The 50 Year Argument

If the result is less rock & roll, both literally and metaphorically, than the director's films about the Band and Bob Dylan, it features an impressive list of interviewees, including Joan Didion and Michael Chabon.

Scorsese (with Tedeschi’s help) has found a more worthy sweet spot between introducing viewers to a whole other world and simply making film tributes to people he knows and likes.

The 50 Year Argument, which Mr. Scorsese directed with David Tedeschi, is textured and smart but thoroughly celebratory, a paean to the magazine and the amazingly durable Mr. Silvers, now 84.

Scorsese and Tedeschi’s film is more than a traditional non-fiction document of what happened in the intellectual circles that inspired and were inspired by The New York Review, but a relevant, vital film about the importance of journalism and commentary.

The 50 Year Argument resembles a reader-centric Behind the Music only on the surface; underneath, Scorsese and Tedeschi have fashioned an American cultural hall of mirrors that speaks of the chaotic exhilaration of fostering discourse that might initiate real social engagement. If that's naïve, screw it: This pop culture could use more of Scorsese's naïveté.