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Oscar-Winning Filmmaker Dies

Aug 5, 2019  •  Post A Comment

A filmmaker who has been described as the pre-eminent chronicler of Sixties counterculture, who received a lifetime Oscar in 2013, has died. The AP reports that documentary director D.A. Pennebaker died Thursday of natural causes at his home in Long Island. He was 94.

Pennebaker was known for music documentaries including the 1960s Bob Dylan films “Don’t Look Back” and “Eat the Document,” along with “Monterey Pop” and projects involving John Lennon’s Plastic Ono Band, Alice Cooper and David Bowie.

Along with Chris Hegedus, Pennebaker’s wife and longtime collaborator, Pennebaker directed “The War Room,” chronicling Bill Clinton’s 1992 presidential campaign.

“Pennebaker was a leader among a generation of filmmakers in the 1960s who took advantage of such innovations as handheld cameras and adopted an intimate, spontaneous style known as cinéma vérité,” the AP reports. “As an assistant to pioneer Robert Drew, Pennebaker helped invent the modern political documentary, ‘Primary,’ a revelatory account of John F. Kennedy’s 1960 victory in Wisconsin over fellow Democratic presidential candidate Hubert Humphrey. He went on to make or assist on dozens of films, from an early look at Jane Fonda to an Emmy-nominated portrait of Elaine Stritch to a documentary about a contentious debate between Norman Mailer and a panel of feminists (‘Town Bloody Hall’).”

Here’s a clip in which Pennebaker discusses working on his Dylan film “Don’t Look Back,” posted to YouTube in 2014; the second half of the video features clips from the movie …

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