Want to watch Pulitzer Prize-winner fight his editor? 'Turn Every Page' makes it a thrill

There are a few examples that illustrate what makes “Turn Every Page — The Adventures of Robert Caro and Robert Gottlieb” such an exciting documentary.

Yes, seriously, exciting.

If you think arguments about semicolons are exciting, that is, and Caro, one of the great historical biographers of our time, and Gottlieb, his editor, do. Gottlieb, in fact, says: “a semicolon is worth fighting a civil war about.”

That exchange is but one example. My favorite occurs later in the film, which is directed by Gottlieb’s daughter, Lizzie Gottlieb.

We are told from the start that her subjects will not allow her to film the editing process. It’s too private, they say. But as the film winds down — it took five years to make — they relent.

Sort of.

She can film them working, but she can’t record what they say. Fair enough. But before they get down to work, they have to find a pencil. Not a mechanical pencil, not a Sharpie, not a pen. A plain yellow pencil.

And no one in the office they’re working in seems to have one. So we see these two old men — Gottlieb is 91 now, and Caro is 87 — shuffling around the hallways, looking for a pencil. When you have mastered your craft in the way that they have, only the right tools will do.

It is awesome.

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Caro has won two Pulitzer Prizes and two National Book Awards

Caro is the author of “The Power Broker,” as well as four acclaimed volumes of what he hopes will be a five-volume biography of Lyndon Johnson. (It started out as a trilogy. The man is nothing if not thorough.) He’s won two Pulitzer Prizes and two National Book Awards, among other achievements.

Gottlieb, meanwhile, has edited so many famous authors you could build a library with their works: Toni Morrison, John Le Carré, Nora Ephron, Michael Crichton, Bill Clinton (who is interviewed in the film) and many, many more. He notes that he’s probably most famous for, when editing Joseph Heller’s first novel, changing the title to “Catch-22.” (It was originally “Catch-18.”)

So these are not just garden variety talents. Nor do they pretend to be. In addition to not wanting to be filmed during editing, Caro refused to allow them to be filmed together. So we get two portraits of driven, obsessive personalities who are in some ways more alike than they would care to admit, but also vastly different.

What more do you need to make a good movie?

Gottlieb trimmed more than 350,000 words — two or three books' worth — from 'The Power Broker'

Caro comes off as more serious. He’s known for his meticulous research; he and his wife Ina, who serves as his one-woman research team, moved to Texas when he began the first volume of his Johnson opus, and lived there for three years so that he might absorb himself in the area.

There is a funny bit in the film where Caro talks about how Gottlieb wanted to cut a section that Caro simply would not part with: an exploration of the grass that grows in the area where Johnson grew up.

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Gottlieb does his fair share of cutting. Caro turned in a first draft of “The Power Broker” that numbered more than a million words. They cut 350,000 — enough for two or three books — till they got it into doorstop shape. The results are hard to argue (see Pulitzer Prize, above).

If Caro is the straight man, Gottlieb at times seems like a character out of “Seinfeld.” He is confident in the extreme, to put it diplomatically, and vividly aware of his ego. Of the two, he seems like he definitely would be the one you’d choose to have a beer with.

Granted, Caro and Gottlieb are working on a different planet, practically, but every writer needs an editor. No exceptions, no matter how loath writers are to admit it.

What we see here is how well that can work. It’s not just a matter of fights over semicolons. It’s about giving writers what they need to succeed — but more importantly, knowing what they need.

Gottlieb, as ever, is more succinct.

“He does the work,” he says of Caro. “I do the cleanup. Then we fight.”

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'Turn Every Page' 4.5 stars

Great ★★★★★ Good ★★★★

Fair ★★★ Bad ★★ Bomb ★

Director: Lizzie Gottlieb.

Cast: Robert Caro, Robert Gottlieb, Bill Clinton.

Rating: PG for some language, brief war images and smoking.

How to watch: In theaters Jan. 27.

Reach Goodykoontz at bill.goodykoontz@arizonarepublic.com. Facebook: facebook.com/GoodyOnFilm. Twitter: @goodyk.

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This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: 'Turn Every Page' movie review: Robert Caro, Gottlieb are thrilling