The brothers Albert and David Maysles established a shared reputation as towering figures in the area of documentary filmmaking based on such films as Salesman, Gimme Shelter and Grey Gardens. Since David's death in 1987, the 81-year-old Albert has continued to make films, while tending to his and his brothers' reputation, which has taken on a mighty aura; in the New York Observer Tom Roston notes that press coverage of Albert is "usually of the fawning variety; he tends to receive the living icon treatment reserved for the likes of Martin Scorsese. " He can be both touchy and territorial; when Joe Berlinger and Bruce Sinofsky, the co-directors of the superb 1992 documentary Brother's Keeper, included a credit acknowledging their debt to David, Albert demanded that they remove it and accused them of, in Sinofsky's words, "trying to ride the Maysles coattails." (Recalling their exchange, Sinofsky says, “I told him I could have named it after Mussolini if I wanted to.”) The documentary film community is a tight little world that sometimes resembles a family that can be as dysfunctional as any other, but the latest dust-up over the Maysles' legacy really is a family affair.
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