Synopses & Reviews
The epic human drama behind the making of the five movies nominated for Best Picture in 1967-Guess Who's Coming to Dinner, The Graduate, In the Heat of the Night, Doctor Doolittle, and Bonnie and Clyde-and through them, the larger story of the cultural revolution that transformed Hollywood, and America, forever It's the mid-1960s, and westerns, war movies and blockbuster musicals-Mary Poppins, The Sound of Music-dominate the box office. The Hollywood studio system, with its cartels of talent and its production code, is hanging strong, or so it would seem. Meanwhile, Warren Beatty wonders why his career isn't blooming after the success of his debut in Splendor in the Grass; Mike Nichols wonders if he still has a career after breaking up with Elaine May; and even though Sidney Poitier has just made history by becoming the first black Best Actor winner, he's still feeling completely cut off from opportunities other than the same "noble black man" role. And a young actor named Dustin Hoffman struggles to find any work at all.
By the Oscar ceremonies of the spring of 1968, when In the Heat of the Night wins the 1967 Academy Award for Best Picture, a cultural revolution has hit Hollywood with the force of a tsunami. The unprecedented violence and nihilism of fellow nominee Bonnie and Clyde has shocked old-guard reviewers but helped catapult Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway into counterculture stardom and made the movie one of the year's biggest box-office successes. Just as unprecedented has been the run of nominee The Graduate, which launched first-time director Mike Nichols into a long and brilliant career in filmmaking, to say nothing of what it did for Dustin Hoffman, Simon and Garfunkel, and a generation of young people who knew that whatever their future was, it wasn't in plastics. Sidney Poitier has reprised the noble-black-man role, brilliantly, not once but twice, in Guess Who's Coming to Dinner and In the Heat of the Night, movies that showed in different ways both how far America had come on the subject of race in 1967 and how far it still had to go.
What City of Nets did for Hollywood in the 1940s and Easy Riders, Raging Bulls for the 1970s, Pictures at a Revolution does for Hollywood and the cultural revolution of the 1960s. As we follow the progress of these five movies, we see an entire industry change and struggle and collapse and grow-we see careers made and ruined, studios born and destroyed, and the landscape of possibility altered beyond all recognition. We see some outsized personalities staking the bets of their lives on a few films that became iconic works that defined the generation-and other outsized personalities making equally large wagers that didn't pan out at all.
The product of extraordinary and unprecedented access to the principals of all five films, married to twenty years' worth of insight covering the film industry and a bewitching storyteller's gift, Mark Harris's Pictures at a Revolution is a bravura accomplishment, and a work that feels iconic itself.
Review
“[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.”
Review
“[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.”
Review
“Illuminating.”
— The New Yorker (Reviewers' favorites)
“[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 (Editors’ Choice)
"Mr. Kellow’s even-handed treatment gives us [Kael] in all her maddening overconfidence.”
— Scott Eyman, The Wall Street Journal
“This affectionate biography makes [Kael's] life and her passion for movies inseparable.”
— 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
“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
“A smart and eminently readable examination of the life and career of one of the 20th century’s most influential movie critics.”
— Los Angeles Times.com
“[Kellow] brings a wise and sweeping vision to [Kael's] artistic mentality and her enduring legacy.”
— The Washington Times
“[M]eticulously researched.”
— Slate.com
“[A] terrific new biography… [Kael's early life ] was a revelation to me, thanks to Kellow’s ace research.”
— Salon.com
“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 [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.”
— Associated Press
“The fact that most of us know little about [Kael's ] upbringing of her private life makes this an especially intriguing biography.”
— Leonard Maltin, Leonard Maltin.com
“Compelling…thrillingly written and exhaustively researched….Genius.”
— 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.”
— The Village Voice
"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, November 2011 Issue)
“[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.”
— Howard Kissel, The Huffington Post
“Pauline Kael: A Life in the Dark is a very good biography."
— Richard Schickel, Los Angeles Review of Books
"At last, a biography of the highly influential New Yorker film critic."
