The History of Concrete with John Wilson

Ira Flatow (0:02)

Hey, it's Ira, and you're listening to Science Friday.

When I first heard that I would be interviewing John Wilson about his new documentary called The History of Concrete, boy, it made me really excited because you know, if you listen to this program, how much I am enthralled with the world of concrete. So when I heard there was another concrete geek out there making a film about it, well, we just had to talk and compare notes. Now, I realize that to most people, concrete seems, well, gray, drab, boring. But the film is anything but. In between facts about concrete's reliance on dwindling sand reserves, New York City's crumbling infrastructure, there's the story of a struggling musician, a man who preserves tattoos, and a group of runners looping the same block for two months. It follows the idiosyncratic format of Wilson's previous hit HBO show, How To. But I may be the only person who watched this documentary who wanted more concrete facts. So here to tell us about them is John. Welcome to Science Friday.

John Wilson (1:10)

Hey, thanks for having me.

Ira Flatow (1:12)

What made you decide on concrete as the subject of your first feature film?

John Wilson (1:19)

I wanted to pick pretty big subject matter, and I really couldn't think of anything bigger. And it felt almost like a prequel to the how to in a way, in that it's the foundation on which everything else is built on.

But I don't know, I mean, I think it started innocently enough with a crack in the foundation to my house that I was trying to figure out how that got there.

Ira Flatow (1:45)

Is it possible to talk about concrete without getting into a thousand puns, foundation, concrete, ideas?

Exactly. Yeah.

John Wilson (1:54)

I mean, it was a minefield and that I was trying to avoid it for most of the film. I think that's part of the fun challenge of it is to try to take something that has a million associations with it and just try to avoid all of them.

Ira Flatow (2:12)

You say it's embarrassing to know so little about something that occupies so much of your visual environment. Tell me more about that.

John Wilson (2:22)

It's one of those things where I would talk to a lot of people about this stuff and no one really had an opinion about it, aside from people either within the industry or that dealt with materials that go into concrete.

I don't know. I did feel a bit that I didn't know anything about it, just because it's everywhere, it's everything.

Ira Flatow (2:46)

A big part of the film is your quest to get this documentary funded. At one point, you pitch it as a, I love this word, how did you come up with a rockumentary?

John Wilson (2:58)

Yeah, I mean, there are certain funds that I did want to lean into and, you know, rockumentary being one of them.

And it was a kind of contractual obligation that was handed to me at one point, if I wanted to get the movie financed, that basically I would have to include a musician of elevated visibility or notoriety. And, you know, I kind of both resented that, but also wanted to embrace it at the same time.

Ira Flatow (3:32)

Yeah, because they couldn't, they couldn't see that concrete could be sizzling enough on its own, couldn't they?

John Wilson (3:39)

Yeah, I mean, I think they were right to a degree. And I think that's, that's like, you know, why there's this ongoing tension within the film. And, you know, I do include a lot of stuff that I think the industry values, you know, like whether it's certain narrative plot points or, you know, incorporating certain imagery of identifiable people.

But, you know, I wanted to to make kind of a twisted version of that, where you only really see these celebrities for a few frames instead of being the focus. I wanted the real people in the industry or affected by the industry to be the real focus.

Ira Flatow (4:21)

I hate to say it this way, are there concrete facts that didn't make it into the documentary that you've been itching to share? And now is a perfect time to let go.

John Wilson (4:31)

Well, I do find it kind of shocking how we're not really going to be able to make it, I think, for another 100 years with the intensity that we've been using it. I mean, there's a lot of stuff about sands that's really interesting.

Ira Flatow (4:49)

Let's talk about that. Yeah, sure. Yeah.

How important it is to concrete. There's an impending shortage. Tell me all about that.