…fair-minded and deeply reported…
…a smart and incisive biography…Mr. Kellow's clear, independent view of his subject is his book's most valuable surprise…It is possible to be dazzled by the bravura authority of [Kael's] writing without remotely agreeing with her, and this biography fully captures such contradictions. Kael liked to disparage what she called "saphead objectivity." But Mr. Kellow is no saphead, and he makes objectivity a great virtue.
Relentlessly outspoken, unafraid of challenging idols and embracing the lowbrow and the overlooked, New Yorker film critic Pauline Kael, who died in 2001, proves a formidable, however natural, subject for Opera News columnist Kellow (Ethel Merman). He handles this difficult, unsympathetic personality with an admirable evenhandedness, considering that Kael cultivated as many detractors as admirers with her honest, gut-provoked reviewing. Born in 19TK to Polish Jewish immigrants who tried their luck running a chicken farm in Petaluma, Calif., before moving to San Francisco, Pauline was a crack student, deep reader, and eventual philosophy student at Berkeley, her early critical skills honed in the fledgling Berkeley Renaissance of the 1940s, with critics R.P. Blackmur and James Agee as early influences. From a stint as codirector of the Berkeley Cinema Guild with her then husband, Edward Landberg, Kael segued naturally into radio (KPFA) and freelance journalism, championing the New Wave and attacking the fashionable “auteur theory.” Her first book, I Lost It at the Movies (1965), established her reputation as the “saltiest” reviewer around, leading to her opening salvo at the New Yorker with an enthusiastic review of Bonnie and Clyde (1968). The old guard, like editor William Shawn, never warmed to her, but the young and iconoclastic loved her. In his fluent, immensely readable study, Kellow fairly represents Kael’s tendency to hyperbole (writing of Barbra Streisand or Last Tango in Paris) as well as hurtful ad hominem (George Cukor’s Rich and Famous; Shoah). (Oct.)
Illuminating.”—The New Yorker —The Wall Street Journal (The Short List) —Scott Eyman, The Wall Street Journal (Recommended Gift) Pauline Kael: A Life in the Dark , a fair-minded and deeply reported Kael biography.”—Frank Rich, The New York Times Book Review —Janet Maslin, The New York Times Pauline Kael: A Life in the Dark ] to take me beyond and beneath the hypnotic thrill of her prose.” —Ben Brantley, The New York Times (Critic’s Pick) —The New York Times (Editors’ Choice blurb) —Richard Schickel and Laurie Winer, Los Angeles Review of Books —Los Angeles Times —The Washington Times —Elaine Showalter, The Times Literary Supplement —Entertainment Weekly —Los Angeles Magazine —Howard Kissel, Huffington Post —The Toronto Star —Todd McCarthy, Hollywood Reporter Twilight saga and found it quite as riveting as teens find anything to do with Bella.”—Mary Pols, San Francisco Chronicle New Yorker film critic.”—San Francisco Chronicle (Holiday Gift Guide) —Whitney Matheson, USA Today Pauline Kael: A Life in the Dark .”—Philip French, The Observer (UK) (Christmas 2011 Gift Guide) —The Onion A.V. Club —Entertainment Weekly , (Best Nonfictions Books of 2011) —The Boston Globe New Yorker critic.”—The Buffalo News —Maclean’s —David Finkle, Huffington Post —Slate.com —Salon.com —The Hindu Pauline Kael: A Life in the Dark ] is an edifying read.”—The Dallas Morning News —The Portland Mercury Pauline Kael: A Life in the Dark , author Brian Kellow offers a making-of story as engaging as her criticism. It’s not easy feat—what’s less dramatic than scribbling into the night?—but Kellow tapped her friends and foes and her writing while developing a colorful, even handed appreciation of one of film’s most influential critics. . . . [An] eye-opening biography.”—Associated Press Pauline Kael: A Life in the Dark ] is a highly successful interpretation of the storied critic. . . . A must-read for any devotee of film; compellingly written and recommended for all libraries.”—Library Journal (Starred Review) Last Tango in Paris ) as well as hurtful ad hominem (George Cukor’s Rich and Famous ; Shoah ).”—Publishers Weekly (Starred Review) —Kirkus (Starred Review) —Booklist (Starred Review) —Booklist (Top 10 Arts Books of 2011) —Leonard Maltin, Movie Crazy —Drew Taylor, The Playlist —Village Voice —Sense of Cinema Pauline Kael: A Life in the Dark , is sure to be absorbed, sucked in, by Kael’s cluttered hodge-podge of a life—personally, professionally, emotionally, aesthetically. . . . There is so much packed into Kellow’s rich book . . . that her life story seems an epic script.”—American Spectator A Life in the Dark , is that, aside from its virtues as a sympathetic, clear-eyed and sharp biography, is that it’s a really fine cultural and social document of a turning point in movie history.”—Special Broadcasting Service (Australia) Pauline Kael: A Life in the Dark wisely charts Kael’s life by focusing on her writing.”—Ploughshares Pauline Kael is an] entertaining and insightful biography.”—Redroom.com Pauline Kael is an] excellent Biography.”—TheHumanist.org —Celluloid Void
[Pauline Kael is an] excellent Biography.”