— San Francisco Chronicle
“The [present] I hope someone will send me is Brian Kellow’s Pauline Kael: A Life in the Dark.”
— Philip French, The Observer (U.K.)
“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)
“Brian Kellow’s biography of [Pauline Kael] is a fascinating and enlightening read.”
— Whitney Matheson, USA Today
“[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.”
— The Hindu
“Absorbing.”
— Toronto Star
“[A] smashing first biography of the famed New Yorker critic.”
— The Buffalo News
“Compelling.”
— The Onion A.V. Club
“[A] richly detailed biography.”
— Maclean's
“Throws radiant light on the renowned movie critic.”
— David Finkle, The Huffington Post
"[A] fascinating new biography….[Kellow] captures [Kael's] best passages and most heartless insults and puts them in context.”
— Laurie Winer, Los Angeles Review of Books
“[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
“[A] rich, thorough, and admirably fair biography.”
Review
"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."
Review
“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.”
Review
“Brian Kellow’s biography
Pauline Kael: A Life in the Dark wisely charts Kael’s life by focusing on her writing.”
Review
“[An] excellent new biography.”
Review
“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.”
Review
“[
Pauline Kael is an] entertaining and insightful biography.”
Review
“[
Pauline Kael is an] excellent Biography.”
Review
A madly ambitious marriage of revelatory cultural history and great storytelling,
Pictures at a Revolution is every bit as smart and radical and sexy as the movies it brings to life." --David Hajdu, author of
Lush Life and
Positively 4th Street "Mark Harris has pulled off brilliantly what many of us only attempt. He has used a narrowly focused subject-five movies competing for Best Picture in 1967- to tell the larger, richly textured story of that tumultuous time. He traces the making of each of the movies-among them,
Bonnie and Clyde and
The Graduate-with the kind of detailed, dramatic narrative that makes the book a page-turner, even for someone who is not a movie buff. And his profiles of the major characters (my favorites were Dustin Hoffman, Warren Beatty, and Mike Nichols) are the most interesting I've seen." --Connie Bruck, author of
The Predator's Ball,
Masters of the Game, and
When Hollywood Was King "
Pictures at a Revolution is exactly what its title promises: an in- depth, up-close view of the films and filmmakers that transformed American cinema during an extraordinary period of innovation and insurrection. What we have here is a clash of the titans-Old Hollywood versus the New-with the entire enterprise of American filmmaking hanging in the balance. Like a skilled novelist, Mark Harris keeps us turning the pages, with heroes to root for, villains to hiss, and plenty of intrigue along the way-all set against the psychedelic backdrop of the turbulent 1960s. A remarkable reconstruction of perhaps the most significant artistic moment in the history of American film." --William J. Mann, author of
Kate: The Woman Who Was Hepburn and
Edge of Midnight: The Life of John Schlesinger "I've been waiting a long time for someone to explain to me exactly what happened to the movies during the 1960s-and someone finally has. Luckily he's witty, nervy, original, widely knowledgeable from the board room to the back room, and has no trouble putting
Dr. Dolittle and
Bonnie and Clyde in the same critical universe. That's the 1960s for you...all movie history books should be written by Mark Harris." --Jeanine Basinger, author of
The Star Machine "An exhilarating read for anyone who cares about the myriad ways movies can shape popular and political culture. I loved it." --Christine Vachon, producer, author of
Shooting to KillReview
"A rarity in the world of movie literature: A first-rate, broad-gauged (and deliciously readable) cultural history."
-Richard Schickel, Los Angeles Times
"A landmark new film book . . . sifts through the evidence with reportorial acumen and great care, conjuring up the social and cultural history of a lost world and drawing on sharp new interviews with many of its major players. . . . Can take its place alongside top-shelf film industry books."
