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Pauline Kael: A Life In The Dark (2011)

by Brian Kellow(Favorite Author)

3.63 of 5 Votes: 5

ISBN

0670023124 (ISBN13: 9780670023127)

languge

English

genre

History & Biography

publisher

Viking Adult

review 1: I enjoyed reading this, but it didn't delve into her intellectual life the way I wished it did. I'm not criticizing the writer for not finding things that didn't exist. I just thought the topics she touched on lightly in her reviews, such as her love of literature, indicated a deeper love and involvement than what is depicted here. A good book, but I wanted a great one, as the subject was one of my favorite writers, even though I rarely agreed on the movies she liked.
review 2: Pauline Kael embodied a number of contradictions: She was an intellectual who championed lowbrow tastes, a thinker who valued intuition over theory, and a person who could cultivate, then alienate, directors, fellow critics, and ultimately her readers. Her fame and influence were ins... moreeparable from her ability to polarize those who helped cement her celebrity. Biographer Brian Kellow delves into Kael's often contentious life, and the culture of the times, with concision, detail, and even-handedness; qualities that are not necessarily represented by the subject at hand. He does an admirably job of conveying how the passion of Kael's prose, and her preference towards subjective observations over objective scholarly erudition influenced cultural criticism of a generation. He also makes some observations of how movies changed over the time of Kael's writing, from reflecting the social turmoil of youthful, political rebellion to becoming a vehicle for pre-adolescent escapism. He addresses allegations ranging from petty squabbling and accusations of professional misconduct with empathy for the victims and without apologies for Kael's transgressions, while being equally sympathetic to his subject when she was subjected to unfair treatment in the press or by colleagues. There are few new revelations for those familiar with the subject, but the book conveys a great amount of energy and appreciation for a time when writing about American culture was interlocked to the culture itself. less

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