sandbox pauline kael and 70s lookback book club thread

egomania being one of sthe longtime critic's occupational hazzard

Please don't use phrases like "egomania clouded her vision" as I ride the Newt-wave.

between her freelance casting work & the paulette syndrome she sounds like a major league control freak

on the subway i got to the part where he finally compares her to joan crawford

another choice quote from the trip:
"At the New York Film Critics Cirlce voting that year, she had gotten behind Melvin And Howard, her friend Irvin Kirshner's sequel to Star Wars, The Empire Strikes Back, and - inexplicably - Dressed To Kill for Best Picture..."

Dude manages to point out her hailing a "friend"'s work and declares another favorite "inexplicable" - despite rather dense explication of her fondness published in the New Yorker - in one sentence fragment.

I understand why Marcus thinks Kellow must have grown to hate Kael as he wrote the book. It's hard to imagine why the guy would have bothered to start if he'd held the opinions he has now all along.

lol, missed that he also makes a connection to crawford in the intro too.

On the one hand, the fact that he thought her love of Dressed to Kill was inexplicable. On the other, a passage like this, right towards the end:

One of the most powerful truths to be gleaned from examining Pauline's life is that it was, throughout its span, a triumph of instinct over an astonishing intellect. Her highly emotional responses to art were what enabled her to make so indelible a mark as a critic. On the surface, it might seem that any critic does the same thing, but it's doubtful that any critic ever had so little barrier between herself and her subject. She connected with film the way a great actor is supposed to connect with his text, and she took her readers to places they never could have imagined a mere movie review could transport them.

I can't adequately express how absurd I think it is that you fixate on Kellow's occasional disagreements with her evaluation of certain films as indicating that he had contempt for her in the face of passages like that.

I'm not at the end yet, dude! Not my fault he waits till the sum-up to write three complimentary sentences in a row.

also "a triumph of instinct over an astonishing intellect" and "doubtful that any critic ever had so little barrier between herself and her subject" are phrases made a little more loaded by the content of the book.

she often took me to places I didn't think were real.

I love how you conjure up visions of Mommie Dearest with "the part where he finally compares her to joan crawford." The passage in question:

Pauline was well liked by the magazine's support staff--the copy editors, fact-checkers, and messengers who were more or less at her service. Her rapport with them was not unlike Joan Crawford's camaraderie with the crew members on her movies. 'I don't think she had a snobby bone in her body toward such people,' said Menaker. 'But these people were no threat to her. She had a good, common touch, a good, decent comportment with them. There were occasions when I saw her get kind of cross in one way or another, but she very seldom got angry. What she would do is look or act sort of bewildered or flummoxed, and that was a sign of her displeasure.' Most often, Pauline would become aggravated when a fact-checker had unintentionally given away something in a review to a source, but she seldom made an issue of it.

Jesus.

how did I conjure up visions of mommie dearest by merely saying "he compares her to joan crawford" and he doesn't by bringing up how she had camradarie with people who "were no threat to her" (he also says she might have said the same thing Crawford did about Hollywood giving her education and everything she's ever earned).

Then what exactly did you mean by "finally compares her to Joan Crawford"?

if you're saying that by saying "he compares her to joan crawford" one would naturally assume he's suggesting she was a horrible mother, surely Kellow knew what he was doing by making connections twice in a book about a single mom with an obsessive relationship over her daughter. At the very least, he wasn't afraid to make the connection.

But seeing as you're arguing on the one hand that Kellow grew to hate her, and on the other hand you throw in the Joan Crawford line, then to me you're looking for someone who hasn't read the book to conclude that yes, he really must think she was some kind of a witch, he compares to her Joan Crawford. When in fact the two mentions of Crawford are quite innocuous--the one above casts her in a flattering light. (I'll grant that you have a point with the "people who were no threat to her" qualification, but those aren't Kellow's words, they're the words of somebody else.)

