Do you enjoy deep dives into the literary process? Old guys named Bob good-naturedly arguing? Warm and affectionate storytelling? New York accents with vowels so rounded that they’re perfectly spherical? Then Turn Every Page: The Adventures of Robert Caro and Robert Gottlieb will be a veritable feast.
The documentary, released in 2022, is a rare look into the long, fruitful, and sometimes contentious relationship between legendary political writer Robert Caro and his legendary editor Robert Gottlieb. (The director is the latter’s daughter, Lizzie Gottlieb.) The two men started working together in 1970 on The Power Broker, Caro’s gargantuan Pulitzer Prize-winning biography of Robert Moses. (Though it clocks in at 700,000 words, Gottlieb cut 350,000 from the original manuscript.) They continued collaborating with Caro’s multi-volume, ongoing biography of Lyndon B. Johnson. These days, Caro, 87, and Gottlieb, 91, are in the midst of what will be the fifth and final installment.
It’s extremely satisfying to watch two people at the top of their game who are, above all, motivated by the work itself. One telling anecdote: When a young Caro was trying to find an editor for The Power Broker, he was being courted by four potential candidates. Three of them tried to impress him with lunch at the Four Seasons and promises of fame. The fourth, Gottlieb, was too busy to leave his office, so he ordered sandwiches for himself and Caro to his desk. The rest is history.
Turn Every Page also led to another profound revelation on my part: Is Robert Caro not just one of our great American literary icons but … one of our great American style icons?
Sony Pictures
For the past 50 years, as seen in the movie, Caro has been sticking to more or less one look. Dark suit, red tie. Real heads will also recognize a brief cameo by a scarf he wore in Ric Burns’s New York: A Documentary Film (1999).
Appearing at an event with longtime fan Conan O’Brien? Dark suit, red tie.
