Pauline Kael

Bumping this because she's been in the movie-blogger air lately: September 3 marked ten years since she died, and later this month brings two books, one a biography, one a collection of her reviews over the years.

I've skimmed the latter. Not a lot of reason to spring for it if you already have For Keeps. Looking forward to the bio, though. This certainly is the autumn for bios/memoirs about critics: Kael, Ebert, and then James Wolcott also this month.

I have all Kael's books. The '70s ones are the best, because there were more movies she could really engage with. The '80s ones have their own pleasures though. She was the opposite of snob. All you have to do is point to her positive reviews of Re-Animator, Dreamscape, Flash Gordon, Sheena, and so forth.

If you had to reduce her to a formula: the more a movie tried to be important, the less she liked it; the less a movie tried to be important, the more she liked it.

Every so often someone will try to speculate on what she would've made of this or that current film. Amusingly, two separate people had her either loving or hating Black Swan, and each had convincing reasons.

The one movie I really wish she'd reviewed is Do the Right Thing. Terrence Rafferty, that honking bore who doesn't so much write as hold forth, got it instead. Kael only reviewed one Spike joint, his first.

Armond White with breasts. The internet would have spooned her up just the same.

So absurdly wrong.

White wishes he could be contrarian a quarter as well as Kael could. Also she came first, so that would make him a boobless Pauline Kael. If it were an apt comparison. Which it isn't.

I'd recommend this great article about Kael from The New Yorker. A good summary of her style, career, and the times she wrote in.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Martin Blank 

Bumping this because she's been in the movie-blogger air lately: September 3 marked ten years since she died, and later this month brings two books, one a biography, one a collection of her reviews over the years.

 

I've skimmed the latter. Not a lot of reason to spring for it if you already have For Keeps. Looking forward to the bio, though. This certainly is the autumn for bios/memoirs about critics: Kael, Ebert, and then James Wolcott also this month.

 

I have all Kael's books. The '70s ones are the best, because there were more movies she could really engage with. The '80s ones have their own pleasures though. She was the opposite of snob. All you have to do is point to her positive reviews of Re-Animator, Dreamscape, Flash Gordon, Sheena, and so forth.

 

If you had to reduce her to a formula: the more a movie tried to be important, the less she liked it; the less a movie tried to be important, the more she liked it.

 

Every so often someone will try to speculate on what she would've made of this or that current film. Amusingly, two separate people had her either loving or hating Black Swan, and each had convincing reasons.

 

The one movie I really wish she'd reviewed is Do the Right Thing. Terrence Rafferty, that honking bore who doesn't so much write as hold forth, got it instead. Kael only reviewed one Spike joint, his first.

Your formula is pretty spot on, though she's not a contrarian when it comes to The Godfather. Her evaluation of Brando as Vito is especially insightful. 

Been reading For Keeps for about a week now, at least the reviews for movies I've actually seen (maybe a third of them). I love when she disagrees with me, because she always lets me know why and that forces me to reevaluate my position (on The Roadwarrior and Bladerunner, among others). 

I also discovered Sontag & Kael: Opposites Attract Me by Craig Seligman. The author compares and contrasts the two critics' styles. Unfortunately, I haven't read any of Susan Sontag yet, so I put Against Interpretation on hold at the library. 

I've been trying to push myself as a cinephile lately, and these two ladies are worthy mentors. 

What!! For shame, Bartleby! For shame. 

I've not read enough of her stuff to have a strong point of view on her, but her review of RAIDERS says to me that she simply lacked the facilities to understand certain kinds of film

Quote:

Originally Posted by BlackyShimSham 

What!! For shame, Bartleby! For shame. 

I know, fuck me gently with a chainsaw.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Princess Kate 

I am not "disparaging" her, but I will point out how totally off the wall nuts her review of RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK is. She had no reason to dislike the film as much as she did.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Princess Kate 

I've not read enough of her stuff to have a strong point of view on her, but her review of RAIDERS says to me that she simply lacked the facilities to understand certain kinds of film

You're consistent Princess, I'll give you that.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Bartleby_Scriven 

 

You're consistent Princess, I'll give you that.

