{"id":353803,"date":"2026-09-22T19:10:51","date_gmt":"2026-09-22T19:10:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/353803\/"},"modified":"2026-09-22T19:10:51","modified_gmt":"2026-09-22T19:10:51","slug":"in-a-concrete-covered-culture-john-wilson-carves-out-a-micro-movie-revolution","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/353803\/","title":{"rendered":"In a concrete-covered culture, John Wilson carves out a micro-movie revolution"},"content":{"rendered":"

NEW YORK \u2013 Years ago, John Wilson began just walking<\/a> out into New York with his camera.<\/p>\n

Wilson was freshly out of college and eager to establish himself as a filmmaker. But he was naturally timid. It took some gumption to leave his apartment in the Ridgewood neighborhood of Queens and start pointing his camera.<\/p>\n

\u201cI did a cappella in college for a little while, and I felt like that was the most embarrassing thing you could possibly do,\u201d shrugs the director of \u201cThe History of Concrete.\u201d \u201cOnce you do that, you can do pretty much anything.\u201d<\/p>\n

What compelled Wilson, 39, is a little hard for him to pinpoint now. He wanted to make movies,<\/a> and the streets of New York offered free, unlimited production value. He wanted to preserve what was always disappearing: a storefront sign, a moment. Most of all, he wanted to capture the mundane, ubiquitous things around us that go unexamined.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think while I\u2019m shooting: What would another film be too afraid to put in? What would another film not have the room for?\u201d Wilson says. \u201cThe project of changing the way people see things is never-ending. It\u2019s what art-making should do.\u201d<\/p>\n

High art at the Low Cinema<\/p>\n

In a blockbuster movie world, Wilson is carving out his own idiosyncratic niche. A year ago, he opened the Low Cinema<\/a>, which he co-owns, in Ridgewood. It\u2019s a 42-seat micro-theater far off the Ticketmaster map, pieced together with the leftovers of defunct movie theaters. Wilson programs just about anything, much of it on old 16 mm reels. Moviegoers keep turning up.<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople just roll the dice constantly,\u201d says Wilson, sitting in the theater.<\/p>\n

On a recent September day, two \u201cChanging Lanes\u201d were playing \u2014 one the 2002 Ben Affleck movie, the other the 2025 bike lane documentary. Wilson arrived that afternoon with a small haul of new VHS tapes: \u201cThe Birds,\u201d \u201cAu Revoir Les Enfants\u201d and \u201cEndless Summer II.\u201d Outside, a small concrete slab advertised Wilson\u2019s new movie.<\/p>\n

\u201cI opened up this place maybe unconsciously, partially, so I would have a place to premiere my own movie, in case no one wanted to buy it,\u201d Wilson says, smiling. \u201cBut that doesn\u2019t seem to be the case.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe History of Concrete,\u201d<\/a> Wilson\u2019s feature film debut, did open in just one theater. But it sold nearly every available seat. Over the weekend, it grossed $90,000 at Manhattan’s IFC Center for Magnolia Pictures. <\/p>\n

Despite \u2014 or maybe because of \u2014 Wilson\u2019s resistance to Hollywood’s prevailing wisdom, he has grown an entirely organic, authentic and highly personal micro-revolution in movies.<\/p>\n

\u201cI always wanted to have something that was mine that felt like no one else could make. I got really jaded by the indie film world after a while,\u201d Wilson says. \u201cI didn\u2019t want to play by any of the same rules.\u201d<\/p>\n

Potholes and chance encounters <\/p>\n

When Wilson gets a subject in his head \u2014 scaffolding, small talk, ear cleaning \u2014 that\u2019s only the starting point. From there, he goes places both absurd and existential. The bird-watching episode of his Nathan Fielder-produced HBO series \u201cHow To with John Wilson\u201d<\/a> led him, improbably, to a Titanic replica in Tennessee.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe History of Concrete\u201d sets out to examine the second-most used substance in the world. (No. 1? Water.) The movie\u2019s beginning was typically humdrum: Wilson\u2019s basement flooded and he struggled to fix it. But it unspools with remarkable digressions, from a tattoo preservationist for the dead to a liquor salesperson and rock musician named Jack Macco.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat was one of the lowest points, that day we met. I was shooting potholes all day,\u201d Wilson says. \u201cMy camera broke. I was in pieces. Then I ran into him at the liquor store and I took my camera out of my bag, and then I ended up spending the next year and a half with him.\u201d<\/p>\n

