When Did We All Start Watching Documentaries?
Award-winning filmmaker R.J. Cutler talks to Stephen Dubner about capturing Billie Eilish’s musical genius and Martha Stewart’s vulnerability — and why he needs to make a film about the New York Mets.
Over the past few episodes of Freakonomics Radio, we’ve dug into the economics of live theater. In that series, we learned that fewer people are watching plays and musicals. So what are they watching instead? It turns out that a lot of people are watching … documentary films.
R.J. Cutler is an Emmy Award-winning filmmaker who has produced and/or directed dozens of documentaries. You may not know his name, but there’s a good chance you’re seen his work. Martha, his film about Martha Stewart, has been a big hit on Netflix. He recently made a film about the young pop star Billie Eilish, called The World’s a Little Blurry, and a film about the old pop star Elton John, called Never Too Late. His 2009 film The September Issue shadowed Vogue editor Anna Wintour and her colleague and sometimes-antagonist Grace Coddington. Cutler has also made a number of political documentaries, like The World According to Dick Cheney; A Perfect Candidate, about the failed Senate race of Oliver North; and his first film, The War Room, which was about Bill Clinton’s first presidential campaign and was nominated for an Academy Award. Cutler’s most recent project is a docuseries on Apple TV+ called Fight for Glory, about the 2024 World Series.
You may also recognize Cutler’s name if you are a regular Freakonomics Radio listener. A few months ago, we did a live show in Los Angeles that was supposed to be recorded for this podcast but ... the theater failed to record the show — which was a shame, because we had two great guests that night. One was the Hollywood super-agent and entrepreneur Ari Emanuel, and the other was R.J. Cutler. We interviewed Ari a couple years ago — you can hear that if you’d like. But R.J. had never been on this show before, so we asked him to sit down in a studio and try again.
Robert Jason Cutler grew up in Great Neck, on Long Island in New York. At Harvard, he studied dramatic theory, and the lessons he learned there stayed with him:
I can’t remember the number of times a teacher said to me something like, “You’re gathering people in a theater. You’ve asked them to come and spend three hours of their lives with you. You better have something to say, and you better damn well know what it is.” I want the audience to have a rollicking good time at the theater. I want them to laugh and cry and stomp their feet. I’m thinking cinematically as well, but I’m also thinking in terms of character and obstacle and overcoming obstacle and the things we learn when we overcome obstacle.
In 1992, Cutler had an idea for a documentary that would track that year’s presidential campaign, including the rise of the young Arkansas governor Bill Clinton. The War Room premiered in 1993, and by documentary standards, it was a huge hit, grossing nearly $1 million. Back then, most people who saw new movies still watched them in art-house theaters — but that’s no longer the case, thanks to streaming services. As a recent piece in New York put it: “Between 2018 and 2021, demand for documentaries on streaming services more than doubled, and films that once had hoped to eke out a couple of million bucks at the box office were now selling to streamers for $10 million, or $15 million, or $20 million.”
When Cutler was coming up, deciding to make documentaries for a living was like taking a vow of poverty, and probably obscurity too. But that is not the case today. Consider Cutler’s 2024 film about Martha Stewart. As Cutler says, “I’m told between 30 and 40 million people saw that movie.” Whether or not you’re one of them, I think you’ll find it interesting to hear what Cutler has to say.
You can hear this week’s episode of Freakonomics Radio, “When Did We All Start Watching Documentaries?”, on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts. A full transcript is available on our website.
Also on the Freakonomics Radio Network this week
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Apple Podcasts | Spotify | transcript
The Economics of Everyday Things: Closed Captions
It takes a highly skilled stenographer — and some specialized equipment — to transcribe TV dialogue in real time at 300 words per minute. Will A.I. rewrite the script? Zachary Crockett tries to keep up.
Excellent. Really. Thank-you.