Four-sentence movie review, a la Orange Crate Art’s “Twelve Movies” review series [
Turn Every Page: The Adventures of Robert Caro and Robert Gottlieb, dir. Lizzie Gottlieb, USA, 2022
The pursuit of excellence is fascinating to watch, often whether you’re interested in the specific undertaking or not. I care nothing about fly fishing, but I loved the descriptions of its gear, tackle, and techniques in the novella A River Runs Through It; and people who don’t care about writing might still be interested in—or at least amused by—the wars fought over semi-colons in Turn Every Page: The Adventures of Robert Caro and Robert Gottlieb —a documentary about the fifty-year working relationship between the two Roberts—Caro, author of the excellent 4-volume biography of Lyndon B. Johnson (with a fifth volume to come, if Caro lives so long), and Caro’s editor, Gottlieb, who made the work more excellent.
Maybe the pursuit is fascinating because the techniques of any excellence are applicable to many others, at least metaphorically: the persistence required to stand in a cold river waiting for a conjunction of conditions favorable to catching a fish, for instance, looks something like Caro’s exquisite handling of LBJ’s brother—a fabricator of tales whom Caro had written off, until Caro recognized a change in him after he (the brother) became deathly ill—at which time Caro sat him down at the Johnson family table and asked him what really went on there; and out it came, their father dishing out humiliation to the young Lyndon.
Turn Every Page winks at the viewer who might think punctuation is a frivolous thing to storm out of a room over, as both of the Bobs do over the years; but punctuation is a tool like other tools that tie things together (fishing flies) or break them apart (atoms)—if you want excellence, Caro conveys, precision matters—and furthermore, in a less elevated application, punctuation is awfully handy for anyone stringing together phrases for a movie review with a four-sentence limit.
5 out of 5 ⭐️ stars
On the Criterion channel and elsewhere
Fishing fly ^ via darkroom.baltimoresun.com/2014/07/fly-fishing-the-art-of-tying-artificial-flies/#1
5 out of 5 ⭐️ stars
On the Criterion channel and elsewhere
Fishing fly ^ via darkroom.baltimoresun.com/2014/07/fly-fishing-the-art-of-tying-artificial-flies/#1
It’s in there, Fresca, also some posts with quotes from the Bobs. These are the sentences I wrote:
ReplyDeleteA writer and editor, talking about and working out their almost-fifty-year collaboration. Wonderful stuff: a search for a pencil, a search in a margin for the best word, arguments about semicolons, a tower of manuscript pages, a brief discourse about the catalogue of ships in theIliad (which inspired a passage in The Power Broker ), a visit to the daunting archives of the LBJ Presidential Library, a massive multipage outline thumbtacked to a corkboard that fills a wall. The best moment: writer and editor at work, with mics off — because the work is private. A bonus: music by Olivier and Clare Machon (both formerly of Clare and the Reasons).
I gave it four stars (my review-o-meter only goes to four). I still have The Power Broker out from the library, but I can’t persuade myself to devote that kind of time to Robert Moses. I do though want to read the chapter “One Mile,” which if I remember right is about Moses’s destruction of neighborhood life in the Bronx.
Your punctuation in this post rules.
MICHAEL: Thank you for adding your review here! I seemed to remember seeing it but must have skimmed past it, looking back… You took the Homeric approach—the list of ships! I didn’t want to read your review —or anyone’s—before I wrote mine, but I knew we’d take different but complementary tacks. I love what you chose to catalog. I wanted more footage of the Bobs editing together with sound off.
DeleteThere was so much good stuff in the movie, I had a hard time deciding what moved me most—decided it was the small work behind the big excellence—that actually moved me to tears.
the search for the yellow pencil in the publisher’s offices reminded me of you, of course (and Martha /Crow’s post of years ago about pencils too). Maybe it was for the camera—it crossed my mind, as you say it did yours.
Wouldn’t they have come with their own tools?
But it makes a good point (point, ha ha).
Thanks for approving my punctuation-/I felt like I was cheating, but that’s what it’s for. 😀
PS But I was also moved by Caro’s care to interview and talk about people without power.
DeleteOMG! The paragraph sentence! Yours are interesting and easy to follow, but usually when I see paragraph sentences--especially in novels--I don't even start reading. It is crazy what one can do with good punctuation though. But in the wrong hands..."Danger, Will Robinson!"
ReplyDeleteHa, yes, I am not a fan of the paragraph sentence—usually… but it sure is dang useful if you’ve got a sentence limit!
DeleteGlad mine were easy to follow!