Film No. 34 (2020) June 20th. 11:00 AM. Cinema 1 LUNA Leederville.
"In the 1950's there were three hundred and ninety eight bookstores in New York city. Today I just went and counted, there are seventy nine". (A voice over summing up examples of change in retail book selling in the city best known for antique book stores).
Could this be a film to be watched in 100 years where the viewers will be fascinated at the depiction of objects called books? Maybe those viewers had heard of books but lived in a society were books no longer existed. I doubt it, but The Booksellers asked that question.
This film, by documentary short film maker D.W.Young takes us into the world of some of New York's best known book collectors. It examines: What makes them tick, what sorts of books they collect, how they continue to be viable in our digital world, where their specific interests germinated, which books they decide to sell and which do they keep, and why is the record price paid for a book only $26M (Bill Gates acquisition) and not hundreds of millions as in the visual art world? All of these queries are either answered or thoroughly pondered.
But the real fascination of the film is the characters who make up New York's book scene. The film is broken into chapters. Each chapter, the name of the collector/seller in focus; each with their own likable personality. There isn't an unlikable person in the film. Maybe that says something about people who place books and reading as a priority of life.
The Booksellers has a professional thoroughness about it. Slick, without an annoying voice-over and shot with immaculate digital quality. Twenty minutes cut from its running time may have helped, as themes are repeated on occasion. Bookworms are going to feast on this "page turner". 9GUMS.
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