PERFORMING ARTS

Screening Reality: How Documentary Filmmakers Reimagined America

by Jon Wilkman
Bloomsbury. Feb. 2020. 400p. photos. notes. bibliog. index. ISBN 9781635571035. $30; ebk. ISBN 9781635571059. FILM
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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.
Reviewed by Melissa Engleman, Univ. of Tennessee at Martin , Oct 01, 2019
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