"Pauline Kael: A Life in the Dark" by Brian Kellow
Jeff Glor: What inspired you to write the book?
Brian Kellow: I began reading Pauline Kael's criticism when I was a teenager; her writing about films took hold of me as no mere "movie review" in a magazine like Time or Newsweek possibly could. I read her until she stopped writing for The New Yorker in 1991. After that, I continually went back and re-read her collections. I committed a lot of her writing to memory. One thing that intrigued me was that so little was known about her life. Eventually, after I had written several other biographies, I decided to try to get her life down on paper. Someone else had attempted it earlier, without success. Now I know why. She was a complex woman who, in her personal life, covered her tracks quite well.
BK: Pauline was such a shrewd, tough person. I was most surprised to discover that she had an amazing streak of naïveté. It really surfaced when Warren Beatty persuaded her to come to Hollywood to work in the movie industry. Many people tried to talk her out of it, but she was certain she could not only survive but make a big, positive difference. In the end, she did neither.
BK: Honestly, I never thought seriously for one minute about being anything else. But I suppose teaching English on some nice, leafy New England campus.
BK: I just finished Colm Toibin's collection of stories, "The Empty Family." It's an astonishing book that's partly about our misconceived ideas about family and fidelity to each other. I think my favorite is "One Minus One," in which the Irish narrator describes the death of his mother. I spend a lot of time in Ireland, and there's a passage in this story I particularly love:
"You know that I do not believe in God. I do not care much about the mysteries of the universe, unless they come to me in words, or in music maybe, or in a set of colours, and then I entertain them merely for their beauty and only briefly. I do not even believe in Ireland. But you know, too, that in these years of being away there are times when Ireland comes to me in a sudden guise, when I see a hint of something familiar that I want and need. I see someone coming towards me with a soft way of smiling, or a stubborn, uneasy face, or a way of moving warily through a public place, or a raw, almost resentful stare into the middle distance."
There's this beautiful hush over Toibin's fiction; I always feel suspended in mid-air when I'm reading him.
I'm also reading Michael Oriard's beautiful memoir, "The End of Autumn," about his life in football, and both the trauma and necessity of giving it up.
BK: I'm working on my first novel. It's called "Up Blaine" and it's set on the Oregon coast, where I grew up. But I'd love to do another biography as well.
Starting in June, I will be hosting and lecturing on a series of fund- raising cruises, sponsored by Friends of Opera at Sea. The first will feature soprano Lauren Flanigan. Proceeds go to several opera and classical-music foundations. You can find more information at friendsofoperaatsea.com.
MORE VIDEO:
Jeff Glor talks to Brian Kellow about "Pauline Kael: A Life in the Dark." Kellow discusses Kael's reputation for seeing a movie only once.