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John Wilson Uses 3D-Printed Starbucks to Critique Capitalism in 'History of Concrete
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In Short: Documentarian John Wilson employs a 3D-printed Starbucks to explore capitalism and documentary clichés in his film.
In 'The History of Concrete,' John Wilson critiques the capitalist system through an unconventional lens: a 3D-printed Starbucks in Texas.
Wilson's documentary juxtaposes the grandeur of modern construction with the unease beneath the surface of such developments, highlighting the role of capitalism in shaping our built environment.
For Wilson, the 3D-printed Starbucks serves as a metaphor for the excesses of modern capitalism and the homogenization of global culture.
Wilson's producers hired a freelancer to capture footage of the 3D-printed Starbucks in a style reminiscent of his previous work, emphasizing the human scale and eye-level perspective.
Wilson's voiceover in the film shifts between self-deprecating humor and serious inquiry, using the Starbucks footage to critique the abundance of ineffective materials and the capitalist incentives driving their use.
Wilson's approach in 'The History of Concrete' also addresses trends in modern documentary filmmaking, questioning the clichés and storytelling techniques prevalent in the genre.
What's still developing
- “I love basically every documentary — even if it’s bad, it’s usually a good document of something, even if it’s kind of half-baked,” Wilson said.
- “It’s a very ceremonial moment where you are celebrating the renewal of the city in certain ways, with all this new construction augmenting the visual landscape, and I think they both ultimately are positioned as these positive ceremonies. But there is something, some kind of unease, and I think a darkness somewhere within there,” Wilson said.
- “The kind of stuff that I’m most interested in is a living document of the moment that is at a human scale, and like almost at our eyesight,” Wilson said.
- Documentary films go to all kinds of far-flung and exotic places.
- Wilson’s voiceover, which can go from self-effacing to deadpan to genuinely searching at the drop of a hat, uses the drone footage to examine ineffective but abundant materials, increasingly incentivized by the capitalist structure we all live inside of.
- “That’s my bad boy attitude coming to the surface there,” Wilson joked on an episode of the Filmmaker Toolkit Podcast.
Sources
- IndieWirelink