With his brother David, Albert Maysles became one of the chief exponents of the "direct cinema" school of documentary filmmaking. The brothers began working as a team in 1957, each having previously been involved in film in very different ways--Albert making a documentary on Soviet mental institutions and David working as production assistant on two Marilyn Monroe movies. The Maysles brothers designed their own portable equipment to help in their goal of capturing the raw, spontaneous flow of experience, without intruding into the situations being filmed and were influenced by Robert Drew and
