The History of Concrete

‘A sidewalk is usually poured by a contractor employed by the local municipality. And they do everything they can to keep it smooth.’

Laughing yet?

You will be, when you hear it from John Wilson. As fans of his cultishly beloved show How To With John Wilson know, he has a way of turning literally any subject into an object of droll hilarity.

So The History of Concrete really is a documentary about concrete. And along the way, we learn that concrete is the second most used material on the planet. (Also, not the same thing as cement!) We attend the World’s Best Bricklayer contest, a ‘mortar workability’ competition, and a lecture on geomorphology.

Happily, Wilson has a talent for this kind of thing, so when he opines that ‘gum is like the birdshit of people’, you can expect a deep dive into the vagaries of sidewalk gum, including a field trip with the owner of GumBusters, ‘the only gum vaporiser in NYC’. The gum guy is also a vintner who appears to bottle wine out of his garage, which is the sort of oddball detail upon which Wilson cheerfully and rather brilliantly expands.

The movie was initially inspired, for example, by a class he took on how to make a Hallmark movie. The lesson couldn’t be more basic: write a story about a big-city girl finding love with a small-town boy, and you’ve got a potential hit. And yet, this path leads us to a disquisition on the late spiritual leader Sri Chinmoy, New York’s most unusual marathon, and self-transcendence.

Wilson has worked with Nathan Fielder and boasts a similarly skewed view of humanity

Wilson’s works seem rambly, but in fact are always impeccably edited (even if this effort, which parallels the structure of his half-hour show, does feel about 15 minutes too long). Indeed, his true genius is for juxtaposition, which never fails to elicit amusement. Who else would bring us to a private dinner honouring Kim Kardashian, only to interrupt it with a quote from French philosophical theorist Guy Debord?

He’s not just looking for comedy, though: eventually, the random strands weave together into a bigger, deeper picture. Wilson has worked with fellow documentarian Nathan Fielder, and boasts a similarly skewed view of humanity. But his voice is very much his own – and, arguably, more humane than Fielder’s. As he records various corners of an increasingly fraught US, even the most bizarre scenario (and he finds dozens) is approached with a wry appreciation for his subjects’ wisdom and vulnerability.

‘In between’, a stranger opines into his camera while standing on a (concrete) sidewalk, ‘there is no in between.’ By the time the movie ends, it may scare you how much sense that makes.

In US cinemas Fri Sep 18.