Pauline Kael

(xxxpost) Fair enough. In some of your posts above, you seem to strike out aggressively at anyone who criticizes her for anything. She's one of two writers (the other Bill James) who's influenced me more than any other, yet there are a number of things about her writing (especially during her last few years, which is admittedly a little unfair) that bother me.

i strike out aggressively, because I feel most critiques are pat, small-minded or misguided, and I usually say why.

def not denying i'm a huuuuuge kael stan

Even if you disagree with some of his points along the way, I think the Rich piece is fair, and anything but small-minded. And it leads to a final sentence that I think does justice to her: "If you want to understand what it was like to be in the audience during America’s thrilling, now vanished age of movies, you must begin with Kael."

Was just thinking about MH right before you posted, Morbius. I've only got the two books, would read more if I could.

phil, you should recall that d.c. is a rabid anti-auteurist and that on any film thread he likes to play Tom Wolfe to everyone else's radical chic.

look at that! Narrative writing going on in this thread!

"If you want to understand what it was like to be in the audience during America’s thrilling, now vanished age of movies, you must begin with Kael."

well, but this is boilerplate. It's as if I wrote, "If you want to understand what it was like to be in the audience during America’s thrilling, now vanished Camelot, you mus begin with Kennedy."

Also: like how Rich (inadvertently) appropriates Kael's "you."

I guess MH also wrote the memoir about when Andy S was sick and the Gone with the Wind book.

i grazed through the rich piece after reading your quote, clemenza. still pretty boilerplate (as al put it), but only that bit you quoted re: auteurism struck me as truly false and toxic. Will admit I'm wary to read the bio just because I don't know if I want to sweat her being an unpleasant person. Her "ethical lapses" tend to be overplayed by jealous types, I think. Though this Raising Kane stuff was news to me and, if true, genuinely unethical. I don't give a shit if she actually dared to hang out with these people rather than just kiss ass on press junkets, though.

Rich slipping into second-person (inadvertently or as a little joke, I don't know) is funny, yes. But some cliches are cliches because they're true (to use a cliche). If you wanted to get a sense of American film during the '70s, I don't think you'd read Sarris.

Picking on her for hanging out with directors -- a criticism hurled against her even in the early nineties when I discovered her -- always struck me as willful ignorance. Not even a writer with half of Kael's finesse could avoid turning out hackish prose for the sake of praising one of her drinking buddies.

I remember reading a review of For Keeps in The Atlantic which mentioned her falling out with Woody Allen after she flushed Stardust Memories down a commode, despite her love for things like The Purple Rose of Cairo, Judy Davis in H&W (this performance is pure Kael bait), and the romcom half of Manhattan Murder Mystery.

yeah i dunno if its blind rage over her dissing raging bull or incredulous to her loving...(actually, what movie is it shocking she dared to promote?) that makes people pretend she was just a groupie

I mean Blow Out is on Criterion, Nashville and Last Tango are pretty canonized, so what's the big "you're on your own, Pauline!" movie (can't be Casualties, that's way too late in her career)? I can't get behind her Temple Of Doom love but I wouldn't say she's a Spielberg worshipper, she just wishes he'd stick to offensive slapstick.

As a sign of how deeply they misunderstand women or simply don't give a damn about them, Biskind actually suggests in his Beatty biography that Kael's misadventure (at Beatty's behest) as a Hollywood adviser inspired her dismissal of Reds. I couldn't believe I read something so petty and misogynist in the 21st century.

o what's the big "you're on your own, Pauline!" movie (can't be Casualties, that's way too late in her career)?

Only small things like Mike's Murder (and I share her affection for Debra Winger), Music Box, and anything by the Taviani brothers.

Is Shoot The Moon any good? Her review of that is pretty over the top.

totally googling "tom wolfe radical chic", fyi

Thinking about the ebb and flow of her evaluations of Allen and Altman, she obviously didn't give any either of them a free pass. But I would still rather a critic not befriend people she write about. Maybe it sometimes caused her to overcompensate in the other direction--slam a film more harshly than she otherwise would have, as a way to check herself. I have no idea, but I have to believe it complicates any evaluation. (A rock-critic example: Marcus and Elvis Costello.)

It is actually, once you get past the incongruity of Diane Keaton and Albert Finney as man and wife.

It does happen, but she didn't oscillate wildly between poles either. She gave Zelig, Hannah and Radio Days grudging thumbs up, and thought Come Back to the Five and Dime (I haven't seen it) an awful play.

I don't think you have to get drinks with an artist to play the "I overrated your last thing so I'm gonna slam the next one" bit. It's pretty familiar in any critic who became a fan.

it's just the other side of the "I belatedly realized you're good so I'm overrating your new movie" deal

I know my friendship with Tim Powis has caused me to hold the Surfin' Tapeworms from Venus' surf version of the Chariots of Fire theme in too high esteem.

it's just the other side of the "I belatedly realized you're good so I'm overrating your new movie" deal

haha -- this is actually Christgau's trick.

her pan of The Shining is OTM ("the first pompous haunted-house movie")

as is the rave for Temple of Doom.

I know my friendship with Tim Powis has caused me to hold the Surfin' Tapeworms from Venus' surf version of the Chariots of Fire theme in too high esteem.

― clemenza, Sunday, October 30, 2011 10:29 AM (8 hours ago) Bookmark

lol

I liked the Ween redo.

scott seward, da croupier fully otm in this thread

also agree with tipsy that her taste was interesting. if o'hehir never understood what she was talking about maybe he's just not a very good reader.

I'm offended I'm not otm :(

haha you were also otm, scott + da croupier were just pushing my favorite "jealous dudes" angle. it's true!

You tried too hard for a nuanced approach
(xp)

haha it's true

nuance?! Kael's critics deserve beheading.

alfred completely otm

Now you're doing a John Candy as Orson Welles ham on rye performance (xp)

and Jessica Lange will play Madame Defarge.

does this bio have a comprehensive list of kael's reviews? i always had the impression there was a lot of stuff from the early pre-new yorker days that never made it into her books.

I have a yellowed paperback copy of Kiss Kiss Bang Bang I found on the street, and that's all pre-New Yorker! (Atlantic, McCalls, etc. And isn't that the second book?)

Has donna rouge mentioned if the Pacifica archives have her radio reviews?

Now you're doing a John Candy as Orson Welles

wait did this actually happen? was it some sctv thing?

if o'hehir never understood what she was talking about maybe he's just not a very good reader.

Not always so; her main objection to Goodfellas seemed to be that there's no 'hero' a la Cagney (or even Harvey Keitel, I guess). That makes no sense to me.

but it seems like o'hehir was saying she had no big insights beyond her surprising taste, which is just crazy talk to me.

she also hated gays.

Except those she let impregnate her.

unpublished photo of the kael household circa 1958

http://www.maniacworld.com/mommie-dearest-with-extra-slapping.jpg

My household on Fri night tbh.

morbs looks very pretty there

I do love the image of her changing the marquee at a rep house w/ Wild Turkey on her hip.

4-part interview:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jtGCjGgecOs&feature=related

^^^ saw it last week. I love her comments on Paul Newman.

The famous first meeting between Kael and Sarris over a drink:

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_wu6Z_RmeXD4/SyvfEcQmPmI/AAAAAAAAAeE/Jbet5NAS3xk/s320/robinson.jpg

"The far side of what? Oh, please."