I met a documentary film director. I was suddenly fascinated with the documen- tary because I felt it could be almost any- thing to tell a story. I felt it was a much more free medium and got into it. ” A Vanity Fair article about Wallace, read and retained by Belkin, delved into how the broadcaster became more reflective as he aged and described how he was fascinated with people’ s weak spots and very aware of his own Achilles’ heel while posing questions. “I’ m an interviewer as well because a documen- tary filmmaker always does interviews, ” Belkin explains. “I was looking for moments that revealed Mike’ s character, where it felt like he was talking to himself in a way. ” Although Belkin does not present any segment related to Wallace’ s Jewish background, research left the filmmaker with the impression that there was pride in his religion. During Middle East coverage, the filmmaker says, it seemed to remain important for Wallace to include the Palestinian point of view. Omitted from the film is part of a conversation with playwright Arthur Miller. Both men went to the University of Michigan and recalled times there. “Learning about Mike was inspiring for my work, ” says Belkin, cur- rently represented in an AMC miniseries, No One Saw a Thing, about vio- lence in a small Missouri town. “Watching the raw interviews, just looking at the craft, was school for me. “Mike was all about research, relentless about getting into the core of his subject. There isn’ t a moment in those hours when he’ s drifting. He’ s so focused and so sharp. “The second thing I realized was about asking the follow-up questions. People talk about Mike as inventing the tough ques- tion, and he was the master of it, but also the master of the follow-up. The second question is sometimes more important than the first one. ” ■ Details Mike Wallace is Here will be shown Sept. 6-8 at the Detroit Film Theatre in the Detroit Institute of Arts. $7.50- $9.50. (313) 833-4005. dia.org/events. Mike Wallace featured in an episode of CBS 60 Minutes in Mike Wallace Is Here. Mike Wallace interviews Ku Klux Klan leader Eldon Edwards (1957) in Mike Wallace Is Here. Print journalist Charles Eisendrath had two full-time careers. During the second, he developed a strong friendship with Mike Wallace and brought some good, even light-hearted, times to the otherwise intense broadcaster. After working as an international correspon- dent for Time magazine, Eisendrath joined the University of Michigan (U-M) faculty. He went on to become founding director of the Livingston Awards for Young Journalists and invited Wallace to be a judge. Wallace, who graduated from U-M in 1939, turned into a major donor as Eisendrath founded and directed the Knight-Wallace Fellowships and the Wallace House, a cen- ter for journalism programs. What a surprise — for Wallace and spectators — as Eisendrath gave thanks by arranging for the 60 Minutes icon to lead the marching band at a football halftime. “One of the nicest things Mike said repeatedly and publicly was that his con- nection with me and with Wallace House had given him back his university,” says Eisendrath, who raised more than $60 mil- lion during his 30 years at the school. “I proposed Mike for an honorary degree, and he got one.” Eisendrath recalls many stories that involve public figures and public events that came his way, and they include covering arms smuggling out of France and outright unrest in Chile. He also has dramatic sto- ries that tell of his life after retiring in 2016 from U-M and taking to the rural appeal of family property in Charlevoix County. Many of those stories are described through the pages of his new book, Downstream From Here (Mission Point Press), a series of essays compiled at Overlook Farm, where he experienced the outdoors and entered the world of entre- preneurship. “I’ m a fisherman, and if you’ re a fish- erman, you find yourself thinking that the most interesting things are going to be just around that next bend,” says Eisendrath, 78, who asked one of his two sons to head up Grillworks, which markets an outdoor grill the journalist developed before mar- keting his maple syrup through Overlook Farm Maple and Lake Charlevoix Maple. “If you’ ve floated a canoe, as I often have, [you watch for] just over there, where the water gets a wave. The same is true of time. The most interesting things to me always seem to be coming in the future. “I put those two ideas together to come up with the book title that seemed right for me.” The essays, which follow subjects and not a timeline, also reveal very personal moments — reaching from the history of his Jewish family and his own religious and spiritual outlook to issues faced with his wife, Julia, a distant cousin of the late Supreme Court Justice Benjamin Cardozo. “The book gave me a chance to tell my story in terms of a place that I loved all my life; but writing about my own life was much harder than writing about others’ lives,” he explains. Eisendrath’ s wrote essays over many years and kept them in a box. “I did not think about the essays very much, but when retirement [from U-M] was com- ing, I said I’ m going to see what’ s in that box,” he recalls. “Thinking I would find maybe 75 pages, I found 350, thought it all was book length and hired an editor. Eisendrath felt compelled to document the emotions of coping with a son’ s serious illness and his wife’ s critical injuries after a plane crash. “If you’ re going to be honest with your reader, you have to include everything,” he says. “It’ s a clear and balanced idea of the life that’ s being examined.” Now immersed in the upper reaches of Michigan’ s lower peninsula, where he connects with neighbors and knows vaca- tioners, Eisendrath is thinning the woods, experimenting with pawpaw trees and reading Richard Powers’ The Overstory, a novel about trees. As he promotes the idea of the farm staying with Eisendraths for generations to come, the continuing writer hasn’ t for- gotten about emerging journalists and is thinking journalism could be at the center of a possible next book. “This is the best time ever to become a journalist if you’ re young,” he says. “For the institutions that have fallen apart, there are new institutions that are taking shape, and the cost of entry is very low. “It won’ t be the same world I enjoyed, which is to say being paid a nice salary at someplace like Time to run around the world and report, but it’ s an exciting time and can be lucrative, too, as a freelancer or founder of an organization.” ■ o n- s Eisendrat y e re in in I I b d BEN EISENDRATH Charles Eisendrath CHARLES EISENDRATH August 29 • 2019 41 jn A Life Examined SUZANNE CHESSLER CONTRIBUTING WRITER MIKE WALLACE’ S CONTEMPORARY PUBLISHED NEW BOOK OF ESSAYS.