Documentary Legend Albert Maysles Passes Away at 88

Veteran documentary filmmaker Albert Maysles, the cinema verite pioneer who co-directed seminal non-fiction titles such as “Gimme Shelter” and “Salesman” with his brother David, passed away last night at the age of 88. The news was first reported by The Criterion Collection this morning on the company’s Facebook page.

Criterion today releases the filmmaker’s seminal classic “Grey Gardens” (co-directed by his brother David, Ellen Hovde and Muffie Meyer) back into theaters in honor of its upcoming 40th anniversary. The director’s latest film, “In Transit,” premieres at the upcoming Tribeca Film Festival.

Last November, Maysles received DOC NYC’s Lifetime Achievement Award for his remarkable body of work. “The very medium of documentary offers us the opportunity to make real the biblical expression asking us to love our neighbor,” he said when accepting the honor. “It gives us the knowledge of our neighbors far and wide. Knowledge by which we can love our neighbors.”

READ MORE: Straight Talk from Documentarian Albert Maysles

The filmmaker was nominated for one Oscar (Best Short Documentary for “Christo’s Valley Curtain”) over the course of his career, and won two Emmy Awards for “Soldiers of Music” and “Vladimir Horowitz: The Last Romantic,” on top of countless other accolades.

His last project, “In Transit,” will premiere at Tribeca in April. It tracks a wide variety of encounters with personalities on a train traveling between Chicago and Seattle.

More as this story develops.

READ MORE: Advice to Doc Filmmakers from Albert Maysles: Establish an Empathizing Relationship