Not Sontag but still...

My current copy of The New York Review of Books usually comes squished in my mailbox (the Review is long; the box is not). It does not usually come with exclamation points shooting off the cover. But it did this time, and here's what it exclaimed: "Diane Keaton on Photography!" The name above the announcement was Larry McMurtry's. Apparently, he's a friend of hers. Inside, he writes a lovely tribute to Keaton's volumes on photography. What he's found is what I've often found to be true of her - that above the bright stars of her screen self there is the deep night sky of her actual self, something from a painting of sadness. Specifically: Van Gogh. Or as her character in "Manhattan" would say: "Van Gaa ."

McMurtry's primary observation in these books (there are four) is that Keaton is an explorer of the finite and the infinite, the forgotten and the preserved. Life is short, but, spiritually, some things go on forever. Isn't that in a way, what her documentary, "Heaven," was about? Keaton has demonstrated a revealing interest in mortality having played her share of doomed or dying women and having directed a movie about one such woman herself. McMurtry sticks with the books and includes one great story about Keaton and a particular outfit that speaks volumes about the complexities of her state of mind, and how a piece of clothing really can be an alternative window to the soul.

In any case, the writings: they're eloquent and enviably perceptive. And not simply because Larry McMurtry says so (although he does, with complementary eloquence). It's often illuminating to experience like commenting on like: boxers on boxers, authors on authors, etc. And Keaton's musings on old stars standing posed in the studio photos collected in "Still Life" are amazing because she writes not as an an actor or even as a fan, but as a kind of detective-appraiser of personas. She acts. She directs. She does film criticism.