Items related to Pauline Kael: A Life in the Dark

Pauline Kael: A Life in the Dark - Hardcover

 
9780670023127: Pauline Kael: A Life in the Dark
View all copies of this ISBN edition:
 
 

Selected by The New York Times Book Review as a Notable Book of the Year

The first biography of The New Yorker's influential, powerful, and controversial film critic.

A decade after her death, Pauline Kael remains the most important figure in film criticism today, in part due to her own inimitable style and power within the film community and in part due to the enormous influence she has exerted over an entire subsequent generation of film critics. During her tenure at the New Yorker from 1967 to 1991 she was a tastemaker, a career maker, and a career breaker. Her brash, vernacular writing style often made for an odd fit at the statelyNew Yorker.

Brian Kellow gives us a richly detailed look at one of the most astonishing bursts of creativity in film history and a rounded portrait of this remarkable (and often relentlessly driven) woman.Pauline Kael is a book that will be welcomed by the same audience that made Mark Harris'sPictures at a Revolution and Peter Biskind's Easy Riders, Raging Bulls bestsellers, and by anyone who is curious about the power of criticism in the arts.

"synopsis" may belong to another edition of this title.

Review:
Illuminating.
"The New Yorker"
This affectionate biography makes her life and her passion for movies inseparable and she could be difficult in both arenas.
"The Wall Street Journal "(The Short List)
[A] convincing narrative of how a brazen woman with a basically unattractive but flagrantly domineering personality molded herself into a writer who could not be ignored. . . . Mr. Kellow s even-handed treatment gives us the woman in all her maddening overconfidence.
Scott Eyman, " The Wall Street Journal "(Recommended Gift)
To appreciate Kael s trailblazing, you have to see it in its broader context. Luckily, that backdrop is filled in with surefooted sophistication by Brian Kellow in "Pauline Kael: A Life in the Dark," a fair-minded and deeply reported Kael biography.
Frank Rich, "The New York Times Book Review"
[A] smart and incisive biography. . . . [Moviegoers] are in for a colossal eye-opening. [Kael s] love for film has no present-day counterpart. . . . Mr. Kellow s clear, independent view of his subject is his book s most valuable surprise. . . . Kael liked to disparage what she called saphead objectivity. Bur Mr. Kellow is no saphead, and he makes objectivity a great virtue.
Janet Maslin, "The New York Times"
[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.
Ben Brantley, "The New York Times" (Critic s Pick)
[Brian] Kellow has written a fair-minded and deeply reported biography of the provocative, brilliant and maddening writer whose essays about movies transformed American pop-culture criticism.
"The New York Times "(Editors Choice blurb)
[A] fascinating new biography. . . . [Kellow] captures her best passages and most heartless insults and puts them in context.
Richard Schickel and Laurie Winer, "Los Angeles Review of Books"
A smart and eminently readable examination of the life and career of one of the twentieth century s most influential movie critics.
"Los Angeles Times"
[Kellow] brings a wise and sweeping vision to her artistic mentality and her enduring legacy.
"The Washington Times"
[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.
Elaine Showalter, "The Times Literary Supplement"
Engrossing and thoroughly researched.
"Entertainment Weekly"
Kellow has reconstructed Kael s life in the dark . . . . The result is a joy to read. . . . it s a fascinating book.
"Los Angeles Magazine"
[E]xhaustively researched, beautifully written. . . . Kellow has told [Kael s] life in incredible detail. . . . I found the book 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 her sensuous, percussive, often wise prose. . . . Pauline was a galvanizing presence, and Kellow has brought her back with overwhelming intensity.
Howard Kissel, "Huffington Post"
Absorbing.
"The Toronto Star"
Kellow, an erudite movie lover . . . writes beautifully and dexterously interweaves the story of a career long-thwarted with a sensitive reading of [Kael s] youthful enthusiasm and intellectual growth. To an impressive degree, he gets inside the head of a precocious, fearsomely smart young woman from small-town California and is able to describe what drove her, which authors turned her on (James, Hawthorne, Dostoyevsky, Melville, Woolf, Proust), her love of jazz and her distaste for aesthetic, religious and political dogma. So thoroughly does he portray the development of Pauline s character and passionate engagement with matters aesthetic that it comes as no surprise she was able to burst onto the scene, at the relatively advanced age of 48, as one of the most dynamic cultural arbiters of the past century. . . . Kellow admirably brings Pauline s wit, insight and passion to life on the page and has made at least one critic nostalgic for the days when heavyweight critical battles raged and at least one of us lived a life worthy of a biography. . . . [An] excellent biography.
Todd McCarthy, "Hollywood Reporter"
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.
Mary Pols, "San Francisco Chronicle "
At last, a biography of the highly influential "New Yorker" film critic.
"San Francisco Chronicle "(Holiday Gift Guide)
Brian Kellow s biography of [Pauline Kael] is a fascinating and enlightening read. . . . I m savoring every page.
Whitney Matheson, "USA Today"
The [present] I hope someone will send me is Brian Kellow s "Pauline Kael: A Life in the Dark."
Philip French, "The Observer "(UK) (Christmas 2011 Gift Guide)
Compelling.
"The Onion A.V. Club"
[A] rich, thorough, and admirably fair biography.
"Entertainment Weekly," (Best Nonfictions Books of 2011)
Kael was the Elvis Presley of movie criticism.
"The Boston Globe"
[A] smashing first biography of the famed "New Yorker" critic.
"The Buffalo News"
[A] richly detailed biography.
"Maclean s"
Throws radiant light on the renowned movie critic . . . though and well-written
David Finkle, "Huffington Post"
[M]eticulously researched.
"Slate.com"
[A] terrific new biography . . . [Her early life ] was a revelation to me, thanks to Kellow s ace research.
"Salon.com"
[A] finely balanced biography. . . . not 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.
"The Hindu"
Fun, fair, and fluently written, ["Pauline Kael: A Life in the Dark"] is an edifying read.
"The Dallas Morning News"
Mr. Kellow throws a great deal of light on the famous critic s heretofore mysterious ways.
"The Portland Mercury"
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 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
Kael was a master at interpretation, and ["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)
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").
"Publishers Weekly" (Starred Review)
Kellow performs biographical magic, telling [Kael s] story mostly through her most famous (and notorious) reviews of some of the landmark films of the 60s and 70s.
"Kirkus" (Starred Review)
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. . . . Kellow fleshes out these major stags as well as formative minor ones in a greatly revelatory portrait that will stand as the definitive one.
"Booklist" (Starred Review)
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 of 2011)
The fact that most of us know little about [Kael s] upbringing of her private life makes this an especially intriguing biography.
Leonard Maltin, " Movie Crazy"
Compelling . . . thrillingly written and exhaustively researched. . . . genius.
Drew Taylor, " The Playlist"
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.
"Village Voice"
[An] excellent new biography.
"Sense of Cinema"
""
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.
"American Spectator"
""
Perhaps the most valuable thing about Brian Kellow s fine new book about [Pauline] Kael, "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)
Brian Kellow s biography "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
[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.
"Celluloid Void""

