Director Marshall Curry is a veteran in the filmmaking industry. He is a four-time Academy Award nominee. Curry received two nominations for Best Documentary Feature with Street Fight and If a Tree Falls: A Story of the Earth Liberation Front. Another of his nominations was for Best Documentary Short Subject with A Night at the Garden. However, his first win came with The Neighbors’ Window in the Best Live Action Short Film. The film derives the concept from the idea of voyeurism from Alfred Hitchcock’s Rear Window, but the characters help their neighbors by calling for medical assistance. Five years after his Oscar win, Curry returns to filmmaking. Again, the director crafts a documentary feature soon after the experiences from his short films that received award nominations. Last year, he released his new project, The New Yorker at 100.
One of the most crucial magazines in the American mainstream media, The New Yorker, is a brand that refers to impressive cartoons that go through an extensive process of curation, spectacular pieces of journalism, and a close look at the culture pulsating in New York and how it spreads to the rest of the world. Despite the structure and the appearance of branded content, the documentary is a fascinating portrait of a legendary outlet. As we observe the dominance of online media, new platforms like TikTok and YouTube are concentrating on the new audiences, and magazines like The New Yorker are a welcome reminder of curated content that serves an editorial purpose. In this sense, Curry establishes the figure of The New Yorker’s current editor, David Remnick, as the film’s central subject. By assigning that role to the editor, the director aims for sympathy from the audience with someone palpable and relatable, in this case, the man who runs the historical magazine.
The film functions in two timelines. Firstly, the preparation for the celebratory edition of the 100th Anniversary. We follow Remnick as he converses with the editors of each department (cartoon, fiction, articles, etc) to gather the pieces included in the magazine. As the camera enters each room, we learn about the curatorial processes of selecting the numerous cartoons, articles, critics, and other contents that form an edition of the respected magazine. It is a closer look at a centenary process that made the publication such a relevant thermometer of the cultural moment in New York, the United States, consequently, through the American soft power, the world. The second timeline refers to the history of the magazine, the creation in 1925, and how it became one of the most significant periodicals in the country. It is a structure that attempts to balance these different timetables, the past, and its influences on the future, even in a context of the current modernization of consumption.
In a sense, the film approaches the moments that created the reputation of the magazine. One of them is the publishing of Truman Capote’s In Cold Blood, initially as a four-part serial, and then released as a book. The result was an immediate success, selling out copies, and literary critics consider it the birth of the True Crime genre. Hence, it continues as a phenomenon to this day, particularly in documentary features and docuseries on streaming platforms. The series solidified Capote as one of the geniuses of his era, and The New Yorker as a fresh and reputable publication, pushing the boundaries of the written media. The publishing of his work in the magazine is a crucial moment in American literature, but it exemplifies how these types of magazines would impact the market.
Yet, it is essential to contextualize in modern times, even with the proliferation of fast-paced information under a minute in length, such as Instagram Reels and TikToks. Print media is still understanding how it might co-exist with the online content creation. The New Yorker holds a place for the modern and the old. One of the most fascinating aspects of a mostly bland and factual documentary is the scenes with Richard Brody, the iconic grey-bearded film critic of the magazine. It shows his trajectory within the last decades of the New York film community and how Brody is an integral aspect of that through his write-ups for the magazine, reflecting on the repertoire programming of the city, which features a plethora of cinemas and screening venues. Again, it is the importance of good writing and its impact on people. Despite the structure of a branded documentary and the conformity of its content to an unauthetic version of history, The New Yorker at 100 is an engaging enough film about one of the most vital publications in the American literary history.
The New Yorker at 100 is now streaming on Netflix.
Learn more about the film at the IMDB site for the title.
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