John Wilson and “The History of Concrete”

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0:22The New Yorker Radio Hour is a co-production of WNYC and The New Yorker.

0:30This is the New Yorker Radio Hour. I'm David Remnick. Now, if you're a fan of John Wilson's TV show and films, then you don't really need this introduction. But if you haven't heard of him... Hey, New York. His work is not really easy to explain. He's a documentarian who's also a comedian, a kind of would-be philosopher. So do you have strong thoughts about scaffolding? He had a hit show on HBO called How To with John Wilson. Is there a place I can go where referees hang out? Where he wandered around New York City filming everyday life, pontificating, and asking strangers questions that could be mundane or bizarrely esoteric.

1:06Is it a sin if I cheat on my taxes? Was I making you uncomfortable? No. Actually, yeah, a little bit. Have you ever had a pet that died? Do you think mankind is going to make a comeback? Staff writer Andrew Marantz has written about John Wilson for The New Yorker, and the other day, he met Wilson at the indie theater he now runs called Low Cinema. It's in Queens, where they show B-movies and genre classics. It's filled with ephemera that feels somehow very John Wilson-y. Yeah. You know, you got to have high and low brow in equal parts. We've got plaques to Pierce Brosnan, Sandra Bullock, Jack Nicholson, and Vanessa Williams.

1:43We got a sink with a giant sink sign on it so you know what it is. Oh, and there's E.T. Yeah, there's E.T. He's still holding it down. I put a tongue in him recently. it's pretty realistic yeah, did you make it? I made the E.T. just during the down time when we were waiting for different electricians and stuff to show up when we were making the theater you know, it's a lot cheaper to make your own E.T. than to buy one so I would recommend it John Wilson's new film, which comes out next week bears the title The History of Concrete. You heard that right. You came up with the title as a challenge to yourself or because you thought it was funny?

2:35Or how did it come to you? I mean, I came up with the title because I was genuinely interested in the material and I did want to make the definitive film about it. But I also liked to make comedies and I knew that it would be the hardest thing possible to make funny. And there was something about that that really excited me, even though it was agonizing at points, to get this thing made and to actually make it funny. In a way, this sort of journey of your movie starts with you thinking about Hallmark movies. So why was that a springboard for you? I think post the HBO show, I was struggling with discipline, like self-discipline, and trying to figure out kind of where to begin, given just this like abyss of stuff to choose from.

3:36And so I had the show on HBO for three seasons. So when I decided to end after the third season, I kind of wanted to enter the world of feature filmmaking because it always felt a bit random that I ended up in television. And I really always thought about the work as like cinema. But I'm sure you had some people in your life being like, John, you have the only job. Please don't give it up. Um, I, you know, I, I wasn't making this work for, for money in, you know, in a way I, I think it's, it's nice that we had a budget and I could like pay all my friends with the HBO thing, but I am mostly just driven by the subject matter a lot of the time, whether it's like this internal struggle or this kind of external catastrophe that I'm witnessing in real time.

4:38But then I started to just shoot without much purpose, as I usually do. And I feel like over time, I just accidentally made a feature just by the sheer momentum of needing something to do to fill your time. So then you are like, okay, I'm not doing the HBO thing anymore. Now what do I do with my time? Yeah. And then, you know, I'm part of the Writers Guild, so I was invited as a member to go to this class on how to write and sell a Hallmark movie. And I didn't have anything to do. So I went and I learned a lot. And I had no idea how this would fit into anything. but I knew that I had a set of rules, you know?

5:31And I think that that is something that's really important. Like when you're making art sometimes is, is to, to kind of give yourself something to work with or against. So like I have these rules, like, you know, you can't have Jesus in your Christmas movie. You know, you can't interrupt a kiss with a phone call. Just to be clear for people who aren't familiar, when you say I went to a Hallmark, you know, a class on how to make a Hallmark movie, what it means is I went and also I was filming because you're basically filming all the time. Yeah, I brought a little handy cam that was pretty discreet.