Illuminating.
The New Yorker
This affectionate biography makes her life and her passion for movies inseparable and she could be difficult in both arenas.
The Wall Street Journal (The Short List)
[A] convincing narrative of how a brazen woman with a basically unattractive but flagrantly domineering personality molded herself into a writer who could not be ignored. . . . Mr. Kellow s even-handed treatment gives us the woman in all her maddening overconfidence.
Scott Eyman, The Wall Street Journal (Recommended Gift)
To appreciate Kael s trailblazing, you have to see it in its broader context. Luckily, that backdrop is filled in with surefooted sophistication by Brian Kellow in Pauline Kael: A Life in the Dark, a fair-minded and deeply reported Kael biography.
Frank Rich, The New York Times Book Review
[A] smart and incisive biography. . . . [Moviegoers] are in for a colossal eye-opening. [Kael s] love for film has no present-day counterpart. . . . Mr. Kellow s clear, independent view of his subject is his book s most valuable surprise. . . . Kael liked to disparage what she called saphead objectivity. Bur Mr. Kellow is no saphead, and he makes objectivity a great virtue.
Janet Maslin, The New York Times
[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.
Ben Brantley, The New York Times (Critic s Pick)
[Brian] Kellow has written a fair-minded and deeply reported biography of the provocative, brilliant and maddening writer whose essays about movies transformed American pop-culture criticism.
The New York Times (Editors Choice blurb)
[A] fascinating new biography. . . . [Kellow] captures her best passages and most heartless insults and puts them in context.
Richard Schickel and Laurie Winer, Los Angeles Review of Books
A smart and eminently readable examination of the life and career of one of the twentieth century s most influential movie critics.
Los Angeles Times
[Kellow] brings a wise and sweeping vision to her artistic mentality and her enduring legacy.
The Washington Times
[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.
Elaine Showalter, The Times Literary Supplement
Engrossing and thoroughly researched.
Entertainment Weekly
Kellow has reconstructed Kael s life in the dark . . . . The result is a joy to read. . . . it s a fascinating book.
Los Angeles Magazine
[E]xhaustively researched, beautifully written. . . . Kellow has told [Kael s] life in incredible detail. . . . I found the book 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 her sensuous, percussive, often wise prose. . . . Pauline was a galvanizing presence, and Kellow has brought her back with overwhelming intensity.
Howard Kissel, Huffington Post
Absorbing.
The Toronto Star
Kellow, an erudite movie lover . . . writes beautifully and dexterously interweaves the story of a career long-thwarted with a sensitive reading of [Kael s] youthful enthusiasm and intellectual growth. To an impressive degree, he gets inside the head of a precocious, fearsomely smart young woman from small-town California and is able to describe what drove her, which authors turned her on (James, Hawthorne, Dostoyevsky, Melville, Woolf, Proust), her love of jazz and her distaste for aesthetic, religious and political dogma. So thoroughly does he portray the development of Pauline s character and passionate engagement with matters aesthetic that it comes as no surprise she was able to burst onto the scene, at the relatively advanced age of 48, as one of the most dynamic cultural arbiters of the past century. . . . Kellow admirably brings Pauline s wit, insight and passion to life on the page and has made at least one critic nostalgic for the days when heavyweight critical battles raged and at least one of us lived a life worthy of a biography. . . . [An] excellent biography.
Todd McCarthy, Hollywood Reporter
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.
Mary Pols, San Francisco Chronicle
At last, a biography of the highly influential New Yorker film critic.
San Francisco Chronicle (Holiday Gift Guide)
Brian Kellow s biography of [Pauline Kael] is a fascinating and enlightening read. . . . I m savoring every page.
Whitney Matheson, USA Today
The [present] I hope someone will send me is Brian Kellow s Pauline Kael: A Life in the Dark.
Philip French, The Observer (UK) (Christmas 2011 Gift Guide)
Compelling.
The Onion A.V. Club...
About the Author:
Brian Kellow is the features editor of Opera News, where his column, “On the Beat,” appears monthly. He is the author ofThe Bennetts: An Acting Family and the coauthor of Can’t Help Singing: The Life of Eileen Farrell. A classically trained pianist, Kellow has also written forOpera and Playbill, among others. He lives in New York City.

