Turn Every Page: The Adventures of Robert Caro and Robert Gottlieb - A Word-based Friendship for the Ages
By Karen Gordon
Rating: A
You know you’re loving a movie, when even a section discussing the uses of the semi-colon strikes you as delightful.
Turn Every Page: The Adventures of Robert Caro and Robert Gottlieb isn’t about the correct use of punctuation. It’s the story of the decades-long professional relationship between two of the most engaging and important men in American publishing, the Pulitzer Prize winning writer Robert Caro, (The Power Broker) and his longtime editor and publisher, the formidable literary force Robert Gottlieb.
Neither were looking to talk about their work or their relationship. They were, as we learn in the film, persuaded to do so after a persistent campaign by the director Lizzie Gottlieb, who also happens to be Robert’s daughter. That relationship got her access, but this is not at all a fluff piece or a soft-focus homage to her dad.
Caro and Gottlieb: Literary lions in winter.
What we get is quite fabulous: a wide-ranging gem of a documentary, an utter delight that ends up being, in some ways, a life and times look at both men.
Turn Every Page is about everything from their individual life stories, the meticulous work of a writer/biographer, the plodding, sometimes agonizing work of writing, the role of a book editor, the publishing industry in general, and the focus of Caro’s biographies that makes them so important.
It’s a lot to squeeze into a film, but Gottlieb makes it work, weaving all of this together in a rich film that puts the lives and careers of these accomplished men of letters into context.
Then again, she has two very interesting subjects, both of whom are deeply thoughtful, and have a confidence that comes from doing work that has engaged them given them success, but who aren’t arrogant. In fact, there are moments when the humility, particularly Caro’s, is humbling.
They’re also born and bred New Yorkers, and this might reflect my own prejudice, with all of the attendant charm.
The two of them have worked together for decades, but their relationship hasn’t been smooth.
They declined to be interviewed together for most of the film. Together they’ve had incredible success, but that doesn’t mean the two are friends.
In fact, they’re also famous for having a spiky, contentious relationship about everything from punctuation, the use of commas and semi-colons and the effects of those things on the rhythm of the writing (and larger issues) that have resulted in screaming matches, and hard feelings before the inevitable compromises.
Ultimately, they give in and allow Gottlieb to film them working together, but only with the sound off. Caro, who suggests that age has started to mellow his feelings about her father, tells her, “The work between a writer and an editor is too private for anyone to see”.
We generally understand what writers do, but we get a deeper dive into what has made Caro’s work so significant. The Robert Moses biography The Power Broker, for instance, written decades ago is still considered an important book about the use and abuse of power in the intersection between business and politics in America.
And Caro, a journalist by trade, dives deeply into research, and won’t be rushed. But one of the things Turn Every Page gives us that we don’t often see or hear about, is the relationship between the book editor, and publisher, with their writers.
Gottlieb has worked with an astounding number of best-selling authors on some of the most defining American books of the last five decades, fiction and non-fiction.
These include John Le Carré, Toni Morrison, John Cheever, Edna O’Brien, Salman Rushdie, Colm Tóibín, Michael Crichton and Joseph Heller. There’s a great moment early in the film where he’s walking through the New York bookstore The Strand with his grandson Oliver Young.
He shows him some of the books he’s been involved with. He points out Joseph Heller’s classic novel Catch 22, and explains how he was involved in creating the title for the book - no small thing considering that phrase has become part of the culture, separate from the book itself.
Gottlieb, who has a quick dry wit, doesn't take credit for his writer’s talent, describing the role of an editor, his role, as a “service job.”
But, of course, in the world of publishing, his attitude towards writers (which is more nurturing than he lets on), his superb instincts and track record, mean he’s set an extremely high bar for that “service.”
For context, Lizzie Gottlieb turned to a number of key figures including Bill Clinton, New Yorker editor David Remnick, Caro’s lifelong agent Lynn Nesbit, as well as the current Editor-in-Chief of Knopf (Gottlieb’s former position) Jordan Pavlin, and Lisa Lucas, the Publisher of Pantheon books.
It’s a brainy gang, and it makes for an intellectual, but also surprisingly breezy, thoroughly charming documentary. Although it is about the work of these two men of letters, the documentary really is about the two as characters, and so it doesn’t require a familiarity with Caro’s work to enjoy.
Gottlieb, who was 89 when this was filmed is now, 91. Caro is 87.
The two are still working together, and - not to put too fine point on it - staring down mortality, with some pressure. They’re both hoping that they live long enough to wrap up Caro’s acclaimed series of books about American president, Lyndon Johnson. Caro’s meticulous way of working means he won’t be rushed. Gottlieb is wryly philosophical, and working on his own projects while he waits.
And as time ticks on, they’re both aware that even as they continue to wrangle over the ideas and copy for the new manuscript, neither are in control of the bigger deadline that not even two such prolific literary men can outrun.
Turn Every Page, directed by Lizzie Gottlieb, featuring Robert Caro, Robert Gottlieb, David Remnick, Ethan Hawke, Bill Clinton, Colm Toibin.
Opens January 20 in Toronto (Carlton) and Vancouver (Vancity)!
January 27 in Ottawa and throughout the winter in other cities.