About the Book
“A towering achievement, and a volume I know I'll be consulting on a regular basis.”-Leonard Maltin
"Authoritative, accessible, and elegantly written, Screening Reality is the history of American documentary film we have been waiting for." --Kenneth Turan, Los Angeles Times film critic
From Edison to IMAX, Ken Burns to virtual environments, the first comprehensive history of American documentary film and the remarkable men and women who changed the way we view the world.
Amidst claims of a new “post-truth” era, documentary filmmaking has experienced a golden age. Today, more documentaries are made and widely viewed than ever before, illuminating our increasingly fraught relationship with what's true in politics and culture. For most of our history, Americans have depended on motion pictures to bring the realities of the world into view. And yet the richly complex, ever-evolving relationship between nonfiction movies and American history is virtually unexplored.
Screening Reality is a widescreen view of how American “truth” has been discovered, defined, projected, televised, and streamed during more than one hundred years of dramatic change, through World Wars I and II, the dawn of mass media, the social and political turmoil of the sixties and seventies, and the communications revolution that led to a twenty-first century of empowered yet divided Americans.
In the telling, professional filmmaker Jon Wilkman draws on his own experience, as well as the stories of inventors, adventurers, journalists, entrepreneurs, artists, and activists who framed and filtered the world to inform, persuade, awe, and entertain. Interweaving American and motion picture history, and an inquiry into the nature of truth on screen, Screening Reality is essential and fascinating reading for anyone looking to expand an understanding of the American experience and today's truth-challenged times.
About the Author :
Jon Wilkman is an author and award-winning filmmaker whose work has appeared on ABC, CBS, NBC, PBS, HBO and A&E. His seven-part Turner Classic Movies series, Moguls and Movie Stars: A History of Hollywood, was nominated for three Emmys. His previous book, Floodpath, was an Amazon Nonfiction Book of the Year. A founding member and three-term president of the International Documentary Association, Wilkman lives in Los Angeles.
Review :
Enthralling . . . A valuable resource for cinephiles, this sweeping history will ignite a new enthusiasm for the form among readers less well-versed in the genre.
A many-faceted, dynamic, and thought-provoking history of nonfiction films in America . . . This monumental exploration reminds us that 'evidential truth' is essential to liberty and justice . . . Let the real be real; let truth ring true.
An illuminating, encyclopedic history of nonfiction film . . . A capacious celebration of film's potential to show us the world.
Well-documented . . . 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 through the narrative . . . Wilkman makes a compelling case.
This illuminating, comprehensive history of nonfiction filmmaking examines how truth has been represented on screen since the first moving image.
Authoritative, accessible, and elegantly written, Screening Reality is the history of American documentary film we have been waiting for.
Jon Wilkman has accomplished the near-impossible in this informative and highly readable new book. A respected documentarian himself, the author brings first-hand experience to the subject. Dip into any chapter and you'll find yourself comparing notes (for the book is openly opinionated) or being reminded of films you want to see. It is a towering achievement, and a volume I know I'll be consulting on a regular basis.
Fantastically well researched and written, Screening Reality raises the bar for anyone who wants to write about the history of documentaries and documentarians, with invaluable insights into today's truth-challenged times.
In Screening Reality, filmmaker Jon Wilkman provides a fascinating look at the many ways documentary (and so-called documentary) cinema has shaped and distorted our vision of American history. It is a remarkably comprehensive study, tracking the course of documentary film from the actualities conjured in Thomas Edison's Black Maria to the true crime series streamed on Netflix. Wilkman commands a skill set that is perfectly suited to the task, lacing his insights with the filmmaker's understanding of the craft and the historian's respect for the facts on record.
Jon Wilkman offers an engaging, valuable history of American documentary and nonfiction media from the fresh and badly needed perspective of someone who has worked in the field-particularly Television documentary-for fifty years. Lively, enjoyable and highly informative.
Jon Wilkman's Screening Reality is both readable and informative. The entire history of documentary film in the U.S. is here, examined with efficiency and style. A truly splendid achievement.
Engaging and deeply informative, an essential piece of cinematic, and social, history.
A page-turner . . . Wilkman immediately captured my attention from the very first chapter by weaving together his encyclopedic knowledge of the technological evolution of motion pictures with delightfully rich detail and informative asides that elaborate on what we think we already know about the history of documentary cinema.
