Screening Reality

Starred review from September 23, 2019
Filmmaker Wilkman (Floodpath) brings his love of documentary film and enthusiasm for its potential to this enthralling survey of the genre’s history in America. To the book’s great benefit, Wilkman does not adopt a doctrinaire definition of his subject, but includes both semistaged films such as Robert Flaherty’s 1922 look at Inuit life, Nanook of the North, and pure works of cinema verité such as brothers Albert and David Maysles’s 1969 film Salesman. Wilkman is also careful to recognize significant female contributions to a male-dominated field, such as from Flaherty’s wife and story consultant, Frances, or from the Maysles’ editor, Charlotte Zwerin (who eventually won recognition from them as a codirector, as well). Accessible and immersive, Wilkman’s text is peppered with numerous unexpected revelations, including Henry Ford’s role as producer of some of the earliest newsreels and educational and industrial films, and the documentary roots of such feature film directors as George Lucas and Martin Scorsese. Throughout, he skillfully weaves in historical context, such as how opposition to fascism and Nazism imparted additional urgency to documentary filmmaking, and how the 1951 introduction of videotape presaged the democratization of the field. A valuable resource for cinephiles, this sweeping history will ignite a new enthusiasm for the form among readers less well-versed in the genre.

October 1, 2019

Wilkman (Floodpath: The Deadliest Man-Made Disaster of 20th-Century America and the Making of Modern Los Angeles) takes readers on a journey through nonfiction filmmaking from the late 19th century to the present, with speculation about the future, in this well-documented work. Moving from photographer Eadweard Muybridge to director Michael Moore, tracing a path from the beginnings of modern photography to virtual reality, and charting a time line of U.S. documentarians, Wilkman consistently cycles back to one important message: no matter how fuzzy the lines between fiction and fact, truth should be forefront in the minds of documentarians. Our supposedly posttruth era and the pitfalls and ease with which we augment reality are threads throughout the narrative as the author guides readers through cultural shifts and technology-driven changes in access and filmmaking. VERDICT Wilkman makes a compelling case for documentary filmmaking to help rebuild "the foundations of evidential inquiry." And the best way to do that, he argues, is for documentaries to introduce us to people and experiences we may never otherwise encounter in our daily lives. For all audiences.--Melissa Engleman, Univ. of Tennessee at MartinPoetry

Copyright 2019 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

November 1, 2019
A documentary filmmaker examines the history of conveying truth on screen. Drawing on his own career and extensive research (including viewing every film he discusses), Wilkman (Floodpath: The Deadliest Man-Made Disaster of 20th Century America and the Making of Modern Los Angeles, 2016, etc.), whose series Moguls and Movie Stars was nominated for three Emmys, offers an illuminating, encyclopedic history of nonfiction film, from Eadweard Muybridge's 1878 images of a galloping horse to the virtual reality of the 21st century. While Westerns, comedies, mysteries, and romances dominated the entertainment industry in its early days, in 1908, in order to meet audiences' demand for "glimpses of the real world," the French film company founded by Charles Pathé and his brothers began distributing newsreels: short films recording events such as a daredevil's fall from the Eiffel Tower and a suffragette march in Washington, D.C. In addition to showing current events, including images of military activities during wars, nonfiction movies became a popular means of education. Henry Ford, diving into movie production, offered films on topics such as pottery making, newspaper production, and, not surprisingly, "Ford's way of doing business." Wilkman creates vivid profiles of significant documentarians: photographer Edward S. Curtis, who filmed Native peoples of British Columbia; the daring Osa and Martin Johnson, who filmed expeditions in Africa and the South Pacific; and Robert Flaherty, whose Nanook of the North, a lyrical celebration of Inuit culture, became an unlikely box office success. During World War II, the Army enlisted acclaimed director Frank Capra to produce documentaries "to show Americans what they're fighting for and why." TV ensured new audiences for revelations about public issues, society, and culture, on such programs as See It Now, CBS Reports, Frontline, Ken Burns' histories, and a groundbreaking PBS series, An American Family, that filmed daily life in the Santa Barbara home of the Louds. The author also underscores the importance of documentary film "at a time when the foundations of evidential inquiry are under attack and virtual reality promises to change perceptions of what is accepted as real." A capacious celebration of film's potential to show us the world.

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Starred review from October 15, 2019
In Screening Reality, a many-faceted, dynamic, and thought-provoking history of nonfiction films in America, filmmaker and author Jon Wilkman elucidates the motivations of intrepid documentarians as they struggled to capture and honestly portray the real world. With vivid profiles of diverse filmmakers and expert analysis of their work set within finely grained social and political contexts, Wilkman addresses aspects personal, technical, aesthetic, cultural, and ethical.As he illuminates the many forms documentaries have taken, Wilkman traces the perpetual contrast between filmmakers committed to truth and social justice versus those crafting propaganda. Henry Ford produced industrials to promote his automobiles and instructional films meant to Americanize his immigrant workforce. President Franklin Roosevelt commissioned documentaries for the public as part of the New Deal. Wilkman provides a remarkable history of the newsreel; the travelogue, pioneered by one of many documentarian husband-and-wife teams, Martin and Osa Johnson; and wildlife documentaries, launched by Carl Akeley, an innovative museum taxidermist. In a key segment, Wilkman dissects Robert Joseph Flaherty's seminal Nanook of the North (1922) and the debates it triggered about ethnographic truth-telling, scene manipulation, and reenactments, epitomizing a popular if murky style that became known as docudrama. Wilkman dissects the dangerous filming of WWI, and the more sophisticated if equally risky efforts during WWII, including Hollywood directors documenting under fire, coverage of Black soldiers by African American filmmaker William D. Alexander, and long-banned films about Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Wilkman charts the transformative arrival of television and the production of influential network documentary series, from See It Now to 60 Minutes. In opposition to these authoritatively narrated and edifying programs blossomed free-form, observational films by such cinema verit� innovators as Albert and David Maysles and Frederick Wiseman. Wilkman's tracing of cutting-edge filmmakers includes a focus on women and directors of color, among them Barbara Kopple (Harlan County USA, 1976; American Dream, 1990), Henry Hampton, Jr. (Eyes on the Prize, 1987-90), and various Native American and Latinx filmmakers. Wilkman also discusses the work of LGBTQ documentarians, and examines the films and impact of Ken Burns, Michael Moore, Errol Morris, and such right-wing practitioners as Steve Bannon and Dinesh D'Souza.How authentic are documentaries? When does a filmmaker cross the line between veracity and phoniness, compassion and manipulation? Wilkman's mind-expanding investigation of the conundrums inherent in nonfiction filmmaking culminates in his examination of docutainment, and its loose interpretation of facts, and reality TV, which not only further changed what Americans expected from the truth, but also propelled reality-TV personality Donald J. Trump to the White House. In concluding this monumental exploration, Wilkman reminds us that evidential truth is essential to liberty and justice, and cautions: Without a commitment to veracity over artful visuals and popular appeal, even a golden age can become counterfeit. Let the real be real; let truth ring true.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2019, American Library Association.)