"About this title" may belong to another edition of this title.

  • PublisherViking Pr
  • Publication date2011
  • ISBN 10 0670023124
  • ISBN 13 9780670023127
  • BindingHardcover
  • Number of pages417
  • Rating

Other Popular Editions of the Same Title

9780143122203: Pauline Kael: A Life in the Dark

Featured Edition

ISBN 10:  ISBN 13:  9780143122203
Publisher: Penguin Group USA, 2012
Softcover

Top Search Results from the AbeBooks Marketplace

Stock Image

Kellow, Brian
Published by Viking, NY NY (2011)
ISBN 10: 0670023124 ISBN 13: 9780670023127
New Hardcover Quantity: 1
Seller:
Mom and Pop's Book Shop,
(Wakefield, RI, U.S.A.)

Book Description Hardcover. Condition: New. Dust Jacket Condition: New. Photographs (illustrator). New. Not used. Fresh tight strong clean bright unmarked jacket boards text. Seller Inventory # 015521

More information about this seller | Contact seller

Buy New
£ 12.14
Convert currency

Add to Basket

Shipping: £ 4.71
Within U.S.A.
Destination, rates & speeds
Stock Image

Kellow, Brian
Published by Viking (2011)
ISBN 10: 0670023124 ISBN 13: 9780670023127
New Hardcover Quantity: 1
Seller:
Gulf Coast Books
(Memphis, TN, U.S.A.)

