Recorder: The Marion Stokes Project

MON OCT 21 | 6:00PM | BLUE ORLEANS THEATER (THE ADVOCATE)

You could call Marion Stokes eccentric, dogmatic, a reclusive hoarder. You could also call her forward-thinking, a visionary, a truth-seeker. From 1979 to 2012, she recorded cable, national, and local television news 24 hours a day, amassing a collection of 70,000 VHS tapes. Informed by her youth as a radical Communist activist, Stokes remained throughout her life skeptical of the way stories are crafted, filtered, and distorted for mass consumption. Matt Wolf’s documentary uses archival footage both of Marion and from her archive to present a woman and a world that defy simple explanation. In a time of clickbait, fake news, and conversations that rarely stretch across the aisle, Stokes’ work is more relevant than ever. -KM