Documentary screening of The History of Concrete, part of the Belcourt Theatre's Doctober series.
The Belcourt Theatre is screening The History of Concrete starting Tuesday, October 13, as part of its Doctober series. It's the latest from John Wilson, who most people will recognize from his acclaimed HBO series How To with John Wilson. For this one, he turns his attention to the bedrock of New York City: concrete, the most widely used building material in the world.
The premise is classic Wilson. After attending a workshop on how to write and sell a Hallmark movie, he decides to lean on that industry-approved Hallmark formula to tell the story and broaden the film's appeal. But as he works, his foundation begins to crumble—both literally and figuratively—as he struggles to balance his artistic freedom with the realities of the modern film industry. It's a documentary that ends up being as much about the process of making the film as it is about the material itself.
Critics have called the result "blisteringly funny" and "one of the finer, more moving documentaries of recent memory," and they've described Wilson as "the Werner Herzog of the mundane, the lo-fi poet laureate of New York City." If you've seen How To, you know exactly the kind of thing they mean: a keen eye for the small, overlooked details of city life, pushed into something larger and more absurd.
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The History of Concrete opens Tuesday, October 13, with screenings at 4:20 PM and 8:10 PM, and it runs through Thursday, October 22, so you've got a good window to catch it. The Belcourt is at 2102 Belcourt Avenue, and the screening is part of Doctober, the theater's month-long documentary series.
