Even after all these years, I am still amazed at the seemingly magical process by which a skilled editor can transform a manuscript— how, after a draft or two (or sometimes more), your prose somehow becomes seamless and your narrative propulsive, the best version of your ideas somehow emerging from the page. The finest editors have an ear like a concert musician, anticipating what you intended to say even before you yourself have said it, and the structural sensibilities of an engineer, capable of creating the architecture required of a piece. At its best, the editor-writer relationship can be transformative, euphoric even. At its worst, in the hands of an ax-wielding butcher, it can feel like losing a limb, no sedation.
Compelling stuff, yes, but not exactly suitable for the big screen. Or so I had thought before watching the recent documentary , which explores the longstanding collaboration between Robert Gottlieb and Robert Caro. Gottlieb,, had no desire to appear together on screen, at least not initially. Their partnership, now more than a halfcentury long, has been a marriage of expediency, one that unfolded over reams of marked-up manuscripts. But because the filmmaker happened to be Gottlieb's daughter, Lizzie, and because both men are hyperaware that the actuarial odds, as Gottlieb puts it, are stacked against them, both finally submitted to a close-up.
