Comedy
Jon Wilkman is an author and award-winning filmmaker whose work has appeared on the major networks, 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. A founding member and three-term president of the International Documentary Association, Jon’s most recent book is “Screening Reality: How Documentary Filmmakers Reimagined America.” His previous book, “Floodpath,” was an Amazon Nonfiction Book of the Year.In this interview, Jon talks about the fragility of the public’s perception of “truth” and how documentary filmmakers have contributed to that perception over the entire history of film. He discusses the relationship of trust between journalists and their audiences, which he saw up close in one of his first jobs working as a researcher for Walter Cronkite. Jon notes the change in audience’s acceptance of manipulation by programs claiming to be “reality television,” culminating in “The Apprentice” which hid the fact that Donald Trump was actually a failed businessman who was deeply in debt. With cellphone cameras allowing people to see more of the everyday world than ever before, and technology like deep fake with the capacity to fool viewers, Jon talks about the need to encourage viewers to be critical of what they see, and to encourage documentary filmmakers to only use technology to enhance the truth and not distort it, in order to lead a reexamination of who we are as a country and who we want to be as a culture.