His political films are now part of the canon, but the scenes from Mr. Pennebaker’s catalog that still circulate most widely are of pop culture figures in action: Jimi Hendrix lighting his guitar on fire in “Monterey Pop”; Elaine Stritch in “Original Cast Album: Company,” exhausted and straining to record “The Ladies Who Lunch” while Stephen Sondheim and others look on in despair; Mr. Dylan showing up the softer-edged singer Donovan in a hotel room crowded with their hangers-on; and the actor Rip Torn (who died last month) attacking Norman Mailer with a hammer at the end of “Maidstone” (1970), one of three eccentric movies directed by Mr. Mailer, for which Mr. Pennebaker served as a cameraman.

Mr. Mailer’s films from that era are mostly notable as oddball vanity projects (in The Times, Vincent Canby called “Maidstone” “a very mixed bag” that “doesn’t make a great deal of sense”), but Mr. Pennebaker’s relationship with the author would pay dividends down the line. In 1971, he accepted Mr. Mailer’s suggestion that he film a panel discussion that Mr. Mailer was holding at Town Hall in Manhattan. The topic would be the state of feminism.

Mr. Mailer was his pugnacious self as he battled with, among others, the author Germaine Greer and the journalist Jill Johnston before a raucous audience. At one point two women from the audience took the stage and kissed and groped Ms. Johnston, an activist for lesbian rights, before all three tumbled to the floor.

The footage of the night remained on a shelf for nearly a decade, but when it was released as “Town Bloody Hall” in 1979, it was called a remarkable time capsule of a colorful moment in New York’s intellectual and cultural history. The filmmaker Chris Hegedus, Mr. Pennebaker’s third wife (they married in 1982) and creative partner, edited the footage, which she once called “incredibly rough.”

“There was so much sexual tension going on between Norman and Germaine in it,” Ms. Hegedus said, adding, “I almost edited it as a love story, in a certain way.”

Mr. Pennebaker liked to maintain the image of a journalist for hire. Discussing the genesis of his 1989 documentary about the rock band Depeche Mode (“Depeche Mode 101”), he said, “Somebody called us up and said, ‘Would you like to film Depeche Mode?’ and I sort of said, ‘What’s that?’ ”