In Marshall Curry’s (“Street Fight,” “A Night at the Garden”) new Netflix documentary, “The New Yorker at 100”, the magazine’s editor, David Remnick, calls its very existence “a miracle”: in a typical issue you might find  a long profile of a museum, and then a report from Southern Lebanon, all interspersed with gag cartoons

Curry’s documentary reflects the variegated nature of its subject, revealing the process by which the magazine’s 100th anniversary edition is created while tracking the history of the magazine as it morphed from: a chiefly humor offering putatively aimed at the city’s upper crust; then embracing ground-breaking journalism first led by Jon Hersey, and later Rachel Carson and Truman Capote; to the celebrity-laden reign of Tina Brown; to Remnick’s politically-imbued editorial approach.  And throughout, as he notes both continuity and change, Curry pays homage to the people who make it all happen at such an elevated level:  the editors and writers, sure, but also the fact-checkers, cartoonists, designers, and even the employee who maintains the building and hides away the priceless archival material.

You can watch “The New Yorker at 100” on Netflix.

Hidden Gems:

“Spellbound”

“How to Die in Oregon”

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