-Janet Maslin, The New York Times
Synopsis
To call Sue Mengers a character is an understatement, unless the word is written in all-caps, followed by an exclamation point and modified by an expletive. And based on Brian Kellow s assessment in his thoroughly researchedCan I Go Now?even that description may be playing down her personality a bit. Jen Chaney, The Washington Post
A NY Times Culture Bestseller An Entertainment Weekly Best Pop Culture Book of 2015 A Booklist Top Ten Arts Book of 2015
A lively and colorful biography of Hollywood s first superagent one of the most outrageous showbiz characters of the 1960s and 1970s whose clients included Barbra Streisand, Ryan O Neal, Faye Dunaway, Michael Caine, and Candice Bergen
Before Sue Mengers hit the scene in the mid-1960s, talent agents remained quietly in the background. But staying in the background was not possible for Mengers. Irrepressible and loaded with chutzpah, she became a driving force of Creative Management Associates (which later became ICM) handling the era s preeminent stars.
A true original with a gift for making the biggest stars in Hollywood listen to hard truths about their careers and personal lives, Mengers became a force to be reckoned with. Her salesmanship never stopped. In 1979, she was on a plane that was commandeered by a hijacker, who wanted Charlton Heston to deliver a message on television. Mengers was incensed, wondering why the hijacker wanted Heston, when she could get him Barbra Streisand.
Acclaimed biographer Brian Kellow spins an irresistible tale, exhaustively researched and filled with anecdotes about and interviews more than two hundred show-business luminaries. A riveting biography of a powerful woman that charts show business as it evolved from New York City in the 1950s through Hollywood in the early 1980s, Can I Go Now?will mesmerize anyone who loves cinema s most fruitful period."
Synopsis
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 stately New 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's Pictures 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
The New York Times bestseller that follows the making of five films at a pivotal time in Hollywood history In the mid-1960s, westerns, war movies, and blockbuster musicals like Mary Poppins swept the box office. The Hollywood studio system was astonishingly lucrative for the few who dominated the business. That is, until the tastes of American moviegoers radically- and unexpectedly-changed. By the Oscar ceremonies of 1968, a cultural revolution had hit Hollywood with the force of a tsunami, and films like Bonnie and Clyde, The Graduate, Guess Who's Coming to Dinner, In the Heat of the Night, and box-office bomb Doctor Doolittle signaled a change in Hollywood-and America. And as an entire industry changed and struggled, careers were suddenly made and ruined, studios grew and crumbled, and the landscape of filmmaking was altered beyond all recognition.
Synopsis
A lively and colorful biography of Hollywoodand#8217;s first superagentand#151;one of the most outrageous showbiz characters of the 1960s and 1970s whose clients included Barbra Streisand, Ryan Oand#8217;Neal, Faye Dunaway, Michael Caine, Candice Bergen, and Anjelica Huston Before Sue Mengers hit the scene in the mid-1960s, talent agents remained quietly in the background. But staying in the background was not possible for Mengers. Irrepressible and loaded with chutzpah, she became a driving force of Creative Management Associates (which later became ICM) handling the eraand#8217;s preeminent stars.
A true original with a gift for making the biggest stars in Hollywood listen to hard truths about their careers and personal lives, Mengers became a force to be reckoned with. Her salesmanship never stopped. In 1979, she was on a plane that was commandeered by a hijacker, who wanted Charlton Heston to deliver a message on television. Mengers was incensed, wondering why the hijacker wanted Heston, when she could get him Barbra Streisand.
Acclaimed biographer Brian Kellow spins an irresistible tale, exhaustively researched and filled with anecdotes about and interviews more than two hundred show-business luminaries. A riveting biography of a powerful woman that charts show business as it evolved from New York City in the 1950s through Hollywood in the early 1980s,and#160;Can I Go Now?and#160;will mesmerize anyone who loves cinemaand#8217;s most fruitful period.
About the Author
Brian Kellow is the author of
Pauline Kael: A Life in the Dark, which was a 2011
New York Times Notable Book of the Year and also appeared on the Best of the Year lists of
Entertainment Weekly,
The New Yorker and the
Chicago Tribune. He is also the author of
Ethel Merman: A Life, The Bennetts: An Acting Family, and the coauthor of
Canand#8217;t Help Singing: The Life of Eileen Farrell. He is the features editor of
Opera News. Kellow lives in New York City.