Pincus, Edward, 1938-2013

Dates

• Existence: 1938 - 2013

Biographical Statement

Ed Pincus is a seminal figure in American documentary filmmaking, having produced, directed, or served as director of photography on eight films and as cinematographer on over a dozen more. His films have focused on topics ranging from the civil rights movement and hippie movement of the 1960s to Hurricane Katrina and its aftermath to his own life and family.

Ed Pincus was born in 1938. He studied philosophy and photography at Harvard University prior to entering filmmaking. His first film, Black Natchez (1967), was an example of the cinema verite style of observational filmmaking using small, hand-held cameras. Pincus and his partner, David Neuman, traveled to the Natchez, Mississippi, in 1965 with a rented camera to record the city's African American community and its reaction to the killing of a local NAACP official. This trip produced not only footage for Black Natchez, but also a companion short film, Panola (1970), which is a portrait of a local Black man described as a "wino, tree pruner, possible police informant, and philosopher." In 1967, Pincus and Neuman returned to Natchez and shot ten additional hours of film for a planned sequel, which was never produced.

In 1967, Pincus was hired to teach filmmaking at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), where he, along with Richard Leacock, was instrumental in the MIT Documentary Film Section. That same year, Pincus and Neuman chronicled the San Francisco hippie community in One Step Away. In 1969, the New American Library published Pincus' Guide to Filmmaking, which became an influential guide for independent filmmakers.

During the early 1970s, Pincus embraced the philosophy of "the personal is political" and turned his camera on himself and his family, which resulted in the 1981 documentary Diaries (1971-76). The film documented Pincus' family life and open marriage, as well as his travels during those six years. In 1977, Pincus removed himself from filmmaking and the public eye due to threats against his life and those of his family by a former associate. During this time, Pincus spent much of his time at his family's home in Vermont raising flowers. He returned to filmmaking in 2005 to document the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, which resulted in The Axe in the Attic (2007).

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