[Row corner of J] What is a 'New Yorker'... Two movies and 'Deep Rooted Tree'

 New Yorkers live in New York, Parisians live in Paris, Londoners live in London.

And in New York there is 'The New Yorker'.

'The New Yorker', founded in 1925, is an American weekly current affairs magazine that will celebrate its 100th anniversary four years later.

The design of the title has never been changed since its inception, and the cover always uses the best illustrations instead of photos.

One of New York's (maybe American?) prides, with its high-quality political/cultural critiques, novels, poetry, and cartoons.

Some authors say that 'The New Yorker' is written by Ernest Hemingway, John Updike (who also worked as an editor on 'The New Yorker'), JD Salinger, and Haruki Murakami.

Joanna (Margaret Qualley), the protagonist of 'My New York Diary' (original title: My Salinger Year), set in New York in the 90's, is an aspiring writer who will do anything if she can write just one article in 'The New Yorker'. After graduating, he barely got a job as an assistant at a writer's agency in New York.

What annoys her more than her shaky New York life in 'My New York Diary' and her cold boss (Sigourney Weaver) is the fact that she, as an aspiring writer, can't write. Because she is a woman whose heart is pounding even when she goes to the editorial room of The New Yorker to run an errand.

Joanna's job is to respond to numerous fan letters sent to the hermit writer JD Salinger (yes, the original title is better) managed by the agency. The answer is fixed.

"I cannot send a letter to Mr. Salinger."

The legend is the "Catcher in the Rye, Salinger had also not be the first to contact the agency. He can only receive calls from time to time. The president instructs Joanna to read the fan letter in order to avoid legal and moral responsibility and to prevent possible accidents, but always respond in the same clerical manner. Of course, Joanna, a serious writer, gets into trouble after writing a sincere reply to a young student.

Then, one day, when the president was away, Salinger answered several phone calls from Salinger and the feelings of Joanna, which had been shared with Salinger, were also transmitted to Salinger, who sometimes speaks to Joanna in a soft but firm voice.

"Write every day"... "Write at least 15 minutes a day" ​

The quiet New York in the mid-90s, the office in New York where computers were just beginning to be introduced but still tickling the eardrums pleasantly with the rattle of a manual typewriter, and the poor daily life of New Yorkers who had to wash dishes in the bathtub because there was no sink in the kitchen. , 'My New York Diary' shows the literary youths of New York who were talking about romance and ideals at the bar with a warm gaze.

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  Director Wes Anderson must have been among those literary youths.

Director Wes Anderson, well-known to us as 'The Grand Budapest Hotel', went to school in Texas but is a sasaeng fan of 'The New Yorker'.

When UC Berkeley said they would discard the 'New Yorkers' they had accumulated for 40 years, they bought it for $600.

(Interview with 'The New Yorker' on September 5) ​Director

Wes Anderson's bucket list had always had the hope of making a movie about 'The New Yorker', and he made that dream come true with his new film 'The French Dispatch'.

'The French Dispatch' is a perfect tribute to the 'New Yorker' from the title to the ending credits.

The visual style that each episode starts with is like a movie consisting of four short story-like episodes in magazine format.

(Especially the New Yorker-style illustrations in the end credits are omitted) ​

Although he is a world-famous director, the term 'master' does not suit Wes Anderson well. (It doesn't mean it's inferior) Wes Anderson is a director with his own style that fills the screen with perfectly symmetrical mise-en-scène and pastel colors. Perhaps the reason that he has liked 'The New Yorker' since high school and that his films eventually resembled 'The New Yorker' is because 'The New Yorker' has a 'style'.

That's why famous actors line up for Wes Anderson, who never won an Academy Award. 'The French Dispatch' features top academy actors such as Bill Murray, Tilda Swinton, Timothy Chalamet, Leah Seydoux, Saoirse Ronan, Adrian Brody, Frances McDormand, and Benicio del Toro appearing on one side.

Arthur Howitzer Jr. (Bill Murray), editor-in-chief of The French Dispatch, modeled after Harold Ross, a former journalist and founder of The New Yorker, faithfully serves as the editor of the magazine until his death, like Harold Ross. Editor-in-Chief Bill Murray, the conductor of reporters and editors, is sometimes like a reporter, sometimes like an editor, sometimes like a manager, carefully aligning creators with the best content.

he says “When I die, I will also close this magazine.”

It seems that there are things in the world that cannot be inherited by the system alone.

Bill Murray, who served as a lubricant for the cultural engine of the magazine, with his convictions, affection, and professionalism in the gap between writers and reporters with strong personalities, had an intuition... In the movie, French Dispatch was discontinued.

If Wes Anderson disappears, so does the movie Wes Anderson.

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In that sense, 'The New Yorker', which has maintained style and influence for nearly 100 years, is a great magazine.

However, if there is a 'New Yorker' in New York, I would like to say that we had a 'deep-rooted tree'.

If there was Harold Ross in 'The New Yorker' and Arthur Howitzer Jr. in 'The French Dispatch', we had Mr. Han Chang-ki (1936-1997).

'Deep-rooted Tree', a liberal arts monthly magazine founded in March 1976 by Professor Han Chang-ki, was published only for 1/20th of the period of the New Yorker, but until then, it was the first exclusively for Hangeul, a system in which designers participated in horizontal writing, layout and font, etc. It was a magazine that pioneered a sophisticated magazine style that could not be found in Korea.

In addition, he gave a fresh culture shock by changing his affection for native culture into elegant oral rather than written words. As a pioneer of K-culture, who discovered the beauty and majesty of ours against the prejudice that "anything that comes across the water is good", it was a magazine that realized earlier that the most Korean is the most global. However, it did not lose its popularity. At that time, 'Deep Rooted Tree' was said to have printed 60,000 copies when the popular monthly magazine 'Shin Dong-ah' printed 20,000 copies.

However, 'Deep Rooted Tree' was discontinued in August 1980, four years after its founding, by the new military government. In 1984, Han Chang-ki launched a comprehensive women's education magazine, 'Deep Spring Water', which was also a new magazine war criminal. lost.

No one would have been able to follow the aesthetics and passion of Mr. Chang-gi Han. It is very unfortunate that there is no magazine in Korea that retains its dignity and influence that does not change with the passage of time like the 'New Yorker'. It might not be bad to exist. Among the first publications of 'Deep Rooted Tree' written by Professor Han Chang-gi, there is a passage I want to convey to this period, and it is replaced with an epilogue.

※Cookies※ ​

It is a cliché often seen in movies that it is a story of growing up, the most talented but a cold boss, and a rookie who is full of dreams but lacks something.

When watching 'My New York Diary', 'The Devil Wears Prada' comes to mind, but Anne Hathaway, who emerged as a star in 'The Devil...', really wanted to go to 'The New Yorker'.

​ 'The Devil is...' was modeled after Anna Wintour, the legendary editor-in-chief of the fashion magazine 'Vogue'.