Variation on something I asked you on the other thread: are there any criticisms he makes of her anywhere in the book that you don't consider out of bounds, devious, ill-informed, etc.?

either Kellow's a total dope who has no idea why bracketing the story of a single mom who basically kept her daughter locked away till she was in her 30s with any kind of unnecessary comparison to Joan Crawford would be unkind, or he knew the potential effect. the fact that you so quickly harped on the implications makes clear how evident they are.

if you look above, i point out plenty of problems I have with kael, and i'm sure there's a tasteful way to acknowledge them in a biography. But the guy piles it on gratuitously and regularly, and it's not my job to equivocate about it like he does with her.

flipped ahead to the last three pages, and they're so tonally different from the majority of the book that alfred may be right - "hack job" might qualify more than "hatchet"

I mean the Husker Du bio was definitely pro-Husker Du, but the author regularly letting us know which songs were good or bad sure helped make it a shittier book

Again, the idea that he piles it on gratuitously is, I believe, absurd. And--what started this whole thing--I'll again say what I'm pretty sure you have said yourself on the other thread (and which, when we have access, I will try to retrieve--and I promise that I'll admit I'm wrong if no such post exists): that you are not the most objective judge of criticism directed at Kael. And I'm not harshly criticizing you by saying that (or, I believe, by agreeing with you)--I don't consider myselfthe most objective person in the world when it comes to her writing. But I believe I'm a little more objective than you are.

You also, in a couple of your earlier posts, seem to dwell on the fact that he's the editor of an opera magazine, like that makes him unqualified to write the book.

(I haven't read the Husker Du book, but I would very much want to know the author's opinion on specific songs.)

I love that you respond to direct quotes with "well you're biased"

all i said in the previous thread was that I was a "big pauline kael stan". try not to constantly hold against me that I'm an acknowledged fan of her work just because i contradict you.

Which is the direct quote, "hack job" or "hatchet"? I have no idea what you're referring to...We've both quoted stuff from the book. We could trade quotes all day.

yes, we both quoted the book. but only one of us repeatedly refers to a previous statement as proof that that person's opinion is less valid.

"Stan" meaning "fan," right? (Sorry, don't know all the lingo.) I am too. You think the book is written by someone out to get her (or someone who started out with good intentions, and along the way decided he was out to get her). I don't--I think it's a good book about a great writer. That's basically what this amounts to...and I'm not sure we're really getting anywhere.

Read this thread, then watched this whole thing
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9DGEMBaOBSU
and was never bored. Have been contra-Pauline for many years but some of the quotes they trotted up made me warm up to her again. If you watch you will see that Kellow does not hate her and doesn't come across as particularly dopy.

Re Wolcott: there was some great stuff in the beginning especially the dish about the Voice and the girlfriend with platform-shoe throwing tendencies, but his tendency to overreach for the laugh-line at the expense of making sense got a little too much after a while, at least until the High Fidelity denouement when he grew up to be a ballet man and put away childish zings, which was also a little irritating. DIdn't realize until last week that the title of his memoir was supposed to be like a Kael collection.

Talk of Joan Crawford reminds me of Blue Oyster Cult reminds me of Patti Smith reminds me I gotta get back to reading that Will Hermes book which is really kind of amazing.

Thanks, James--that must be the panel Scott Woods told me about. Will be sure to watch it tomorrow night.

(Memo to Phil: "Stan" was an epistolary horrific Eminem song about an obsessive fan hence the coinage which you'd better be aware of lest somebody accuse you of being old and hating hip-hop, even ,,, wait this is a different ilx beef on this thread sorry)

Okay--I know "Stan." (Everybody knows "Stan"...except Mrs. "Stan.") I didn't realize the term was connected to the song. I am old, but I don't hate hip-hop.

(or someone who started out with good intentions, and along the way decided he was out to get her)

you know, since I haven't finished the book, and since the last bit seems so very, very different in perspective from the middle, I'm kind of holding judgment. I see what Marcus is talking about, and can understand where he's coming from, but it's possible Kellow's just going about this kind of artlessly.

I've got to vacate--we've been at this all night! (yes, I know, no one's holding a gun to my head)--but I'll mention again something I said on the other thread. Marcus also disliked--strongly disliked, as I remember it--the Francis Davis interview book. And I was as baffled by that as I am by his contention that Kellow's book is a hatchet job. I understand and respect (heck, envy) that he was friends with her, but there's something there that I'm missing.

<i>I'm kind of holding judgment.</i>

A typo, not a Freudian slip...Anyway, it's a good thing you're withholding judgement.

I have no idea what we're arguing about other than clemenza defending Kellow's right to compare Pauline Kael to Joan Crawford.

Oh--I thought p.p. and I were arguing about the notion that there's something vaguely sinister about such a comparison.

http://www.mediahunter.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2010/09/glass-half-full1.jpg

Got halfway through the panel clip this morning--excellent.

