Probably the most memorable quote in Page One is from the mouth of Julian Assange, the controversial founder of Wiki-leaks, when he tells a New York Times Journalist in a phone conversation during the film that, “Journalism is just a tool.” It is fitting not just to his trail of thought but to the nature of the documentary , which explores the King of all Newspapers, and the empire which has been built around its example in the States. This documentary also attempts to address important and relevant issues in the modern world, such as the apparent death of the newspaper format in a world where news can be blogged and tweeted to the masses before most editors can say the word “pitch.”
Page One begins with some nicely composed shots of the production of an edition of the New York Times, we see giant rolls of paper loaded onto huge machines and forklifts roaming with flashing lights: its newspaper production on an epic scale. Almost immediately the film delves into one of the many issues it aims to confront: why is the newspaper dying? We see old news reports charting the decline of some of America’s top papers, some of which were forced to shut down due to poor sales – all but the New York times, whose readership only increased. The film then throws us straight into the New York Times’ office environment, a busy and stressful place where-in work people who have dreamt of working in its walls for most of their lives. Such is the nature of this film, all of the above takes place in a short space of time, almost like news itself, the plot points come and go, taking us in different directions but never fully absorbing us in one singular story for longer than a few minutes.
Unexpectedly the documentary is given some much appreciated depth in the form of David Carr, a media columnist at the New York Times with a fantastically natural charisma and filmable charm; the scenes in which he features are far more absorbing than anything else in the film. Carr’s honesty on the screen when speaking of the youth he spent as an addict merged with his own personal nerve and wit in the workplace makes the film worthwhile. God-knows there may have been a better documentary to be made in merely filming the man himself as he goes about his daily life.
That’s not to say that this documentary fails, it is informative and will be interesting even to those who couldn’t care less about the newspaper industry; its problem is that it twists and turns a lot in terms of focus. Page One’s camera men stumble across so many fascinating stories in passing that it actually becomes a slight annoyance when they delve slightly into certain ones before unceremoniously pulling us out again. This does however give off the energy of the newsroom to great effect, and perhaps this was the intention of its director Andrew Rossi, because it certainly does this well.
Page One’s most obvious aim is to humanise the New York Times. It addresses the fantasy of the Times – the 50’s-esque, perfectly run newsroom, that’s more “Daily Bugle” than anything else – and infuses the reality: the office spaces, the redundancies, the tough stories, the law suits and above all else the worrying thought that some stories are bigger even than the paper itself and may never see the light of day. It makes for an enjoyable watch.
Still the film, though superbly edited and well-researched, could have done with a few improvements. It’s a shame that we never see much outside of the New York Times office, save in small doses. New York City could have been a great playground for the camera crew; even a few shots of the city itself could have boosted the energy of the documentary and the mood of its character’s environment. The best scene in the film in fact takes place in an office at Vice Magazine and features Carr, who argues three heads of the magazine to the ground when one of them insinuates that the New York Times is too mainstream.
Carr is the hero of this picture, and it really does feel like a waste to not have had more of the man in the film. If he had more screen time then this documentary might have held a candle next to the other great docs of recent years: Catfish for one, with its impulsiveness which was gripping, or Senna, which was emotionally involving in a way which few films in recent memory have been. Sadly it doesn’t, and in the end the film itself feels nothing much more than old news.
