Page One: Inside the New York Times
Angelika Film Centre, June 22, 2011
Movie #36 for 2011
Film-maker ANDREW ROSSI got access to film inside the New York Times for a year just as the newspaper started to navigate some serious financial troubles, and as they struggled to understand the eternal debate about nothing that is the old media/new media/newspapers-are-dead thing. It’s a time of flux and change for the industry, the paper, its reporters and its readers. So how come the film is so lackluster and illuminates nothing?
Although the characters are engaging - especially Bruce Headlam, the Media Desk editor, and a columnist named David Carr who has the zealotry of a convert (both pictured) - something about the film making approach doesn’t quite gel. As a “year in the life” of the newspaper desk, the grasp exceeded the reach. Or perhaps the reach didn’t extend as far as the grasp? Does that seem a little muddled? Well, so is the film. It covers the minutiae of breaking a story and the higher level machinations of the paper as well as the broader issues of the industry. It's a series of unfocussed vignettes that, although interesting enough, don't really tell a story.
The most interesting thing about the film so far has been the reaction to it. It all got very meta when the New York Times reviewed it - A NYT commentary on a documentary about the NYT focusing on the paper’s Media Desk which comments on the media industry, including the NYT. Nice.