6:12Let's talk about the formula and talk about what actually makes a Hallmark rom-com, specifically a Hallmark rom-com. The core of this brand is aspiration, and I cannot stress that enough. Escapism. Hallmark movies are pretty settings, even when they shouldn't be pretty settings. Love interests. These high key characters that you want to be and want to be with. And it's inspirational. Trauma is fine, but it ends on a hideout if we've learned from the trauma. And that is because people come to these movies to escape their realities. And a lot of those realities, especially in this audience, are financial.

6:47They don't really want to see people struggling financially in these movies. these movies are a bomb. They are the possibility of what you could be. Your leads should feel like they are on the cusp of an incredible light if only they could figure this one thing out that's holding them back. You know, beat by beat, this is a proven formula. And it's, you know, as someone says in the film, it's maybe the only cable network that's growing right now. So however you view this work, that's true. These are consumption habits of the country, and that's just the way things are. But I kind of wanted to use that as a springboard to think about just these ideas of cliché and whether or not cliché is something that is naturally occurring in our worlds that we like to see and create.

7:47or whether or not cliche is this thing that is imposed on us by these kind of larger market forces. And, you know, the film, I think, is playful trying to figure out where these things exist in reality. And then you thought, the movie industry is dying. There's no more funding. Let me go try to get funding for a movie called The History of Concrete. When I first came up with the title, I looked on the internet to see if it already existed. And I found one book on Amazon called The History of Concrete. But when I looked at the description, it turns out that it was an empty book that was actually just a place to store your valuables.

8:39And it said History of Concrete on the spine. So, you know, I just thought that was really funny because, you know, not even the most determined thief would have the courage to open a book with a title that boring. I think I understood the absurdity of trying to pitch a concept like this in 2026 or 2024, I guess. But what I consider a fun challenge, the industry doesn't often consider a fun challenge. And often they respond better to when you have something in hands that you can show them. You know, you want to do a reason why the subject matter for you is a feature length film at places you want to go.

9:30I mean, I think you could sort of we can all sell that a little bit to, you know, justify the budget ask. And tell us about the sizzle you have in mind. You know, are you. Did you have a sense of how you want to put that together as sort of a sales tape? I have. It's about two and a half, three minutes right now. What's the working title again? The History of Concrete.

9:57Okay. And it's hard, especially in nonfiction, to get people to come on a journey with you where there's no beginning, middle, or end, and you just have this kind of broad idea. And, you know, even if you had a successful project beforehand, you still need to prove yourself and start from scratch in a way with each concept because the world is constantly changing and the kind of the appetite or the perceived appetite of the crowd is constantly changing.

10:37That's John Wilson speaking with Andrew Morantz of The New Yorker. More in a moment.

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15:31I think people might be surprised by how much you actually set out to learn about concrete. You seem to really learn a lot about concrete through the process. So like, I guess the question is why, what does that do for the work? Because you could imagine you're just shooting a bunch of stuff with concrete in it and you never really like learn a lot about it. Why is it important to you to learn that factual information? I try to do as little research as possible before going to a shoot. Because then when they're explaining something to me, I don't have to pretend that I don't know it already. and that I think helps the discovery process you know in real time and you know I don't ever want to make anything super pedantic because I feel like with a lot of documentaries people don't really like to pursue them because they see the title they see what it's about and they make a judgment decision in that moment whether or not they want to be depressed by this subject matter.

16:38Or at least that's how I, you know, intake a lot of stuff. I mean, I watch everything, but... And yeah, I just, I feel like I want the vegetables to be in there. And I want you to get some information, but I don't want to give you any actual easy answers. So I may receive the answer during my exploration, but I often don't put it in there. because I want the work to be the beginning of a conversation, like when you get out of the film. Well, I sort of, I mean, this may be part of what you're saying, but there are actually a lot of political questions that are touched on in this film. I mean, you have Eric Adams in this film.

17:26You actually just made a thing with Zoran, the new mayor. So you're not actually shying away from politics. There's a lot of affordable housing politics in this movie. There's nimbyism versus yimbyism. There's climate politics. Yeah. So that's all in there, but you don't get on a soapbox about it. Yeah, I think the movie started as a bit more climate focused, but I did not want this to be like an Al Gore project. No offense, Al. I think there are movies out there like that, and I just didn't want to make that film. I think the first version of this movie was very climate-heavy, where I wanted to talk about sands.

