D.A. PENNEBAKER

Don Alan Pennebaker, the influential documentary filmmaker who made several shorts and the hour-long Opening in Moscow (1959, about the opening of the American Exhibition) before joining Drew Associates, a group that included such notable names as Richard Leacock and Albert Maysles. It was Leacock and Pennebaker who invented the portable 16mm synchronized sound camera that could be positioned on a person's shoulder, an important step in defining the style of filmmaking known as "direct cinema." After such pioneering political works as Primary (1960, about the Democratic Presidential Primary in Wisconsin) and Crisis (1963, about the desegregation of the University of Alabama), Pennebaker left Drew and collaborated with Leacock on two music-oriented documentaries: Dont Look Back (1967) and Monterey Pop (1969). The first, a behind-the-scenes look at Bob Dylan's 1965 tour of England, was an energetic, probing mix of backstage scenes, performances, and ironic views of Dylan; the second, a record of 1967's Monterey Pop Festival, is considered the first "concert" film. Both films tapped into the youth audience's interest in music and did amazing business for documentaries.

Pennebaker tackled music again in the hour-long film Company (1970, chronicling the recording of the cast album for this Stephen Sondheim show), Keep on Rockin' (1972), Elliott Carter (1980), Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders From Mars (1983, filmed in 1973), and Depeche Mode 101 (1989). He also worked on The Energy War (1979), a look at President Carter's struggle to deregulate natural gas that was produced for PBS, Rockaby (1983), which documented the rehearsal and performance of the Samuel Beckett play, and The War Room (1993), a fascinating, Oscarnominated fly-on-the-wall view of Bill Clinton's 1992 Presidential campaign. Since 1977, Pennebaker has worked with cameraperson-turned-filmmaker Chris Hegedus, whom he married in 1982.