D.A. Pennebaker

Biography

Born Donn Alan Pennebaker in Evanston, IL; educated at Yale and MIT. Former engineer, advertising copywriter and painter who began making experimental and documentary films in the 1950s. Beginning with DAYBREAK EXPRESS (1953), Pennebaker emerged as one of the foremost proponents of direct cinema, a style of filmmaking which favored the immediate recording of reality in as unobtrusive a manner as possible. He worked for a time at Drew Associates with Richard Leacock and Albert Maysles; although he left in 1963, he continued to collaborate on joint ventures with Leacock. Pennebaker is best known for DON'T LOOK BACK (1967), documenting Bob Dylan's first tour of England, MONTEREY POP (1968) and for completing and editing 1 P.M. (1972), a film begun by Jean-Luc Godard.