Recensioni de* critic*

The most moving aspect of Recorder is in [Stokes'] troubled relationship with her son, the nadir of which came when they were estranged... His - and the film’s – refusal to pin Stokes down as either a genius or crank (as if they are binary) speaks to her own project’s attempt to capture the totality of a thing and the noble futility in such an endeavour.

Wolf captures the breadth and significance of Stokes’s vast archive without getting bogged down... [She] is a fascinating, elusive protagonist... Yet Wolf treats her archive with reverence, rather than writing her off as an eccentric.

There is always an issue of sensitivity with documentary filmmaking, but the final film is wanting. Wanting more Marion, and wanting more interrogation of the role public news plays in American life. But that doesn’t mean this documentary isn’t worth your time.

Having watched this documentary, I now think the project could also be seen as a gigantic adventure in conceptual art, and this is not to denigrate it in any way.

Wolf’s strange, sad and finally exhilarating portrait is one of radical consumerism turned into a searchable legacy — the viewer as activist... The footage isn’t always most pointedly contextualized across the alternatingly fascinating and warped life that was Marion Stokes’... [but] the forward-thinking optimism behind the endeavor is like its own happy-at-last ending for a difficult soul.

"Recorder" is a compelling look at one very specific eccentric woman... Stokes' work is an urgent reminder of the importance of archives, the importance of preserving those archives so that they can be made available, open to all.

“Recorder” doesn’t explore the extent to which Marion’s original project of analysis was subsumed by the compulsion to tape everything. But her taping of everything created an irreproducible archive that is enlightening and the stuff of madness.

[A] meticulously composed, emotionally haunting documentary... Wolf and his outstanding editor, Keiko Deguchi, do create a riveting sketch of a complex woman... But they keep pulling back until we see another vision altogether, one that brings to mind the pixelated, big-picture work of artist Chuck Close.

"Recorder" finds poignancy in Stokes’s obsessive mission, rather than look at her as an oddity. The film becomes a treatise on the power of archival work.

Balancing discretion with revelation, Matt Wolf’s "Recorder: The Marion Stokes Project" is an investigative portrait of [a] brilliant and obsessive collector.

Wolf relies on interviews with Stokes’s family and domestic staff, plus well-chosen samples of her recordings, to reconstruct her life and her ideas. (He also indulges in some misguided dramatic reënactments that muddle the film with simulations of archival footage.)

This is a small, carefully crafted film that tries hard to pierce the protective armor of a recluse known to be difficult and domineering. In the end, Stokes still remains slightly unknowable... Yet the documentary’s deep dive into her extraordinary archives, and the grainy video treasures it unearths, make for fascinating viewing