It is with great sorrow that the cinetrix read of Charlotte Zwerin's death last week at age 72. She was the director of Thelonius Monk: Straight No Chaser, among other documentaries.
Ms. Zwerin worked for many years with David and Albert Maysles, early practitioners of the documentary genre known as cinéma vérité, which uses a small camera to capture the drama of daily experience. Her editing for them was of such quality that they gave her credit as the third director of well-known films like "Gimme Shelter" (1970), an account of the Rolling Stones' 1969 tour of the United States.
It was her decision to include the band members' reactions to the killing of a fan on the stage of a concert at the Altamont Speedway in Livermore, Calif., the site of the tour's last concert.
"The real hero of the making of the film was Charlotte Zwerin, who edited it and got a directing credit," Stephen Lighthill, a cameraman, said in an interview with Salon.com. "I was stunned with what she got out of my footage. She compressed it and gave you a sense of a buildup of tragedy that you otherwise wouldn't have."
She told The Times she stopped working with the Maysleses because they would not let her produce. "They cast an awful long shadow, and it came time for me to get out of it," she said.Recommendation: Gimme Shelter, which still freaks me out every time.