Book Description hardcover. Condition: New. Seller Inventory # 0670023124-11-30006610

More information about this seller | Contact seller

Buy New
£ 16.98
Convert currency

Add to Basket

Shipping: FREE
Within U.S.A.
Destination, rates & speeds
Stock Image

Kellow, Brian
Published by Viking (2011)
ISBN 10: 0670023124 ISBN 13: 9780670023127
New Hardcover Quantity: 1
Seller:
GoldBooks
(Austin, TX, U.S.A.)

Book Description Hardcover. Condition: new. New Copy. Customer Service Guaranteed. Seller Inventory # think0670023124

More information about this seller | Contact seller

Buy New
£ 15.39
Convert currency

Add to Basket

Shipping: £ 3.34
Within U.S.A.
Destination, rates & speeds
Stock Image

Kellow, Brian
Published by Viking (2011)
ISBN 10: 0670023124 ISBN 13: 9780670023127
New Hardcover Quantity: 1
Seller:
GoldenWavesOfBooks
(Fayetteville, TX, U.S.A.)

Book Description Hardcover. Condition: new. New. Fast Shipping and good customer service. Seller Inventory # Holz_New_0670023124

More information about this seller | Contact seller

Buy New
£ 16.05
Convert currency

Add to Basket

Shipping: £ 3.14
Within U.S.A.
Destination, rates & speeds
Stock Image

Kellow, Brian
Published by Viking (2011)
ISBN 10: 0670023124 ISBN 13: 9780670023127
New Hardcover Quantity: 1
Seller:
GF Books, Inc.
(Hawthorne, CA, U.S.A.)

Book Description Condition: New. Book is in NEW condition. Seller Inventory # 0670023124-2-1

More information about this seller | Contact seller

Buy New
£ 19.27
Convert currency

Add to Basket

Shipping: FREE
Within U.S.A.
Destination, rates & speeds
Stock Image

Kellow, Brian
Published by Viking (2011)
ISBN 10: 0670023124 ISBN 13: 9780670023127
New Hardcover Quantity: 1
Seller:
Book Deals
(Tucson, AZ, U.S.A.)

Book Description Condition: New. New! This book is in the same immaculate condition as when it was published. Seller Inventory # 353-0670023124-new

More information about this seller | Contact seller

Buy New
£ 19.28
Convert currency

Add to Basket

Shipping: FREE
Within U.S.A.
Destination, rates & speeds
Stock Image

Brian Kellow
Published by Viking Adult (2011)
ISBN 10: 0670023124 ISBN 13: 9780670023127
New Hardcover Quantity: 1
Seller:
Ergodebooks
(Houston, TX, U.S.A.)

Book Description Hardcover. Condition: New. Seller Inventory # DADAX0670023124

More information about this seller | Contact seller

Buy New
£ 20.22
Convert currency

Add to Basket

Shipping: FREE
Within U.S.A.
Destination, rates & speeds
Stock Image

Kellow, Brian
Published by Viking (2011)
ISBN 10: 0670023124 ISBN 13: 9780670023127
New Hardcover Quantity: 1
Seller:
Wizard Books
(Long Beach, CA, U.S.A.)

Book Description Hardcover. Condition: new. New. Seller Inventory # Wizard0670023124

More information about this seller | Contact seller

Buy New
£ 20.85
Convert currency

Add to Basket

Shipping: £ 2.75
Within U.S.A.
Destination, rates & speeds
Stock Image

Kellow, Brian
ISBN 10: 0670023124 ISBN 13: 9780670023127
New Hardcover Quantity: 1
Seller:
Front Cover Books
(Denver, CO, U.S.A.)

Book Description Condition: new. Seller Inventory # FrontCover0670023124

More information about this seller | Contact seller

Buy New
£ 23.24
Convert currency

Add to Basket

Shipping: £ 3.38
Within U.S.A.
Destination, rates & speeds
Stock Image

Kellow, Brian
Published by Viking (2011)
ISBN 10: 0670023124 ISBN 13: 9780670023127
New Hardcover Quantity: 1
Seller:
Letusbegin
(Ossining, NY, U.S.A.)

Book Description Hardcover. Condition: New. New Hardcover, price clipped, unmarked pages, may have very slight warehouse wear, no remainder marks, still a great buy straight from warehouse, sealed in plastic, exact artwork as listed, Seller Inventory # 092220201101

More information about this seller | Contact seller

Buy New
£ 27.83
Convert currency

Add to Basket

Shipping: £ 3.13
Within U.S.A.
Destination, rates & speeds

There are more copies of this book

View all search results for this book