impressive features that offer enlightening background on the cinema verite movement. First, there's a 27 minute press conference from 2000, in which Robert Drew and several of his closest collaborators (D.A. Pennebaker, Albert Maysles, and Richard Leacock) discuss the film. This featurette clarifies the difference between cinema verite and conventional documentary filmmaking of the early 60s.

The Primary DVD also includes 30/15, a 15 minute short that's comprised of clips from 30 years of Robert Drew productions. Unfortunately, film titles are not given and we're left to guess what we're seeing. The clips are fascinating, nonetheless, covering a wide variety of topics including football, basketball, ballet, war, air traffic control, auctioneering, riots, jail, etc.

Although Crisis is a far greater achievement than Primary, it is of considerably less historical importance. As a result, the features aren't quite as numerous on this disc. In addition to a Robert Drew bio and a "filmmaker statement" -- both of which are included on Primary, although the "filmmaker statement" is different -- Crisis includes Faces of November, an eerie, wordless, and extremely effective short that Drew made about John F. Kennedy's funeral in 1963.

Both discs also include commentary by Drew and Leacock. These guys are both in their 80s so they're not the world's most lucid speakers -- on the Primary commentary, Leacock tells the same story twice -- but there's plenty of interesting material here. On the subject of Primary, they explain that nobody else had mobile equipment at the time. Since there were no competitors, they had the kind of access that would be impossible to get today. They also explain Drew's 3 filmmaking rules: no interviews, never ask people to repeat anything, and remain unobtrusive.

Drew explains that Crisis came about because John F. Kennedy liked Primary and asked him what he wanted to do next. Drew said he wanted to make a film about a president in crisis and proceeded to spend the next several years contacting the White House whenever an international crisis arose. Eventually, he settled for a domestic crisis.

Another interesting anecdote: Kennedy accidentally discussed the impending, top secret invasion of Cuba in front of the filmmakers and, as a result, they were given very clear warning that they could not publicly discuss anything they overheard in The White House. Or else.

Leacock makes the interesting observation that, of the three protagonists in Crisis (JFK, RFK, and George Wallace), two were assassinated and the other was shot but survived.

The only major problem with these terrific discs is the poor quality of the transfers. Not only do the films look pretty rough but, from beginning to end, there's an RD logo in the corner of the screen. This distracting convention of TV is completely out-of-place on DVD. After a while, you start to feel like you're watching the Robert Drew network.

Taken together, these two DVDs provide an invaluable introduction to the early days of cinema verite, a movement that inspired some of the most significant non-fiction films of the last 40 years. -- Jonathan Doyle