632. When Did We All Start Watching Documentaries?

Over the past few episodes of Free Economics Radio, we dug into the economics of live theater and we followed one show on its long journey toward Broadway. In that series, we learned that live theater has become very expensive to produce, so ticket prices have also risen. And at the same time, attendance is falling. So if fewer people are watching plays and musicals, what are they watching? It turns out that a lot of people, and I mean a lot of them, are watching documentary films.

This explosion of documentary on streaming, the conviction that this was a popular art form and its full popularity was just waiting to happen is what matters most. 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've 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 Billy 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 magazine 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 and 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.

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