Robert Lincoln Drew (February 15, 1924 – July 30, 2014) was an American documentary filmmaker known as one of the pioneers—and sometimes called father[1][2]—of cinéma vérité, or direct cinema, in the United States.
His father, Robert Woodsen Drew, was a film salesman and a pilot who ran a seaplane business.
He left high school to join the U.S. Army Air Corps as a cadet[1] in 1942 and qualified for officer's training.
[2] While working at Life as a writer and editor, Drew held a Nieman Fellowship at Harvard University.
It would be "a theater without actors; it would be plays without playwrights; it would be reporting without summary and opinion; it would be the ability to look in on people’s lives at crucial times from which you could deduce certain things and see a kind of truth that can only be gotten from personal experience.
"[14] After Kennedy responded positively to Primary, Drew "proposed to make a next film on him as a President having to deal with a crisis.
Drew secured permission for Drew Associates filmmakers to shoot in the White House, particularly with Robert Kennedy, as well as in Alabama in the home of George Wallace, in the days leading up to June 11, 1963, when Wallace made his infamous stand.
The resulting film, Crisis: Behind a Presidential Commitment, aired on TV in October 1963 and fueled discussions about the Civil Rights Movement as well as cinéma vérité, or direct cinema.