​Making the Magazine: Curry Subscribes to ‘The New Yorker at 100’

By Greg Carlson

gregcarlson1@gmail.com

Available on Netflix, Marshall Curry’s “The New Yorker at 100” takes the measure of the venerable publication as a compact primer aiming to please longtime readers and potential new converts. The Oscar-winning filmmaker toggles between key historical moments and the preparation of the magazine’s centennial issue, following several personalities devoted to the care and keeping of the special recipe that has enthralled us decade after decade. The grouchiest killjoys have attacked the film on the grounds that it functions as a self-congratulatory puff piece/promo, but Curry — facing the impossible task of sifting through mountains of archival treasures — understands the assignment. “The New Yorker at 100” entertains and educates in much the same manner as its namesake.

One can quibble with the selection of on-camera celebrities (Molly Ringwald, Jesse Eisenberg, Jon Hamm and Sarah Jessica Parker among them) called upon to share personal connections to the magnetic power of The New Yorker, but every aficionado who has fallen under the spell of one or more quintessential elements will happily reflect on when and how the magazine came into their lives. For the teenage me, a newfound interest in film criticism led to Pauline Kael collections and then to PK’s regular columns, both found in hard copy at the Moorhead Public Library in the 1980s. Current editor David Remnick notes that some readers come for the fiction, while others skip it entirely. Another segment is devoted to the firehose of cartoon submissions being winnowed to those few that make the cut.

“The New Yorker” does not have the most progressive track record when it comes to a spectrum of racial representation beyond the narrow gentility of its overwhelmingly white liberalism. Curry’s inclusion of the seismic impact of James Baldwin, which overlaps with commentary from Hilton Als (who speaks about the value of seeing someone like himself represented on the magazine’s pages) is an abbreviated start. It would take a different kind of film, however, to unpack the slow-to-change shortcomings on either side of the civil rights movement. The documentary fares better when touching on eye-opening long-form features like John Hersey’s 1946 “Hiroshima” and Rachel Carson’s 1962 “Silent Spring,” game-changing stories that moved the needle of public perception and opinion.

Since founders Harold Ross and Jane Grant established a tone and style that embraced a certain elitist sophistication while simultaneously poking snobbishness with a sharp pin (or at least trying not to take itself too seriously), The New Yorker has labored to have and eat its rich and creamy cheesecake. Outside of Remnick and beloved office manager Bruce Diones, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie comes closest to a satisfying explanation of the Janus-faced contrasts of the high and low. Curry extends that line of inquiry with a look at the intense fact-checking tradition and idiosyncratic in-house style guide quirks that drive some staff writers to the brink of madness.

A quick glance at reviews of Curry’s film reveals a motif: there’s a good chance your favorite writer was omitted or barely mentioned. And even though I would have liked a little more Kael and a little less Richard Brody, I totally get it. “The New Yorker at 100” is a snapshot and a time capsule and another “issue” in the unfolding evolution of a really wonderful idea. A few weeks ago, an edited version of Jelani Cobb’s conversation with Curry and producer Judd Apatow offered readers a “making of” glimpse at the construction of the documentary. Together, they considered the brutality of killing one’s darlings by citing several tantalizing scenes left on the cutting room floor. When it comes to The New Yorker, some good stuff inevitably gets left out.