Kritiken

The film does a variably engrossing and even cinematic job of conveying the publication's sensibility and intellectual voraciousness... It's hard not to admire Robert Silvers, theNYRB's editor since 1963, although this somewhat sprawling movie lacks a central figure with the screen presence of Fran Lebowitz, the subject of Scorsese's Public Speaking from 2010.

The 50 Year Argument makes not just a compelling case for the importance of a publication the New York Review of Books but also, by its conclusion, for the written word itself. The film is something of a paean to the value and power of the editor—not just as a figure who helps writers communicate their ideas in clear sentences, but as one who shapes the overall voice, tone, and concerns of a publication over time.

It is a sober, highly subjective, unashamedly hagiographic history of a very special publication... Scorsese and co-director Tedeschi celebrate the NYRB as only its admirers can. I must say, I cannot pretend to be objective about the film: this is the only publication I consistently subscribe to, for one. That said, this is the type of doc in which the content alone makes it well worth watching and reviewing.

Scorsese proves to be a truly engaged chronicler. By going into the details of the editorial process of the NYRB, the film winds up making a passionate argument for a truly independent style of journalism and criticism that's all too rare today; it could just as easily have been subtitled Utopia.

As always, Scorsese's an intensely emotional director, and, as in his Personal Journey with Martin Scorsese Through American Movies, he shows an astonishing gift for imparting information with a hushed breathlessness that can capture a viewer's imagination in a way that a staidly disengaged "academic" approach could never rival.

If anyone could have figured out how to make a movie about a literary publication visually interesting, it's Martin Scorsese, one of the film's two directors (the other is his regular doc editor, David Tedeschi); turns out that nobody could, however, and while NYRB fanatics will find much to enjoy, those not keen on watching writers stand at a lectern reading their work aloud should look elsewhere.

The film—if it could be called that—consists of 97 minutes of testimonials about how the NYRB has always been on the right side of history. It has noble intentions, but seems aimed more at subscribers than viewers; it's never a good sign when a movie's most visually and dramatically compelling moment is a three-minute clip from The Dick Cavett Show.