Glad you are liking it.

but I don't really need the features editor of Opera Times telling me

Never really understood before how many writers looked at her as THE inspiration for their calling. Maybe that's why they are a little extra touchy if they feel Kellow has not gotten it exactly right, that he is not describing their Pauline.

The second sentence doesn't necessarily follow from the first.

Right, people can be touchy for lots of other reasons. Or not even touchy, they can be exercising cool, merciless logic.

As I say, I'm only halfway through the panel discussion, but I'll mention in fairness that Edelstein--I think it was him; I was listening this morning, not watching--says the same thing that Marcus and a couple of you here say, that he thinks the biography presents a mean portrait of her towards the end that doesn't jibe with his personal experience. But he doesn't discredit the book because of that; he seems to think it's a good book, and at least a couple of the panelists--Paglia, who didn't know Kael, and Toback, who obviously knew her very well--think it's an excellent book. Admittedly, when the author's sitting right beside you, that undoubtedly shapes what you say to some extent.

Read download of first few chapters of BK on PK. When he is just narrating events or quoting P it is good but when he tries to untangle, explain or reverse engineer someone else's motivation or behavior can't tell what the heck is going on. Still seems like it should be worth reading up to the "and then she reviewed" part, which starts at what page exactly?

You're in luck! The rest of the book is 10,000,000 Nights at the Movies.

To paraphrase LBJ, if I've lost James, I've lost the country.

You still have Morbius

The more I get into this (knowing the end), the more "hatchet job" does seem a bit much (if Marcus threw the book down around the '70s period, I understand why he'd assume that, though). The guy obviously still has sympathy for Kael, but his decision to meld review quotes and personal life anecdotes is questionable enough without him constantly throwing in his two cents about whether or not she was right about a film.

It's just a sloppy, arguably hacky way to go about a bio, and I can't imagine an audience that could be satisfied by this book other than people obsessed with cinema enough to be familiar and informed about her work, but who have no doubt she needs to be knocked down a peg. Who else would tolerate or accept him ending a chapter with For all her excitement there was a certain lack of cohesiveness in her review of Prizzi's Honor that she had seldom shown. It seemed overlong, and not quite all of a piece, as if she were so astonished to find a film this good that she was no longer quite sure how to convey her enthusiasm after just a handful of perfectly fine mini-quotes from the review? Who else would take that kind of conjecture on faith? And if you weren't already invested in the subject matter, who would even get this far?

sorry for the rhetorical questions, renata

I guess that's as much as you're going to come around on the book--fair enough. My arguments in this thread have primarily been against two phrases: "hatchet job" and "hackwork." I think of the former as being written out of personal pique or vendetta, with the express purpose of discrediting someone. "Hackwork" to me can mean sloppily researched, poorly written, or written quickly and cavalierly, as a way to cash in on something. I don't believe any of those things even remotely apply to A Life in the Dark. Specific complaints about how much personal opinion Kellow should be allowed to interject, or your problems with the Prizzi's Honor quote (which I didn't give a second thought to when I read the book, undoubtedly because I never gave a second thought to Prizzi's Honor the film), fine. I don't agree, but clearly there seems to something of a split opinion on that element of the book.

One can put enormous care into a book and still emerge with a hack job.

Also: Kellow comes off much better in that round table posted above, better than Camille Paglia, who by the second rambling monologue should have had someone sit on her face.

Didn't mind Camille that much because that's just the way she is and every once in while she would quote something very specific that was interesting and somebody else would pick up on that. Thought Toback repeated himself a lot but I guess he such a key figure in the PK story that it was worth it to hear his eyewitness viewpoint.

You're in luck! The rest of the book is 10,000,000 Nights at the Movies.
Frank Rich review says this part starts when she gets to the New Yorker
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/30/books/review/roaring-at-the-screen-with-pauline-kael.html?pagewanted=all

At this triumphant juncture, a reader should turn to Kael’s full New Yorker reviews rather than Kellow’s year-after-year summaries of them. His narrative bogs down in recaps of movie plots and the juvenile jockeying that attended the annual awards balloting by the New York film critics’ organizations. Mercifully, this chronicle finally gives way to a dishy, if depressing, account of Kael’s decline. If her rise inspired many young writers to enter film criticism, her fall is a cautionary tale illustrating why critics in positions of power should get out while the getting is good, before they invariably flame out in corruption, self-parody, first-person megalomania or, in Kael’s case, all three.