Ross McElwee

... style docs.

Um, you know, R- Ross McElwee's Sherman's March comes to mind, right? But this is the next level because I think John Wilson has come around at the perfect moment for his career, which is he's a filmmaker who makes very clear movies, but he's also a television maker because he follows a similar structure in most of his projects, and that's his aesthetic, and those two seem to have combined in a way that's really effective.

In three, you could watch a three-minute clip of this movie on Instagram and feel like you got a fully-

Yeah

They sent a big box of stuff.

First run films sent a bunch of stuff, including the Ross McElwee box set, DVD box set.

Ooh, there was some chatter about that on the Discord today, going for $3.50 on eBay.

Hmm.

Oh yeah, absolutely.

It's a girthy spine.

The, uh, Ross McElwee collection.

Um, yeah.

Well, it is so individual to you as this kind of filmmaking is.

I was thinking, you know, I recently interviewed Ross McElwee, of course, of the terrific series of films, including Sherman's March.

And no one else could make his films as I think no one else could make your movies.

They are singular to you.

Uh-huh

... directed by the very legendary filmmaker, documentarian Ross McElwee.

It's his first feature in 15 years.

It's about McElwee sort of trying to get a new project off the ground.

But while he's trying to work on that, he's also reckoning with the dissolution of his marriage and his son Adrian's drug addiction.

I do think it's a little important to have a little bit of context.

While you don't have to have seen Ross McElwee's films before this in order for it to hit you, it does help, I think, because so much of his filmmaking is self-referential.

Mm-hmm.

To look through the lens of Ross McElwee's camera is to pass through a portal into his brain.

His documentaries are like diary entries, his drawing soft-spoken narration making wry observations about the world, while he shows us intimate parts of his life, his family, his girlfriends, his children, and the passage of time itself.

His latest, Remake, is more of a reverie, and watching it is like flipping through photo albums of the most painful years in someone's life.

Wow.

If Ross McElwee could only know, I guess he does know now, what he started with all these documentaries that start one direction and become personal journeys.

We're talking about the oldest person in the world.

Sam Green is the director and the on-camera host of the film.

And coming up on this episode, we've got two recent documentary reviews for you.

We're gonna be talking about John Wilson's The History of Concrete, as well, uh, as well as Ross McElwee's Remake.

Uh, there was some...

There was a discussion about how to pronounce his name, and I think we got it backwards la- uh-

Um, but yeah, it's, it's, uh...

I, I liked all of the stuff with him just kind of documenting his own struggles, even if some of it is a little...

And, and it's very much, you know, after watching Sherman's March, which will be coming out, uh, soon as an episode of the show, and watching Remake, he shares a lot in common with Ross McElwee in terms of the existential, you know, artist trying to continue to make his art in the way that he wants to make it and struggling to find those subjects.

And with Sherman Mar- Sherman's March, Sherman is basically the concrete, you know? And-