“When we started the paper, we weren’t seeking to be part of an establishment”, says Robert Silvers, editor of the “New York Review of Books”. “We were seeking quite the opposite, we were seeking to examine the workings and truthfulness of establishments whether political or cultural”.
Since its founding over fifty years ago during the New York City newspaper strike of 1963, America’s leading journal of ideas has pursued its goal with rigor, a unique style and more than its share of controversy. The New York Review of Books: A 50 Year Argument, directed by Martin Scorsese and his longtime documentary collaborator David Tedeschi, rides the waves of literary, political and cultural history in much the same way as the paper itself.
Provocative, idiosyncratic and incendiary, the film weaves rarely seen archival material, contributor interviews and excerpts from writings by such icons as James Baldwin, Gore Vidal, and Joan Didion with original verité footage filmed in the “Review”‘s West Village office. These scenes reflect the humming, restless energy of a magazine that, heading into its second half-century, still feels as vital as its indefatigable founding editor, Robert Silvers. Confrontation and intelligent argument are in its DNA, as illustrated in the documentary by the skirmish between Vidal and Norman Mailer over women’s liberation, Mary McCarthy’s jeremiad against American hegemony in Vietnam, Mark Danner’s investigation into the use of enhanced interrogation during the Iraq war, and Michael Greenberg’s analysis of the Occupy movement. Joan Didion’s reading from her quietly furious explication of the 1989 Central Park Jogger Case, filmed at the recent fiftieth anniversary event at New York’s Town Hall, exemplifies the film’s approach: honor the writers, the writing, and the paper’s determination to reveal the truth in all its complexity.The film captures the power of ideas in shaping history. “Magazines don’t change the world”, says contributor Avishai Margalit, “but they shape a certain kind of climate of ideas. Influence is like the knight in chess, one move straight and then diagonal. It doesn’t go in straight lines”.
The film captures the power of ideas in shaping history. “Magazines don’t change the world”, says contributor Avishai Margalit, “but they shape a certain kind of climate of ideas. Influence is like the knight in chess, one move straight and then diagonal. It doesn’t go in straight lines”. The film captures the power of ideas in shaping history. “Magazines don’t change the world”, says contributor Avishai Margalit, “but they shape a certain kind of climate of ideas. Influence is like the knight in chess, one move straight and then diagonal. It doesn’t go in straight lines”.