Initially drawn to this documentary due to my love of all things VHS, I went into ‘Recorder’ with a preset expectation on what I was getting myself into, and was somewhat pleasently surprised by what it ACTUALLY was about.

Y’see, while I knew that the documentary was largely dealing with the total visionary that was Marion Stokes, I had been led to believe that the emphasis for this doc would be on the content found on the 70 thousand+ VHS tapes that Marion recorded over the 35 year window she pretty much non stop recorded through. with her life being used as lynchpin moments to support the obscure footage.

Instead, the doc is actually more about Marion the person, who she was, her life, her interests and the somewhat eccentric life she lived as she tried to collect and preserve as much knowledge as physically possible in the pre internet era, as told by her carers, friends and family. With the footage acting more as a lynch pin to punctuate and set the scene of the time we’re dealing in than being the centerpiece.

And while im a little dissapointed that the documentary didnt really dig that deep into the archive in terms of public access broadcasting, local advertisements, local news broadcasts and other strange televisual oddities. I was ultimately won over by the story of a woman who valued knowledge above all other costs leading to a life of isolation, but ultimately one of vast VAST cultural preservation.

I feel the way this is structured is a little lopsided. While the story of Marion is a solid and emotional piece, they do end up jumping around in time a little bit to try and add context to what we’re seeing. While that does help the narrative, it did become difficult after a time to figure out exactly when certain events were supposed to have happened. Particularly when it gets into family details.

It does however manage to make for a compelling viewing piece, the use of the archive news segments really help add a sense of weight to the 35 years she did this and by the end of it, despite her being a incredibly private person, I did feel I got to know her fairly well.

The editing really is the saving grace for this documentary honestly, while the interview segments can wander a little bit, some keen cinematography and well timed cuts and arrangements of footage do ultimatley tie this thing up into a neat and tidy package that looks great and felt quite informative.

While the ending as of 2023 is something of a downer (given the current ongoing legal battles that are plaguing the internet archive) its still a very optimistic documentary that I could recommend for its charm and interesting subject matter. I really do wish however, given how much they reference it in the doc itself, that they’d shown more local broadcasting deep cuts…In either case, this is totally worth checking out.

source https://letterboxd.com/tytdreviews/film/recorder-the-marion-stokes-project/