Directors: Martin Scorsese, David Tedeschi | Country: USA / UK | Runtime: 97 min | Language: English
Synopsis
The 50 Year Argument is Martin Scorsese and David Tedeschi’s vivid history of The New York Review of Books — the journal that, since its founding during the New York newspaper strike of 1963, has been at the centre of American intellectual and political life for half a century.
Built around the legendary founding editor Robert Silvers, the film weaves rare archival material, vérité footage from the magazine’s offices, and the voices of its extraordinary contributors — among them James Baldwin, Gore Vidal, Susan Sontag, and Joan Didion — into a portrait of a publication that treated ideas as matters of urgent public consequence.
From the civil rights movement and Vietnam to the Arab Spring, The 50 Year Argument traces how a single magazine helped shape five decades of debate — and makes a passionate case for the enduring power of serious argument in public life.
Festival Selections & Broadcast
- Berlin International Film Festival (Berlinale) — Special Screening
- Sheffield Doc/Fest — Premiere
- Broadcast on HBO (USA) and BBC (UK, Arena)
- Toronto theatrical release (2015)
Press
“A stirring tribute to the life of the mind and the enduring value of intellectual argument.”
— Variety
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