Monterey Pop started it all, and probably funded the production of Salesman. The latter was much harder to make, however. For Monterey Pop, all that needed to be done was to film what was in front of them. For Salesman, they must follow four traveling salesman on a increasingly depressing journey.
It's hard to know who to feel sorry for the most, the struggling Catholic families who can't afford a dollar a week (about $8 today) for a humongous, illustration-laden Bible, or the salesmen, who are obliged to push said Bibles regardless of the financial impact on those who must pay for them.
In the end, we feel more sorry for the salesmen, especially the movie's central character, Paul Brennan. Poor, pathetic Paul can't sell Bibles, no matter how hard he tries, even to families that have signed up for one at their church.
Paul, a man well into his fifties, is at a career dead end and has nothing to look forward to. Even his fellow salesman, who have middling but better success, begin to see him as a black hole, sucking all the hope and joy out of his environment.
From a practical aspect, his difficulties as a salesman begin with his leads. Fellow salesman Raymond has better success because he pores over his leads, waiting for ESP or Ouiji to tell him which home to visit next. Meanwhile, an invisible raincloud follows over sad sack Paul, as his car gets a flat tire and he can't find his way around Opa Locka, Florida. When he does get to a lead, she is invariably a homemaker with kids and bills and a husband at work that makes all the financial decisions.
How others will see it. But Paul will live forever, as the star of this movie. In 1992, it was added to the National Film Registry, two years after Paul had left us for the great sales convention in the sky. Where there is undoubtedly a manager who motivates, bullies, and threatens his staff into selling angels the newest and latest edition of the Bible.
Like other Maysles Brothers films from the era, Salesman has a fairly small but steady following. The user ratings at imdb.com are high and consistent. User reviews make regular reference to Glengarry Glen Ross, an even darker tale of salesmen that seems to have similarities to the present film.
How I felt about it. My frame of reference for the film was different. I was reminded of The Misfits, written by the same Arthur Miller who had earlier penned Death of a Salesman. In The Misfits, we have Clark Gable and Montgomery Clift expressing their contempt for jobs that pay "wages," yet are condemned to poverty and insecurity by their refusal to take a salaried position.
Paul often repeats a brush-off he received long ago from an Irish-Catholic lead. She advised him to join the Police, so that he would recieve a pension when he retired. Given Paul's declining ability as a salesman, his tale of the brush-off sounds less like a mockery of the lead, and more like a good suggestion he should have taken at the time.