Review: 'Turn Every Page' captures a decades-long collaboration built on love of the written word
In her warm-hearted and good-humored documentary, “Turn Every Page: The Adventures of Robert Caro and Robert Gottlieb,” director Lizzie Gottlieb (the daughter of one of her subjects) explores the sometimes tempestuous but always respectful relationship between a writer and his editor.
Speaking as someone who has been a writer for most of his life, and an editor for the last 15 months, I can say that Lizzie Gottlieb tells a good yarn about that special relationship — and captures the personalities of two men who battle over words passionately but always lovingly.
The movie details how Robert A. Caro, a newspaper reporter who switched to writing books, was paired with Gottlieb, already a legend in the publishing industry for discovering and shepherding a slew of great authors — including Joseph Heller on his masterpiece “Catch-22.” (Among other things, Gottlieb suggested the number 22, because the repeated digits were funnier.)
Caro pitched his book idea, a biography of Robert Moses, the urban planner who wielded enormous power in reshaping New York City. Caro wanted to write about how Moses used his power to create great things, such as Lincoln Center, but also did colossal damage to communities — particularly neighborhoods of color — by building highways right down the middle of them.
After nine years of work, which included Gottlieb cutting Caro’s manuscript of more than a million words by a third, the publishing house Knopf, where Gottlieb was editor-in-chief, published “The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the Fall of New York.” It was a best-seller, and a seminal work of biography and political history. (The movie notes how, during the COVID-19 pandemic, seeing a copy of “The Power Broker” on the bookshelves of people being interviewed over Zoom on cable TV was a sign of authority on their subject.)
Caro then cast about for his next subject, and decided on Lyndon B. Johnson, from his upbringing in rural Texas to his turbulent presidency. Caro pushed Gottlieb to agree to a multi-volume biography, so Caro wouldn’t have to cut pages the way he did on “The Power Broker.”
LBJ’s life has become Caro’s life’s work. Caro and his wife, Ina (who is also his researcher), moved to Texas for three years, to get to know the players in LBJ’s early life and gain their trust. That led to one of Caro’s biggest scoops: The real story behind the ballot-stuffing that won LBJ his first U.S. Senate election in 1948. This became the topic of the second book in Caro’s biography, “Means of Ascent,” published in 1990 (following the first volume, “The Path to Power,” which came out in 1982).
Since then, Caro has written “Master of the Senate” (2002), about his ascent to Senate Majority Leader, and “The Passage of Power” (2012), which includes the 1960 election that made LBJ the vice president, and the assassination of John F. Kennedy that made LBJ president.
Lizzie Gottlieb asks Caro and her father, gingerly, about the processes of writing and editing — and both men, almost superstitiously, demur on questions of the unfinished fifth volume of the LBJ biography. It’s expected to be the last book, and possibly the toughest — since it covers the Vietnam War, the civil-rights movement, the “Great Society” programs, and LBJ’s decision not to run for re-election in 1968.
The reason for the hushed tones when discussing the last book: Caro is 87, and Gottlieb is 91 — and neither wants to think about how either man may die before the work is done.
The dual portrait Lizzie Gottlieb paints of these two men of letters is tender and absorbing. She loves these guys, these guys love each other — though they would be embarrassed to put that word to it — and they love the work. Their love is contagious, and a viewer would have to have a heart of stone not to fall in love with them, too.
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‘Turn Every Page: The Adventures of Robert Caro and Robert Gottlieb”
★★★1/2
Opens Friday, March 17, at the Broadway Centre Cinemas (Salt Lake City). Rated PG for some language, brief war images and smoking. Running time: 112 minutes.