Recorder: The Marion Stokes Project

Premiered June 15, 2020

Directed by Matt Wolf

Radical activist-turned-recluse Marion Stokes videotaped everything on TV for thirty years in the name of truth.

About the Documentary

A fiercely intelligent, radical activist who became a fabulously wealthy recluse in her later years, Marion Stokes was dedicated to furthering and protecting the truth — so much so that she recorded American television 24 hours a day for over 30 years. Recorder: The Marion Stokes Project peels back the curtain on her life, through a mix of Stokes’ own archive of recordings and interviews with those who knew her best. Long before the term “fake news” entered the national conversation, the Philadelphia-based Stokes recognized the shifting nature of the media and the importance of protecting the truth. Working in television in the late 1960s, she believed in the power of the medium to inform or misinform the public. Stokes determined that a comprehensive archive of national media would one day be invaluable, and began recording television broadcasts in 1979, starting with news broadcasts of the Iranian hostage crisis at the dawn of the twenty-four-hour news cycle, and continuing until her death in 2012. Spanning 70,000 videotapes that captured revolutions, lies, wars, triumphs, catastrophes, bloopers, talk shows, and commercials, Stokes’ visionary and maddening project nearly tore her family apart.

The Filmmakers

Matt Wolf

Matt Wolf is a filmmaker in New York, whose critically acclaimed and award-winning documentaries include Wild Combination, Teenage and Recorder: The Marion Stokes Project. Matt has made a number of short series about the arts for organizations like The Whitney Museum and The New York Times, and commercials and content for numerous brands.