CinemaNerdz

Movie Review: The Booksellers

Mike Tyrkus

Director D.W. Young’s documentary, The Booksellers, began streaming on various virtual cinema screens back on Friday, April 17 and has finally made its Detroit debut via the same medium at the Detroit Institute of Arts and those who seek it out will find it to be a thought-provoking treatise on the decline of the eclectic world of rare book dealers and the effects that could have on the material you read moving forward.

The film is introduced by actress Parker Posey, who also serves as executive producer, and then moves briskly along with interviews with luminaries in the field of antiquarian book like Fran Lebowitz and Gay Talese, as well as vignette after vignette of beguiling stories of booksellers, both young and old, who recount how they first got into the business of finding, collecting, and selling books.

Director Young—a veteran film editor, with over fifty credits dating back just twelve years—does a splendid job of effortlessly moving the film from story to story, something that plays almost as if one is turning the page of one of the books that those featured in the film (and probably watching) adore so much. Ultimately, The Booksellers becomes more of a love letter and declaration of devotion to the world of books, than it is a straight documentary. But, that doesn’t detract from its effect one bit as it’s easy to get caught up in the excitement everyone involved seems to have for the written word and what this means to society and history as a whole.

Although there is an eerie presence looming over the entire film, almost as if the grim reaper himself has come to collect the overdue books that seem to be phasing out of existence in these Kindle-heavy days, it’s heartwarming to see that so many are still so devoted to the physicality of books and that there is hope beyond the electronic sunset. That, coupled with the unbridled joy that the subjects of the film have with the printed word, makes The Booksellers a remarkably entertaining and absorbing documentary.

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Mike Tyrkus

Editor in Chief at CinemaNerdz.com
An independent filmmaker, co-writer and director of over a dozen short films, the Editor in Chief of CinemaNerdz.com has spent much of the last three decades as a writer and editor specializing in biographical and critical reference sources in literature and the cinema, beginning in February 1991 reviewing films for his college newspaper. He was a member of the Detroit Film Critics Society, as well as the group's webmaster and one-time President for over a decade until the group ceased to exist. His contributions to film criticism can be found in Magill's Cinema Annual, VideoHound's Golden Movie Retriever (of which he was the editor for nearly a decade until it too ceased to exist), the International Dictionary of Films and Filmmakers, and the St. James Film Directors Encyclopedia (on which he collaborated with editor Andrew Sarris). He has also appeared on the television program Critic LEE Speaking alongside Lee Thomas of FOX2 and Adam Graham, of The Detroit News. He currently lives in the Detroit area with his wife and their dogs.

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