One of the founding fathers of "direct cinema", American filmmaker's adopted name of choice for "cinema verite", and perhaps its best known practitioner during the 1960s and early 70s, Pennebaker helped construct a style of storytelling and an attitude toward his subjects (often political figures or entertainers) that influenced a generation of nonfiction filmmakers. He is a proponent of a cinema which favors the filming reality in as unobtrusive a manner as possible, usually without narration. "You don't necessarily need a script or actors to tell a compelling tale," he has declared. "Finding