[Pauline Kael is an] entertaining and insightful biography.”
Yet Kael often reveled in movies she thought were a mess, just as anyone who reads Brian Kellow’s incisive, detailed biography of America’s most impassioned and influential movie critic, Pauline Kael: A Life in the Dark , is sure to be absorbed, sucked in, by Kael’s cluttered hodge-podge of a life—personally, professionally, emotionally, aesthetically….There is so much packed into Kellow’s rich book…that her life story seems an epic script.”
[An] excellent new biography.”
Brian Kellow’s biography Pauline Kael: A Life in the Dark wisely charts Kael’s life by focusing on her writing.”
"Kellow, an erudite movie lover...writes beautifully and dexterously interweaves the story of a career long-thwarted with a sensitive reading o his subject's youthful enthusiasm and intellectual growth."
[An] entertaining and insightful biography, as much a study of her criticism as a narrative of her life. . . . [Pauline] Kael emerges from [Kellow’s] biography as a great cinematic character, a kind of Citizen Kane, with a life lived and shaped by the dark.”
[Pauline Kael] got into my bloodstream more than any other critic. So I have been waiting most of my life for a smart, insightful biography like [Pauline Kael: A Life in the Dark ] to take me beyond and beneath the hypnotic thrill of her prose.”
[Brian] Kellow finds the emotional core of [Pauline] Kael’s persona….Kellow is quickly becoming a film fan’s dream biographer…. That Kellow chooses to write in calm, unshowy prose is both astute as a journalistic technique and integral to the book’s aesthetic success….Kellow’s Kael transcends mere artistic contrarianism and resembles a sort of impassioned duelist.”
[A] terrific new biography… [Kael's early life ] was a revelation to me, thanks to Kellow’s ace research.”
"[A] fascinating new biography….[Kellow] captures [Kael's] best passages and most heartless insults and puts them in context.
Throws radiant light on the renowned movie critic.”
[A] richly detailed biography.”
Compelling.
[A] smashing first biography of the famed New Yorker critic.”
Absorbing.”
[A] finely balanced biography…[N]ot only will you not be disappointed with Kellow’s intrepid research, you’ll also be rewarded by his rich, close reading of her reviews (and the stories behind the writing of them) that does marvelous justice to Pauline Kael’s exhilarating gift for writing on the movies. Both, her admirers and her detractors could not have asked for a more satisfying biography.”
Brian Kellow’s biography of [Pauline Kael] is a fascinating and enlightening read.”
Kellow matches extensive research with acute perception in his sensitive and definitive biography of Pauline Kael, America’s foremost, and most controversial, movie critic.”
Booklist (Top 10 Arts Books 2011)
[A] rich, thorough, and admirably fair biography.”
The [present] I hope someone will send me is Brian Kellow’s Pauline Kael: A Life in the Dark .”
"At last, a biography of the highly influential New Yorker film critic."
Pauline Kael: A Life in the Dark is a very good biography."
[E]xhaustively researched, beautifully written….Kellow has told [Kael's] life in incredible detail….I found [Pauline Kael: A Life in the Dark ] enthralling because it vividly recreates a world I was part of, which seems now very distant. It is also because Kellow has been generous in quoting [Kael's] sensuous, percussive, often wise prose….Pauline was a galvanizing presence, and Kellow has brought her back with overwhelming intensity.”
