The 50 Year Argument

Airing on HBO beginning September 29, 2014

The 50-year history of The New York Review of Books is chronicled by co-directors Martin Scorsese and David Tedeschi in The 50 Year Argument, which takes viewers behind the scenes with the journal’s editor Robert Silvers and many of the writers and pundits who have collaborated on the publication through the years. From the publication’s origins in 1963, when it was created to fill a void left by a citywide newspaper strike, the publication has evolved from a platform to review new books by contemporary authors to an editorial forum for some of the most creative minds in the world, dubbed “the premier literary-intellectual magazine in the English language.” The documentary includes recent interviews with many past and present contributors, as well as archival footage of such literary lions as Norman Mailer, Gore Vidal, Susan Sontag, William Styron, and others.