by Guest Contributor, Ron Simon (w/ Comments by HelenHighly)

Note: This review of Recorder: The Marion Stokes Project was originally published 4/27/2019, as part of my coverage of the Tribeca Film Festival. It has been updated for the national theatrical release of the film, beginning 11/15/2019 at New York’s Metrograph Theater.

Television thrives on the neurotic lunacy of hoarders, but rarely do we experience the passion and purpose of a methodical collector, who really made a difference. Matt Wolf’s masterful documentary, Recorder: The Marion Stokes Project takes us into the visionary psychic and cluttered physical worlds of a woman who turned her acquiring fury into a unique archive of contemporary history. Recorder had its world premiere at Tribeca Film Festival 2019.

Marion Stokes was obsessed with how the media framed the crucial issues of the day. From the Iranian Hostage Crisis in November 1979 until her death during the Sandy Hook School Shootings in December 2012, she secretly recorded various news channels twenty-four hours a day. Stokes amassed over 70,000 videotapes, maintaining a record of how television interpreted or misrepresented events.  But Stokes herself remained very much of an enigma, with director Wolf relating her incredible legacy through stories of her son and assistants.

Born poor in the Germantown section of Philadelphia, the African American Stokes found her calling as a librarian. But her professional career was scuttled because of her Communist leanings. She became active in progressive causes, producing a local Philly series Input in the late sixties, which was a revelation in local television and an impressive accomplishment for a Black woman of that era. Input provided a platform for citizens, academics and activists to debate frankly about social justice, race, and culture. (Clips can be found here.) Marion also found an intellectual partner in the show’s host John Stokes, a wealthy white philanthropist. The excitement of the duo sharing ideas on this program is palpable.

Stokes and Marion became married partners in life, and he underwrote her technological curiosity, moving her beyond newspaper and book stockpiling. Always the librarian, she was gripped with innovative ways to share information. Although she never sent an email or used the Internet, she amassed hundreds of Apple computers. But video recording was her mission, having tapes carted to her apartment on ritzy Rittenhouse Square in anonymous black bags.

There is little existent footage of Marion outside Input, but her archives speak volumes. Stokes planned every outing so that she could be home in six hours to change a VHS tape. Wolf creatively uses images from her off-air recordings to perhaps probe her subconscious. Using her tapes, he creates a mosaic of how the major networks initially broadcast news of 9/11. It is chilling how silly morning news suddenly became sober. Stokes’ archive gives us the perspective to compare the instantaneous reactions of several news gatherers grappling with live events.

Stokes’ story has been passed around via a 2013 Fast Company article, which inspired Wolf to make the film. Her taped treasures found a home at the Internet Archive, which is making the contents available online*. Her preservation of local news programs in Philadelphia and Boston is particularly invaluable for researchers.

Wolf’s illuminating documentary is part detective work to uncover an unconventional life and part love story of two individuals devoted to preserve that which everyone else takes for granted. Stokes was an activist-archivist and her tenacity of holding on to our media past can only be completed by future historians. Stokes lived a life well saved.

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* But note that none of Marion Stokes’s recorded footage is identified as hers; there is no indication that any of her archival materials were collected by her, which HelenHighly thinks is a little odd, if not Highly Odd. I guess this answers the question “What’s the difference between a hoarder and a collector?” Answer: an archive — an index or log by which to sort, manage and identify what has been saved. If Marion had created an index system, then the Internet Archive would not have had to make one of their own (and in the process, make the entire collection their own).

Helen Highly Compelled to Comment:

Takes one to know one!

Ron Simon is Senior Curator for Television for Paley Center for Media, and as a devoted archivist and historian (and possible obsessive hoarder), he surely sees a kindred spirit in Marion Stokes. His ability to understand the extraordinary historical significance of what Marion created speaks to his expert insight. His admiration of her speaks perhaps to something else, more personal.

I find it interesting and odd that Ron sees a romantic love story behind the film’s pained narration by Marion’s long-suffering son Michael and her husband John’s reported fear of Marion learning of any interaction he had with his deserted daughter from a previous marriage. Marion’s son Michael Metelis was born to her first husband, who is seen in the film speaking of Marion’s “withering criticism” and her making it nearly impossible for him to maintain a relationship with his young son.

In Michael’s caring for the things his mother left behind — things she seemed to care about more than she did him, the emotion that was “palpable” to me was that of a neglected and rejected son still trying to please his deceased, controlling mother. Helen Highly Cynical suggests that the only love she sensed was between Marion and John’s money. My impression is that she managed to recruit John into her cult of one. But maybe I don’t understand the unique passion that beats in the hearts of hoarders.

Engrossing as the film is, there is no joy in it, nor in Marion’s compulsive collecting. The documentary portrays a reclusive woman who was so suspicious of the world that she secretly recorded using multiple TVs and VCRs and organized her life around changing the VHS tapes — not even trusting TIVO to know what she was recording. In the film, her personal chauffeur remembers Mrs. Stokes by her strict rules of “no talking” and “no touching.” Usually I am thrilled by stories of craziness giving birth to genius, but there was no brilliance in Marion’s obsession – only a dark world view against the flickering of TV tubes.

Savvy director Matt Wolf paints of complex portrait of a complicated woman, and it becomes something like a Rorschach test for viewers — seeing what you take away from it all. Any way you look at it, this is a fascinating and startling film. And Ron is clearly right to recognize the highly important story it tells about modern American history and the nature of television. The human story… that is something much more murky. But of course, that is what makes it so compelling. Despite the disturbing darkness, Helen Highly Recommends Recorder: The Marion Stokes Project.

Click here to read about more Archival-Themed Movies at TFF2019

Recorder begins its national, theatrical run Nov. 15 2019; go see it! And there is another documentary that is equally terrific as a piece of contemporary American history with a political undertone (although this one is less grim intellectualism and more depraved irony). Helen Highly Recommends Scandalous: The Untold Story of the National Enquirer. Both films made it onto the list for Early Contenders for Documentary Feature for Academy Awards 2020.