 

Oops forgot I'd already shared my point of view in this thread. I am still on the lookout for my golden toad AVATAR so my subtle black and grey memorial AVATAR slipped by me

Quote:

Originally Posted by Bartleby_Scriven 

Your formula is pretty spot on, though she's not a contrarian when it comes to The Godfather. Her evaluation of Brando as Vito is especially insightful. 

 

Thing is, to me she's never really come off as a contrarian. She raved about E.T., for instance. A real contrarian will say E.T. is shit. (Even Armond White won't say that, because his head is so far up Spielberg's ass.)

It helps to put Godfather in the context of its time. It was based on a trashy bestseller. It still retained a lot of its pulpy vitality, which is part of what appealed to Kael, as well as Coppola's peerlessly smooth and confident handling of what really had the potential to be a shitty film. Today we look at Godfather as a monument, an unqualified classic. Back then it hadn't gathered decades' worth of genuflections. It was seen as a really damn fine Hollywood film of the sort Hollywood hadn't been succeeding at much back then. The surprise was that it didn't completely shit the bed, given the crappy novel, the cast of mostly unknowns, and Brando, who at the time was, if not box-office poison, damn close to it.

Point is, when I said "the more a movie tried to be important, the less she liked it; the less a movie tried to be important, the more she liked it" — well, The Godfather wasn't really "trying to be important," not in the way I'm thinking of. It was Coppola on his game and telling a cracking good story (or turning a cheesy story into a better story). It turned out to be an important film, but only incidentally, because of the craft and care and intelligence Coppola brought to it. On the other hand, Apocalypse Now was trying to be important, and Kael didn't think much of it.

Other examples: E.T. and Temple of Doom = Spielberg not trying to be important (Kael loved both). The Color Purple and Empire of the Sun = Spielberg trying to be important (Kael had serious issues with them).

I really think she just liked what she liked and disliked what she disliked. I don't think she ever operated like "Oh, everyone loves/hates this — I'd better go the other way." Even with directors she loved — De Palma, Scorsese, Peckinpah — she'd call 'em like she saw 'em.

The more interesting charge against her is the whole Paulettes thing, where she had a slew of writers who idolized her and who were terrified of going against her opinions — even years after she retired but before she died. She always denied it, but other folks who were around at the time like James Wolcott beg to differ. I think she enjoyed holding sway over younger writers. It made up for the influence she was increasingly failing to have over moviemakers and moviegoers as the '80s kicked in.

Having a unique outlook and way of looking at things, sticking to your guns even when everyone else disagrees and explaining yourself articulately and entertainingly - that's not being a contrarian, that's being an interesting person.

Maybe I chose my words poorly, but being a contrarian isn't always a negative. Playing the devil's advocate and challenging inherent societal standards (ie. what makes and is a classic) is a valuable commodity.

That's why I especially love Chris Sims over at comicsalliance.com, as his comprehensive reviews of all the Batman movies really opened my eyes to the flaws in the Burton films and the fun of Schumacher's. 

She did kind of start out as a contrarian — she was anti-Andrew Sarris, anti-dogma. She wanted to cut through the crap. And her "Raising Kane" is probably the biggest, red-cape act of contrarianism in film-critic history, in that it dared to suggest that Citizen Kane didn't just spring fully-formed from Welles' forehead. (She did apparently swipe a lot of the research for that from an academic under the pretense that she would co-write a paper on Kane with him.) She wasn't just about going against the grain, though. Like I said, pretty much everyone under the sun placed shiny gifts at the feet of Spielberg for E.T. and she was happy to join the parade.

I've also always liked how her favorite Indy film was Temple of Doom — it was the closest in tone to the old goofball Cary Grant adventures she used to enjoy, like Gunga Din. Raiders she didn't enjoy because she felt it lacked personality, and Last Crusade she felt went a little too heavy on the reconnecting-with-Dad thing. (That shit was in the air in '89, too, what with Field of Dreams and Dad and others. The boomers were approaching 50 and watching their stoic dads get weaker, or feeling bad about rebelling against them in the '60s. Kael didn't have much use for sentimentality.)

I've sometimes wished someone with a gift for prose mimicry could do an ongoing blog purporting to be the ghost of Kael writing about stuff like Avatar. Someone tried that with a supposed lost Kael review of Plan 9 from Outer Space; nice idea, but it really didn't get her style.