I’ve long been a huge fan of the work of Robert Caro. The upside is that he’s brilliant. The downside is that one reason he’s brilliant is the unearthly meticulous research he does means that over 50 years he has written only five books (plus one additional book that was a short memoir of sorts) – though has won two Pulitzer Prizes. And received the Presidential Medal of Freedom. And yes, is making his way through his fifth and (finally) final book on the life of Lyndon Johnson – what was intended to be a trilogy. (How unearthly meticulous is his research? When writing about Lyndon Johnson’s early days growing up in the desolate Texas Hill Country, he felt that he and his wife had to move to the Hill Country and live there for two years – researching and talking to people there, to understand that that world was like.) So, I was thrilled when I read that a documentary, Turn Every Page, was made about him and his working relationship with the only editor he’s ever had, the legendary Robert Gottlieb – who edited such books as Catch-22, Beloved, True Grit, The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, Heartburn, Jurassic Park, and such writers as Salman Rushdie, John Cheever, Ray Bradbury, John Le Carré, Toni Morrison, Bruno Bettelheim, B. F. Skinner, and memoirs by Lauren Bacall, Sidney Poitier, John Lennon, Paul Simon, and Bob Dylan. The other day, I went to see Turn Every Page at the Writers Guild Theater. And yes, it was joyous. How can you not love loved about an ongoing, 45-year argument over using semi-colons -- and watching them at a loss as they wander around the publisher’s office looking for a pencil? But it’s all the stories in between that add such richness. And just to add a special touch, the fill would likely never have been made (since Gottlieb especially was against it) if the filmmaker pushing the project, Lizzie Gottlieb, was the editor’s own daughter. I can’t say that Turn Every Page was “snubbed” by the Oscars (a description I hate to use with the Academy Awards) because I haven’t seen the others that did get nominated. But I can say that all five better have been great to have been nominated instead of this. (And the Gabby Giffords documentary, Won’t Back Down.) What I can say is that a good friend in the Motion Picture Academy has participated in the documentary category every year, and has seen most of the films in consideration, and says that it’s ridiculous these two films didn’t get nominated, but that that’s par for the course with the category. While it’s unlikely that you’ll get a chance to see this in the theaters (though certainly possible), I’m sure it will get a DVD/streaming release because it’s from Sony Pictures. Here's a clip from the film. It’s one that delves into their battle on semi-colons, so you can see what I meant, that I wasn’t joking. And trust me, this is only a brief reference to it; the battle is longer... (And yes, the semi-colon there was intentional.) And here’s the trailer. It gives a nice sense of the film, but the movie is significantly richer – not only talking about writing and their work process, but going into their own histories and returning to locations important to their careers.
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AuthorRobert J. Elisberg is a political commentator, screenwriter, novelist, tech writer and also some other things that I just tend to keep forgetting. Feedspot Badge of Honor
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