{"id":551143,"date":"2026-03-19T19:06:09","date_gmt":"2026-03-19T19:06:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/551143\/"},"modified":"2026-03-19T19:06:09","modified_gmt":"2026-03-19T19:06:09","slug":"john-wilson-on-mr-bean-the-history-of-concrete-new-series-cphdox","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/551143\/","title":{"rendered":"John Wilson on Mr Bean, ‘The History of Concrete,’ New Series: CPH:DOX"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tHBO cult icon John Wilson<\/a> (How to With John Wilson<\/a>) took the Danish capital on Thursday morning, appearing at the industry conference<\/a> of the 23rd edition<\/a> of CPH:DOX<\/a>, the Copenhagen International Documentary Film Festival<\/a>. <\/p>\n

\n\tIn conversation with\u00a0Thom Powers<\/a>, a veteran documentary programmer\u00a0of TIFF and Pure Nonfiction, he discussed his work and career, his dry wit and his latest feature,\u00a0The History of Concrete<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cI don\u2019t want to die\u201d was his first thought when the show was greenlit, Wilson shared about the HBO series How to With John Wilson. So, how did he and his collaborator, Nathan Fielder, approach it? \u201cWe had to narrativize\u201d his lived experience to provide an arc over the course of a season, the creator explained. Small talk was their first topic, given that they are both \u201csocially anxious,\u201d Wilson shared. \u201cWe ended up going to spring break in Cancun.\u201d But he met a young man whose friend had just killed himself, he recalled.<\/p>\n

\n\tDiscussing his general approach to non-fiction, he said: \u201cI really don\u2019t like manipulating the image. I like it to be as raw as possible.\u201d Full-frame, meaning fully zoomed out, shots are his default mode, he added. That also allows the camera to capture things on the edges of the frame. Wilson compared super-focused images to a \u201cplague\u201d and \u201ca waste of an image.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tAddressing whether there is a performance element to his work, he offered: \u201cI also play a Mr. Magoo-type, Mr. Bean-type character who is not really that far from what I am actually like.\u201d He tends to go into the environment he explores without research instead of faking surprise, Wilson explained, comparing it to Frederick Wiseman\u2019s way. <\/p>\n

\n\tStreet photography, a la Robert Frank and William Eggleston, is a key inspiration for him, Wilson also shared. \u201cI like the artist as a recording instrument,\u201d he also told the conference.<\/p>\n

\n\tTV was \u201ccool and consistent\u201d and provided a steady paycheck, \u201cwhich I miss,\u201d comparing the experience to being Willy Wonka in the Chocolate Factory, but he wanted to go into features, Wilson told the Copenhagen crowd. <\/p>\n

\n\tWhy did he land on concrete, which, he acknowledged, was \u201cturned out to be extraordinarily difficult to pitch\u201d? Wilson explained that he wasn\u2019t so interested in the austerity of the material or \u201cthe kind of fascist beauty of it\u201d but \u201cjust wanted to get into the actual material which nobody was talking about.\u201d And, he added, to laughter: \u201cI feel concrete was also extremely unsexy.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tWilson screened a pitch video he made for the film, which offered that it would be \u201cthe Oppenheimer of concrete, or the Barbie movie of concrete.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThe filmmaker shared that the budget of the film was \u201cso much lower\u201d than the series budget, offering: \u201cThere was no budget at all.\u201d Asked about reports that there was a suggestion to not make The History of Concrete his usual brand of essayistic doc but an animated film, Wilson shared with a smile: \u201cMy agent has some really funny ideas.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tWhere does Wilson take his career next? \u201cI want to try to pitch another TV series that I have in mind,\u201d he shared, without providing details. \u201cI have no idea how that\u2019s going to go. I think it\u2019s a much more complicated ask in a lot of ways, both legally and production value-wise.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tWilson finished this year\u2019s \u201cA Morning With\u201d event series, which also featured Irish documentary director Sin\u00e9ad O\u2019Shea<\/a> (All About the Money<\/a>) and Poh Si Teng<\/a> (American Doctor<\/a>). <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"HBO cult icon John Wilson (How to With John Wilson) took the Danish capital on Thursday morning, appearing…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":551144,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[64,63,196567,134,272574,3389,225512,427],"class_list":["post-551143","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tv","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-cphdox","tag-entertainment","tag-how-to-with-john-wilson","tag-international","tag-john-wilson","tag-tv"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/551143","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=551143"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/551143\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/551144"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=551143"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=551143"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=551143"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}