DescriptionVideotaped oral history interview with D.A. Pennebaker. An Academy Award-nominated documentary filmmaker, Pennebaker worked with cinéma vérité pioneer Robert Drew as a photographer on the Kennedy documentaries "Primary" (1960) and "Crisis" (1963). He later co-directed "The War Room," an Academy Award-nominated documentary on the 1992 Clinton campaign.
Interview conducted at Mr. Pennebaker's office in New York City on April 15, 2004 by Stephen Fagin. The interview is one hour and one minute.
Curatorial Commentary
An early example of cinéma vérité, French for "cinema of truth," the one-hour television documentary, Primary (1960), follows candidates John F. Kennedy and Hubert Humphrey during the Democratic primary in Wisconsin. The significant primary, held on April 5, 1960, helped to solidify Senator Kennedy as the Democratic frontrunner despite an unexpectedly narrow victory. Humphrey dropped out of the race the next month following his defeat in the crucial West Virginia primary. The award-winning Primary was produced by pioneering documentarian Robert Drew and distributed by Time-Life Television in the United States. Drew went on to produce more documentaries on John F. Kennedy, including Adventures on the New Frontier (1961), Crisis (1963) and Faces of November (1964). All of these films are in the Museum's Library Collection: Bibliovation | Details for The Kennedy films of Robert Drew & associates. In addition to Robert Drew, the Museum also recorded oral histories with Primary photographers Albert Maysles and D.A. Pennebaker. - Stephen Fagin, Curator
The fifty-two minute television documentary, Crisis: Behind a Presidential Commitment (1963), aired on ABC on October 28, 1963. It was added to the National Film Registry at the Library of Congress in 2011. The film focuses on the June 1963 integration crisis at the University of Alabama with unprecedented access to the Kennedy White House, including sequences shot in the Oval Office. In addition to photographer D.A. Pennebaker, producer/director Robert Drew recorded an oral history with the Museum in 2004. Drew later attended a special screening of Crisis at The Sixth Floor Museum in 2006. All of Robert Drews' Kennedy documentaries may be found here in the Museum's Library Collection: Bibliovation | Details for The Kennedy films of Robert Drew & associates. - Stephen Fagin, Curator
Donn Alan Pennebaker passed away on August 1, 2019 at the age of 94. In addition to his work with cinéma vérité
pioneer Robert Drew in the 1960s, Pennebaker is best known as cinematographer and co-director of the 1993 documentary, The War Room, which chronicled Bill Clinton's 1992 presidential campaign. The film was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature, though it lost to I Am a Promise: The Children of Stanton Elementary School. - Stephen Fagin, Curator
