The 50 Year Argument

The 50 Year Argument is a documentary film by Martin Scorsese and co-directed by David Tedeschi about the history and influence of the New York Review of Books, which marked its 50th anniversary in 2013. The documentary premiered in June 2014 at the Sheffield Doc/Fest and was soon screened in Oslo and Jerusalem before airing on the British Arena television series in July. It was also screened at the Telluride Film Festival and the Toronto International Film Festival and was seen at the New York Film Festival, in September, and at other film festivals. It first aired on HBO in September 2014 and was given other national broadcasts. It had a limited theatrical release in Toronto in 2015.

The film uses a combination of archival footage, quotes from the Review and contemporary interviews to give a view of the coverage of the journal over its half-century of publication, focusing on how its writers and editors have approached the larger issues of the day. Reviews of the film have been mostly warm.

The 97-minute film is a "hop-scotching journey through the NYRB's history". Scorsese and Tedeschi "delve into the journal's eventful fifty-year history, from its emergence during the writer strikes and Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s through to the Arab Spring uprisings in Egypt, Libya and Syria. ... [They] aim to offer not just an overview of the Review's half-century history, but also seek to highlight some of the newsworthy events that the magazine has covered in-depth since its conception. ... [I]t's the monumental clashes of intellect that really capture the imagination." They "present a fascinating account of a publication that defies the modern culture of news reporting" but "avoid probing its political character beyond saluting a broad interest in human rights ... a few dissenting voices among the cheerleaders might have added a little necessary grit." The film's title "is a reference to how the ... publication has so frequently exposed stories less reported and made challenges to the mainstream during its time."

"Anchored by the old-world charm" of the editor of the New York Review of Books, Robert Silvers, the film focuses on notable contributors to, and articles in, the Review; it "slides fluidly between handsomely shot contemporary interviews and well-curated retro footage. ... Michael Stuhlbarg reads the spare voiceover while a vintage jazz soundtrack invokes a lost golden age of uptown Manhattan sophistication." The articles' texts are "enlightened by the rich visual illustration with which they're accompanied. ... Scorsese [chooses] to have many famous articles read by their authors", which is sometimes poignant, and results in "a thematically dense but wholly accessible film about how fifty years of sensuous ideas can open a dialogue towards social and political change." The film has been variously characterized as "a warm, engaging, celebratory love letter from one New York institution to another" and "a bracing film about the value of radical ideas and the importance of being courageous enough to consider them."

...
Wikipedia