18:11I wanted to talk about rusting rebar and how frail a lot of the concrete around the city is. And that's in there. And how much it contributes to climate change overall. Yeah, and it is such a kind of colossal contributor to global warming. But, you know, it's like once you realize that there is a global warming issue, it's kind of like, okay, this is something that we're all living with and who knows who is accepting it and who isn't. I don't really want to shove this down anyone's throat, but I do want to kind of use the film as a Trojan horse to maybe throw that in there somewhere to make you think maybe a bit deeper, but I don't want to ruin your day.

19:06and you know it's like when i went to the concrete convention every single person there proudly told me that uh concrete is the second most used substance on the planet you know with no judgment attached to it and um i found that really interesting that there is this like disconnect where people aren't really thinking about the impact of of stuff like this within the industry in the same way. And I just was looking around and I didn't know who was putting all of these things together, you know, and like actually thinking critically about this material. You have never once questioned this material before.

19:55But everything you learned so far made you feel like we were in danger somehow. But everyone here just seemed to be in a state of bliss, enjoying the lifestyle that the concrete business provides for them. When you left one of the conventions, you took a look at the contract that you signed with them. And the fine print said that you agreed to not portray concrete in a negative light. you're still not sure what that means but you're not loving it because without something to criticize a documentarian is powerless and it's taking every ounce of strength you have to continue and I just thought it was a fun springboard to have an anti-concrete you know, position, which is such a ludicrous, I think, political position to have, like right now.

21:04But I think it's essential to question it, because I think a lot of what I like to do and want to continue to do, I think, is to interrogate these things that we don't often question. Do you identify yourself as either a Yimby or a NIMBY? I feel caught somewhere in between. I don't know. I really had to do a lot of soul searching in this movie to decide where I stood on that side of the argument or on either side of the argument. The movie shows these very compelling opposite sides of this argument where it's you have the sort of like, you know, fuck all landlords kind of messaging in the movie.

21:45And then you're like, here, I'm a landlord and I'm trying my best to do it. Well, you have it would be really cool if Tony Hawk built a skate park. And then you have these people being like, we need the ground to soak up the rainwater and like, please don't build a skate park. Yeah. Yeah. So you're kind of showing all these irreconcilable tensions. Yes, exactly. Yeah. I started out the movie by, I did want to make like the most NIMBY movie ever made to begin with. You did? Yeah. I did want to kind of include NIMBY voices and like, you know, just give them, I think, a platform just to hear exactly what the argument is.

22:22We're all for affordable housing because you are the people who give affordable housing to your neighborhood. I mean, most of the owners I know, they have long-term tenants, and they wrestle over raising the rent of the good tenant that they have. Think about it. When a developer comes in and now he has looser rules, he thinks about how can I even make more money? And I think it's really unpopular to kind of elevate NIMBY voices a lot of the time. And I wanted to just see what was going on there and just try to let that guide the film a bit. because, you know, I obviously believe in affordable housing and I'm like actively like trying to make a dent there in my own way, if even small.

23:23But it's also like, I think that a lot of the kind of Yimby people are also kind of strange bedfellows with the people within the construction industry. When do you have to open the theater to the public? Like today? I mean, their first screening is usually at 6, so I usually open around quarter after 5. And do people come, like, hang out before screenings or after? Or, I mean, is it turning into a neighborhood hangout? Yeah, people come in and hang out, don't even see a movie. A lot of people just come in to buy popcorn, the way that you would, like, go to a butcher or something. Yeah. You know, just like, you know, this is where you get popcorn.

24:06Yeah, it's a good spot for popcorn. Thank you for your time. Thanks for letting us in the theater. Yeah, thanks for asking me to do this.

24:17John Wilson's film The History of Concrete is in theaters September 18th. He spoke with staff writer Andrew Morantz of The New Yorker. I'm David Remnick, and that's our episode for today. Thanks for listening. See you next time.

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