When you pick a new book to read or were assigned it in college, often you don’t think about the years of work and the people who had to work to bring it to the shelf. The love of reading often opens doorways to new worlds, new ways of thinking and sometimes finding a favorite author along the way.
But behind that author is a whole team, marketing, and relationships that readers often don’t consider. And in Turn Every Page, the relationships between Robert Caro and Robert Gottlieb is examined. Decades-long, often contemptuous, the writer and editor have a work relationship that is hard to explain but comes together to make artwork.
The documentary is one that almost didn’t happen, it was the brainchild of Gottlieb’s daughter to bring their story to life, from their own perspectives. Both the writer and editor originally declined to be in the film, but changed their mind, and decided to participate. Told mostly from each man’s individual perspective of their relationships, the film takes you from their first meeting to their current collaboration – highlighting the impact the novels have on readers and even political analysts still today. The film takes you from the first draft of The Power Broker to the fifth Lyndon B Johnson novel that has still not been released, and what had to happen to make them not only successful books but ones that top a lot of readers lists.
The relationship between the two Roberts, and how their careers have affected not only each other but their families and those around them make for an interesting story. Their journey is told with a true narrative flair and while the film itself is interesting, it is one that a viewer could listen to and enjoy even as they do other tasks. It unfolds almost like a book itself does and keeps you engaged. The story of the two men helped shape a niche within their industry and continues to do so even after fifty years working together.
Turn Every Page is currently in select theaters.
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About Turn Every Page
Turn Every Page explores the remarkable fifty-year relationship between two literary legends, writer Robert Caro and his longtime editor Robert Gottlieb. Now 86, Caro is working to complete the final volume of his masterwork, The Years of Lyndon Johnson; Gottlieb, 91, waits to edit it. The task of finishing their life’s work looms before them. With humor and insight, this unique double portrait reveals the work habits, peculiarities, and professional joys of these two ferocious intellects at the culmination of a journey that has consumed both their lives and impacted generations of politicians, activists, writers, and readers. Starring Robert A. Caro, Robert Gottlieb, Bill Clinton, Conan O’Brien, Maria Tucci, and many more.
