"Do you ever think about concrete?"
This deceptively simple question serves as the opening hook for the trailer of The History of Concrete, a quirky new feature documentary from acclaimed filmmaker John Wilson. Released in select theaters across the United States, the film invites audiences to pause and consider the literal foundation of modern civilization. If a viewer answers the opening question in the negative, the rest of Wilson’s feature-length cinematic debut is engineered to ensure that the ubiquitous gray material stays on their mind long after the credits roll.
John Wilson has steadily built a reputation as one of the most distinctive and observant comedic documentarians working today. He is widely known for his cult-favorite, critically acclaimed HBO docuseries How To with John Wilson, a show that brilliantly captured the eccentricities of urban existence. Describing his unique artistic approach in past interviews, Wilson once characterized his work as being "kind of like that show Planet Earth, except if it was only in New York and David Attenborough was forced to film everything himself."
Transitioning from television shorts to the silver screen, Wilson’s feature film debut remains entirely true to his signature style. The History of Concrete is primed for absurdity, delving deeply into a subject matter that is simultaneously immensely mundane yet fundamentally vital to the way human beings live, work, and navigate their environments every single day.
Throughout the documentary, Wilson captures the sheer ubiquity of concrete in the modern landscape. It forms the endless grids of urban sidewalks, towers as colossal buildings, and provides the structural safety of everyday homes. Beyond standard architecture, however, the film also explores the eccentric, bizarre, and unexpected ways that concrete appears on the streets of the city, as well as the specialized niche industries that have quietly grown up around its maintenance, decay, and removal.
To the average commuter, pedestrian, or city dweller, concrete is usually perceived as nothing more than a passive, background infrastructural building block—a gray canvas upon which the real drama of city life plays out. But through Wilson’s intensely curious and idiosyncratic lens, the material transforms into an unlikely, fascinating medium through which to truly understand New York City and its diverse denizens. The documentary examines how the physical footprint of the city shapes human behavior, and how humanity, in turn, leaves its permanent marks etched into the hardening stone.
The feature blends Wilson’s trademark knack for catching bizarre real-world interactions with a meditative pacing that forces viewers to look closer at their surroundings. Stills from the movie highlight this eccentric spectrum of human activity tied to the built environment, featuring everything from specialized urban workers—such as a man who operates a company dedicated entirely to removing chewing gum from the pavement, known fittingly as "Gum Busters"—to laborers aggressively jackhammering stubborn slabs of aging concrete beneath the city streets. Amidst these scenes of urban maintenance and industrial toil, Wilson occasionally turns the camera inward, offering self-reflective glimpses of his own filmmaking process as he navigates the very concrete jungles he is documenting.
By elevating the overlooked and the ordinary to the cinematic stage, The History of Concrete continues Wilson’s exploration of the hidden poetry tucked away in plain sight. For those interested in experiencing Wilson’s unique cinematic vision firsthand, further information regarding screenings, theatrical locations, and ticketing details can be found directly on the official website hosted by distributor Magnolia Pictures.