"Kellow has reconstructed Kael's 'life in the dark'....The result is a joy to read....[I]t's a fascinating book."
Los Angeles Magazine (Critic's Picks
Kellow evocatively captures the blooming of film culture in the early 1960s, and the sobriety with which Kael took over the critical pulpit….Kellow not only grasps the significance of his subject, but invokes the pace and energy of [Kael's] singular style….good, dishy fun.”
Compelling…thrillingly written and exhaustively researched….Genius.”
The fact that most of us know little about [Kael's ] upbringing of her private life makes this an especially intriguing biography.”
In Pauline Kael: A Life in the Dark , author Brian Kellow offers a making-of story as engaging as her criticism. It’s not easy feat—what’s less dramatic than scribbling into the night?—but Kellow tapped [Kael's] friends and foes and her writing while developing a colorful, even handed appreciation of one of film’s most influential critics….[An] eye-opening biography.”
Mr. Kellow throws a great deal of light on the famous critic’s heretofore mysterious ways.”
Fun, fair, and fluently written, [Pauline Kael: A Life in the Dark ] is an edifying read.”
[M]eticulously researched.”
[Kellow] brings a wise and sweeping vision to [Kael's] artistic mentality and her enduring legacy.”
[A] rich, thorough, and admirably fair biography.”
Entertainment Weekly (Best Nonfictions Books of 2011)
A smart and eminently readable examination of the life and career of one of the 20th century’s most influential movie critics.”
I fell on Kellow’s book like a teenage girl on a lost volume of the Twilight saga and found it quite as riveting as teens find anything to do with Bella.”
"For a biography to do justice to a complex personality and a great mind such as Kael’s, extensive research must be matched by acute perception. That requirement is fully, even joyously, met here."
This affectionate biography makes [Kael's] life and her passion for movies inseparable.”
The Wall Street Journal (Recommended Gift)
"Mr. Kellow’s even-handed treatment gives us [Kael] in all her maddening overconfidence.
[Pauline Kael] got into my bloodstream more than any other critic. So I have been waiting most of my life for a smart, insightful biography like [Pauline Kael: A Life in the Dark ] to take me beyond and beneath the hypnotic thrill of her prose.
Illuminating.”
The New Yorker (Reviewers' favorites)
Illuminating.
This affectionate biography makes [Kael's] life and her passion for movies inseparable.
Features editor of Opera News, Kellow is also author of Ethel Merman: A Life and The Bennetts: An Acting Family, an interesting background for someone writing about one of the most influential film critics ever. Note that the Library of America will simultaneously publish The Age of Movies: Selected Writings of Pauline Kael (750p. ISBN 9781598531091. $35).
The first biography of arguably the most influential and controversial film critic at a turning point in cinema history. Pauline Kael (1919–2001) was a study in contradictions: a farm girl (albeit from an unusual community of Eastern European Jews in Petaluma, Calif.) and proud Westerner who became film critic for the most urbane of Eastern magazines, the New Yorker ; an outspoken critic of the auteur theory who faithfully championed several auteurs of the 1970s, including Peckinpah, Altman, Scorsese, Coppola and de Palma; and an acolyte of high art who wrote most passionately about "trash" that hit her in the gut. A generous nurturer of younger writers, she could turn cold or even brutal if they didn't act according to her plans for them. With her daughter Gina (who declined to participate in the book), Kael was dependent to the point of being an obstacle to her career and romances. But Kael's life outside of the movies is background to the narrative, as it seems to have been for Kael herself as she lived it. "For Pauline," writes Opera News features editor Kellow (Ethel Merman: A Life , 2007 etc.) writes, "being a spectator continued to be the best thing life could offer." She first came to some prominence as a movie maven in San Francisco, where she selected programs for an art house and opined on films for listener-supported radio. She was already 50 when she began writing for the New Yorker , but those two decades of her life take up roughly 75 percent of Kellow's book. Her influence owes probably most to her intensely personal writing style and her identification with and advocacy for the movie audience. Kellow performs biographical magic, telling her story mostly through her most famous (and notorious) reviews of some of the landmark films of the '60s and '70s: Bonnie and Clyde , M*A*S*H , Last Tango in Paris , Nashville , Jaws and Star Wars to name a few. Like Kael's own books, this bio is a page-turner.