Wilson\u2019s ability to find connection in inhospitable places has become legend. On a \u201cHow To\u201d episode shot at spring break in Cancun, Mexico, a chance encounter with a soulful young man named Chris turns into a tender dialogue on social anxiety and grief.<\/p>\n

The filmmaker Josh Safdie,<\/a> a producer on \u201cThe History of Concrete,\u201d first met Wilson in Boston in the early 2000s. On a friend’s suggestion, he watched Wilson’s fiction short about a TV show host (played by Wilson) whose show is going terribly. Safdie saw in Wilson \u201ca humor that hinged on \u2018reality\u2019 while at the same time was droll.\u201d <\/p>\n

The New York natives recognized a shared interest in uncovering something real and raw in the city through film. Wilson, born in Queens and raised on Long Island, set out with the idea of doing for video what photographers like Weegee, William Eggleston and Daniel Arnold did on the street. <\/p>\n

\u201cI feel a deep kinship with John\u2019s voice,\u201d says Safdie. \u201cLife is happening around us all the time. John sees a wire-frame around him that\u2019s warming, funny, life-affirming and poetic.\u201d<\/p>\n

How to pitch \u2018The History of Concrete\u2019 <\/p>\n

When Wilson started his movie, he didn\u2019t know where it was going to go. He was curious about how pervasive concrete had become: its effect on the environment and its often dubious durability. But he was also searching, and struggling, to find a foothold following \u201cHow To.\u201d <\/p>\n

\u201cConcrete\u201d settles into a meditation on permanence, civic life and creativity. Wilson, a little quixotically, is shown pitching his idea for the documentary. His title doesn\u2019t exactly wow executives. If concrete often smothers the life under it, something similar, the documentary suggests, is happening in culture. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s better to look at reality and try to make stuff that\u2019s about the reality we all exist in,\u201d says Wilson. \u201cI believe in movies of the moment.\u201d<\/p>\n

That involves sometimes letting himself be pushed into odd places, including a surreal trip to a concrete industry convention.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnytime people have the confidence to tell you what the right idea is, I tend to gravitate toward that,\u201d Wilson says, smiling. \u201cEven if it\u2019s a cursed proposition.\u201d<\/p>\n

Wilson is just \u2018shooting what’s out there’ <\/p>\n

Wilson looks at some of today’s pervading approaches to filmmaking with a skeptical eye. A historical epic that costs $200 million to make? \u201cI find it kind of silly you have to spend that much money to say something,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, Wilson keeps going out and shooting. He\u2019s working on a new long-form project and possibly another episodic one. \u201cBut as of now,\u201d he says, \u201cnothing is real and I\u2019m just shooting what\u2019s out there.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cBut once you sit down in front of this mountain of material, everything is fair game,\u201d he says. \u201cA movie can be whatever you want, and that\u2019s what\u2019s so fun about it.\u201d<\/p>\n

The explanation makes Wilson think of something in the small lobby of the Low Cinema. Hanging in the corner, near a poster for Frederick Wiseman’s<\/a> \u201cCity Hall,\u201d is a slightly crude but not unimpressive cardboard E.T. A sticker on the bottom reads: \u201cMade by humans not AI.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI never made a sculpture like that. I just had a bunch of cardboard and Elmer\u2019s glue. Just making something \u2014 even if it\u2019s the most poorly made thing \u2014 by the end of it, you have a product,\u201d Wilson says. \u201cAnd maybe you really like it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Copyright 2026 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"NEW YORK \u2013 Years ago, John Wilson began just walking out into New York with his camera. Wilson…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":353804,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[19429,288,131999,157,132000,131998,40838,37372,232,128563,9,24,63,16167,122,124,123,421,131997],"class_list":["post-353803","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-queens","tag-ben-affleck","tag-business","tag-daniel-arnold","tag-entertainment","tag-frederick-wiseman","tag-jack-macco","tag-john-wilson","tag-josh-safdie","tag-lifestyle","tag-nathan-fielder","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-nyc","tag-oddities","tag-queens","tag-queens-headlines","tag-queens-news","tag-u-s-news","tag-william-eggleston"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/353803","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=353803"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/353803\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/353804"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=353803"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=353803"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=353803"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}