A Short Non-Spoiler Note on HOW TO WITH JOHN WILSON (Patreon)

Documentary is largely about the process of discovery. On paper, your job is to investigate, peel back layers, and get at the heart of the matter. Seems easy enough, right? Yeah, try making one. Because that actual process is exhausting. With more traditional forms of historical docs, we know the depth of research that goes behind figures like Ken Burns. But it’s not just sifting through endless footage, but the comprehensive contextualization of work like OJ: Made in America that knows how to draw lines in the story that many other narratives do not. The truth is that few of us possess both the discipline and insightfulness to pull that off.

On the flip-side, many notable documentaries would seem like they had dumb luck on their side. After all, Capturing the Friedmans started as a piece about a clown and then uncovered a family’s sordid past. And The Jinx would seem lucky for capturing a certain ecstatic truth moment in a bathroom. Even a personal favorite, Hoop Dreams, would seem miraculous for finding the near-perfect subjects of the “almost glory” sports stories that never otherwise get told. But at the center of all these documentaries is not just the obvious existence of luck, but the discipline of discovery. That is the art of having patience to actual find things in the day to day, to let them surprise you, to have the presence of mind to connect the dots, and then to actually follow where they lead you.

And sometimes that place can be… unconventional.

It’s weird to think of Nathan Fielder as a “documentarian,” but that’s essentially a huge part of what he does. He builds these absurd and dumb business ideas (though there is a certain ingeniousness to their dumbness) and tries to convince people to take him up on them. But because Fielder has such utter commitment to the bit, that the real questions become: how long are these people going to go along with this insane idea? Do they really not know it’s insane? Why are they doing this? Really, the show is about the way that Nathan gets people to unveil things about themselves (and it’s something the show’s final episode / hands down masterpiece Finding Frances might do better than anything I’ve ever seen). But you really have to just be willing to go put yourself into the weird. And I bring his work up not just because he serves as the following show’s executive producer, but because the same philosophy shows why the work of John Wilson is so damn special.

The premise of HOW TO WITH JOHN WILSON seems simple enough. Wilson has a problem in his life, like “His cat is scratching his furniture!” or “He has trouble making small talk!” And then begins trying to “solve” it. But as an active documentarian, Wilson’s always has his camera in hand for his journey. And I mean always. Because so much of the show is almost exclusively first person camerawork with Wilson’s narration as he’s filming people on the street or sometimes talking to them. On one level, this ubiquitous filming provides us with the moment-to-moment joy of the show. Because as he talks, Wilson’s constantly matching his observations up with hilarious imagery that makes for clear irony, dumb metaphors, or a bad play on words. I fully realize that might sound trite, but it’s basically the same exact mechanism that makes clip-art style video essays work on youtube. And Wilson, with his deadpan, but hopeful and open-minded narration, is basically at a master at it.

But the larger mechanism of the show is the way Wilson’s seemingly-innocent searches will bring him on insane tangents (that I mostly don’t want to spoil, largely because it's the delight of the show). Sometimes it’s a chance meeting on the street. Sometimes it’s getting himself involved in a quiet-obviously bad idea. But like good improv, Wilson “yes ands” and follows along, always willing to discover more. It’s not even that he’s a great conversationalist. Quite the opposite, in fact. It’s almost like he ascribes to the Frank Pembleton school of investigation from Homicide. In that most people hate silence, so they’ll try to fill it in the best the can. So Wilson just let them talk and talk and talk and that’s where you get the nuggets to really start spilling out. And part of the charm is that Wilson is just so clearly trying to ungracefully be there with the surreal moments. I mean, it’s not that the guy is doing X on the bed, it’s that he’s doing X on the bed and they’re just casually talking about Parasite. And all the while you can’t help but ask: “where did he find this dude?!”

The answer is the streets of New York City, mostly. Which makes sense given that it seems to be the city that is inhabited by the most weirdos per square inch. I’m not sure that’s true, exactly, but it feels true. There’s just a way that everyone randomly gets pushed and pressed together into this constant high-low class, high energy, low-personal space version of community that’s always dealing with everyone else’s insanity on a surface level. And they’re often surviving it by ignoring each other. But by constantly investigating the world around him, instead? Wilson honestly manages to make one of the best pieces about New York City that I’ve ever seen, at least in the way it captures the version most don’t tell stories about (and in the process making me miss it something fierce. Seriously, it’s a place I need to come back to as much as I can and I haven’t been able to go in two years. I realize this is the most minor of concerns in the world, but we’re all missing the places that feel like home. So between this show and the depiction of Miles Morales’s NYC at Christmas, it’s genuinely been wrecking me). Ultimately, it’s not that this show “could only” take place in New York, but let’s be honest: it certainly helps. And to use a metaphor that Wilson says earlier in an episode, it’s constantly putting you in “a relationship you’re not prepared for.”

And like most great documentarians, it’s not luck that gets him (and us) there.

Because the real thing I keep thinking about is John Wilson’s singular devotion to the ideas in the show. Even if it were just the technical aspects, I have so many endless questions about this editing organization and workflow because his footage level is clearly insane. But nothing about this makes sense on paper It’s only the devotion to those seemingly small things and the following through on them that makes it work. Because it’s one thing to get a guy to reveal “I catch child predators” for a living as he stands outside a WWE event. It’s another to go all the way to Pennsylvania to follow up on it. Just as it’s another to totally make it work when it doesn’t lead anywhere amazing. Like any good storyteller / documentarian, Wilson constantly finds the ways to really fit it in the narrative. Sometimes it’s just a good joke. But sometimes he can blow it up into genuine meaning, like turning his minor quibble into a full-on microcosm for the economy. Which feels part and parcel with the way he can surprises you with poetic verve, like when talks about a buildings’ “toxic relationship with gravity.” The only thing that isn’t a surprise come when you read this (spoilery) interview and realize that, of course, Wilson shockingly thoughtful about how he presented every little thing in the show (especially that rather emotional finale).

I really can’t tell you how much I want to talk about little moments from these episodes, but with budding shows that haven’t found audiences yet? Right now I just want to say “go watch it” the same way that my friend did with me. Besides, one of the worst things about being a critic is that makes you “explain the joke” of what sometimes is so clear and evident that it doesn’t need to be explained at all, only to be seen. Because for you, like the process of documentary itself…

The joy is in discovery.

<3HULK