I really wish guys like him could appreciate her just as a writer. Who cares whether they share tastes?
― lumber up, limbaugh down (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Saturday, 29 October 2011 14:51 (twelve years ago) link
Hero or Hack?
impossible choice let me think about it
― lumber up, limbaugh down (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Saturday, 29 October 2011 14:53 (twelve years ago) link
i agree. i always read her for the writing. agreeing with her was beside the point for me. i don't agree with most critics about a lot of things.
― scott seward, Saturday, 29 October 2011 14:58 (twelve years ago) link
but, you know, its fair game to criticise her for being blind to stuff or intellectually sloppy or whatever. but when people basically say: "she was too opinionated!" that seems silly. then again, by pointing out stuff that she didn't write about...i dunno, what's the point of that? maybe she thought she wouldn't write about them well or in an interesting way.
― scott seward, Saturday, 29 October 2011 15:01 (twelve years ago) link
a lot of it is sexism too. if she had been a dude she would have been hunter thompson or something. posters of her in brainy dorm rooms. (i actually had a picture of her on my wall when i was like 19 lol nerd)
― scott seward, Saturday, 29 October 2011 15:04 (twelve years ago) link
and that dude above saying that he didn't see things the same way when he watched a movie...that's kinda the point to me. how could you see things the same way? seeing things in different ways is the fun of critical debate, no? sorry, i'm being obvious. i mean, she bugs me too.
― scott seward, Saturday, 29 October 2011 15:08 (twelve years ago) link
you guys should read the full piece. it's better than the piece morbz excerpted (more nuanced)
― Mordy, Saturday, 29 October 2011 15:12 (twelve years ago) link
and to state the really obvious: none of the people i've read who have written about her is anywhere near as good a writer as her. which is why people still talk about her. and don't talk about pretty much any other film critic of her era. other than, like, james agee, would any other american film critic get a bio written about them? maybe whatshisface, manny farber. and maybe an ilxor will write the definitive ebert bio.
― scott seward, Saturday, 29 October 2011 15:14 (twelve years ago) link
and by other writers writing about her i mean other critics that i have read. film critics and other kinds.
― scott seward, Saturday, 29 October 2011 15:15 (twelve years ago) link
Completely agree that her writing is why to read her, not her taste. But her taste is interesting anyway, because she was smart and interesting and so even when she was "wrong" from your point of view, she's still wrong in interesting ways. Which is way better than being right in boring ways.
― something of an astrological coup (tipsy mothra), Saturday, 29 October 2011 16:23 (twelve years ago) link
Also, am I wrong in thinking that she's increasingly little-known among people under 40? I've gotten a lot of "who?" looks from smart, educated people in recent years when her name comes up.
― something of an astrological coup (tipsy mothra), Saturday, 29 October 2011 16:25 (twelve years ago) link
Very good piece:
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/30/books/review/roaring-at-the-screen-with-pauline-kael.html?_r=1&mid=516298&ref=books&pagewanted=all
(xpost: "Ask moviegoers under 40 who she is, and you may draw a blank"!)
― clemenza, Saturday, 29 October 2011 16:57 (twelve years ago) link
'film criticism' isn't very mainstream, I don't think it has anything to do with her personally. how many people in their 20s could name a book critic? an art critic? etc.
― iatee, Saturday, 29 October 2011 17:00 (twelve years ago) link
Ask moviegoers under 40 who Howard Hawks is, and you may draw a blank.
The progression of time: not always a bad thing.
― dor Dumbeddownball (Eric H.), Saturday, 29 October 2011 17:04 (twelve years ago) link
tom carson's is the best review of the bio I've read so far
http://bnreview.barnesandnoble.com/t5/Reviews-Essays/Pauline-Kael-A-Life-in-the-Dark/ba-p/6021
there's a bit of "inside baseball" but that comes w/the kaelian territory
― chief rocker frankie crocker (m coleman), Saturday, 29 October 2011 17:05 (twelve years ago) link
Like anything else, I think it depends on whether you're talking about writers or (for lack of a better term) the general audience. I'm sure that anyone in his or her 20s who writes about pop music is aware of, and has quite likely read, Christgau, Marcus, Bangs, etc.; those in their 20s who consume the music that the others are writing about, no. Ditto young film writers vs. film-goers.
― clemenza, Saturday, 29 October 2011 17:07 (twelve years ago) link
yeah i think tom carson wins. that's a good one.
― scott seward, Saturday, 29 October 2011 17:26 (twelve years ago) link
that thing about the second-person is true though, it is kind of pushy and she uses it all the time
― occupy the A train (difficult listening hour), Saturday, 29 October 2011 17:29 (twelve years ago) link
Along the way Landberg and Kael married. It didn’t last long — “I soon found out that I couldn’t stand this woman,” Landberg says
lol
― buzza, Saturday, 29 October 2011 17:33 (twelve years ago) link
I think I already knew Kael's writing-as-sex act betrayed a largely uninteresting actual-sex life. Kindred spirit strikes again.
― dor Dumbeddownball (Eric H.), Saturday, 29 October 2011 17:36 (twelve years ago) link
where can you find her old reviews?
― dayo, Saturday, 29 October 2011 17:45 (twelve years ago) link
Some stuff here:
http://rockcriticsarchives.com/links/paulinekael.html
Otherwise...
http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=pauline+kael&x=0&y=0
― clemenza, Saturday, 29 October 2011 17:50 (twelve years ago) link
hmm.. so complicated
I'll just ask siri to read her reviews to me
― dayo, Saturday, 29 October 2011 17:51 (twelve years ago) link
Needless to say, most of those Amazon prices are absurd. Used copies aren't as commonplace as they were 20 years ago, but I still see them around fairly regularly.
