“We’re especially drawn to ordinary people,” says Albert Maysles, who cites the classic 1968 documentary Salesman, which follows four Bible peddlers on their door-to-door rounds, as the brothers’ most “characteristic” work. (It was co-directed with his late brother, David.) “I mean, you say that you can describe them as hustlers, but at the same time, the film is as close as you can get to a real cross section of America in that it’s as much about women as it is about men. It’s called Salesman, [but] it’s really about the customers as well, and all the customers are women.” Still, watching the Bible-hawkers build “trust” with their customers while working their way into women’s homes suggests certain parallels to the documentarians’ own process. And might Maysles be referring to the plight of the independent filmmaker when he describes Paul Brennan’s difficulty selling the Good Book? “The more poetry one has,” Maysles says, “[and] the more life-giving someone is in that business, the less successful he is.” (NR) LESLIE DUNLAP

Oct. 9-15, 8 p.m., 2009