Just shared this with my AP kids; they read and analyze ICB for four weeks
“With Love From Truman” (1966): A documentary by Albert Maysles, David Maysles, and Charlotte Zwerin, (16mm, 1966, 29 mins).
“With Love From Truman” — originally titled “The Nonficiton Novel: A Visit With Truman Capote” — was shot for National Educational Television, a precursor to PBS. One of the Maysles’ earliest collaborations with editor Charlotte Zwerin, With Love is built around a number of intimate conversations with Capote about his life and writing. Tellingly, the author says that with In Cold Blood he sought to achieve a “synthesis of journalism and fictional technique” in order to prove “that you can produce a work of art out of factual material that has the same impact that a work of literature does.” Capote’s ideas would prove influential for the Maysles as their style continued to evolve. Seen together, these films reveal a transition beyond the changing circumstances of their respective subjects: nonfiction filmmaking on the cusp of new narrative forms. (The Maysles later made “Grey Gardens”).