― clemenza, Saturday, 29 October 2011 17:53 (twelve years ago) link
I liked the Siren's write-up of the bio.
― encarta it (Gukbe), Saturday, 29 October 2011 18:00 (twelve years ago) link
Think I'm more interested in reading the Wolcott book than the Kael biography, tbh.
― dor Dumbeddownball (Eric H.), Saturday, 29 October 2011 18:02 (twelve years ago) link
uh yeah the contempt seems personal enough that I can't really take his dismissal of her Debra Winger and DePalma fanship seriously.
― da croupier, Saturday, 29 October 2011 18:04 (twelve years ago) link
man kael really got some guys nuts in a twist, didn't she
i mean nothing will top sarris' eulogy but i'm amazed how desperate a lot of male critics are to send her ghost a condescending pat on the head
― da croupier, Saturday, 29 October 2011 18:05 (twelve years ago) link
she was better. must hurt their ego. nobody ever ran home to read an owen gleiberman review.
― scott seward, Saturday, 29 October 2011 18:16 (twelve years ago) link
nobody ANTICIPATED one of his reviews. or any of those other guys reviews.
― scott seward, Saturday, 29 October 2011 18:17 (twelve years ago) link
Came away from Carson's piece realizing more than ever that cutting DePalma off at the knees is merely the simplest means for (I guess) rejected Paulettes to scrape what's left of themselves off of the bug zapper.
― dor Dumbeddownball (Eric H.), Saturday, 29 October 2011 18:18 (twelve years ago) link
And that it's no doubt a lot easier to appreciate the material that pre-dates their own interactions with Kael.
(Still a good read otherwise.)
i read sarris for years in the voice when i was a kid and very little of it stuck with me. which is fine if you are just looking for a good movie to see on friday night.
― scott seward, Saturday, 29 October 2011 18:19 (twelve years ago) link
Love it how SSS spells it out: "In between she pursued an ill-judged taste for relationships with gay men, and had a daughter, Gina, whose father refused involvement in her upbringing."
― dor Dumbeddownball (Eric H.), Saturday, 29 October 2011 18:20 (twelve years ago) link
The mix of condescension and reign-resentment...it's like she was a cross between Marilyn Monroe and Stalin to these people.
― da croupier, Saturday, 29 October 2011 18:29 (twelve years ago) link
xpost also, LOL at David E. in the comments: "Triumph of the Will & Grace marriage"
― dor Dumbeddownball (Eric H.), Saturday, 29 October 2011 18:36 (twelve years ago) link
okay, i like that siren thing too. that siren person says everything i was thinking much better than i could. kudos to the siren. i never knew about the siren. now i know.
― scott seward, Saturday, 29 October 2011 18:39 (twelve years ago) link
jesus, i mean we live in a world where david denby still writes film reviews. its just not fair...
― scott seward, Saturday, 29 October 2011 18:40 (twelve years ago) link
For the most part, I stayed home in the apartment that I loved. And instead of going out, I entered in that summer of 1999 a dark and empty tunnel, an enclosure illuminated along the walls by a flash of naked men and women. I had discovered porn on the Internet. In the solitude of night, and in my little study at home, where mighty volumes of Plato, St. Augustine, Hegel, Montaigne, Nietzsche hardly my regular reading but a recent obsession loomed over the desk, the kneeling young women awkwardly turned their eyes to the camera. They often had long and beautiful hair that they must have laboriously cared for; they looked for approval not from their partners but from the camera, which I thought was the true object of their desire. They wanted to be seen. And the men, ugly and strong, sullen, tattooed some of them, thick-membered, concentrating on their erection and their orgasm, lest they lose either they were amateurs, not models, exercising the democratic art form of exhibitionism, with me as their willing audience. They all wanted to be seen, but I didn t want to be seen.
― omar little, Saturday, 29 October 2011 18:44 (twelve years ago) link
that should be his obituary.
― scott seward, Saturday, 29 October 2011 18:47 (twelve years ago) link
i hope the times has that on file.
― scott seward, Saturday, 29 October 2011 18:48 (twelve years ago) link
For a sec, I was sure that was David E.
― dor Dumbeddownball (Eric H.), Saturday, 29 October 2011 18:49 (twelve years ago) link
Not as lengthy as everything linked to thus far, but a friend of mine posted something on the biography yesterday:
http://begonias.typepad.com/srubio/2011/10/pauline-kael-a-life-in-the-dark.html
― clemenza, Saturday, 29 October 2011 20:09 (twelve years ago) link
It's not such a big deal that she demonstrated what Fassbindder meant to her by ignoring him altogether; it's more important that she defended Joseph Ruben thrillers.
― lumber up, limbaugh down (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Saturday, 29 October 2011 20:39 (twelve years ago) link
*Fassbinder
And there was also a homophobic strain to a lot of her writing on films with gay characters and themes, which was by no means unique but certainly contrasts poorly with her very advanced, matter-of-fact writing about films with black and Hispanic characters.
I wish this fucking "meme" will die.
― lumber up, limbaugh down (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Saturday, 29 October 2011 20:43 (twelve years ago) link
like a lot of us, she recoiled from special pleading on behalf of a besieged minority.
― lumber up, limbaugh down (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Saturday, 29 October 2011 20:44 (twelve years ago) link
Except when it came to James Toback.
― clemenza, Saturday, 29 October 2011 20:51 (twelve years ago) link
haha. She was right about The Pickup Artist though; and I wish she was still writing when Two Girls and a Guy came out.
― lumber up, limbaugh down (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Saturday, 29 October 2011 20:56 (twelve years ago) link