"Pauline Kael said it was 'meditative', but I fell asleep."

Still kind of wonder if S. Ray was just some sort of exceptional outlier in Kael's viewing history.

More so than RW Fassbinder?

Was gonna say, at least there is the diva worship, but ...

Actually, going by India Song, I'm astounded she reviewed Le Camion so positively. I don't know, maybe they're very different. If they're not...India Song struck me as "The Come-Dressed-As-The-Sick-Soul-of-Europe Parties" turned into a movie.

The Apu films strike me as pretty close to Truffaut in tone. (Why I'm baffled that Truffaut was so condescending towards Pather Panchali.)

After re-listening to that Kael-McDonald-Simon recording from '63 again, it seems to me there were a lot of defenders of western civilization that were pretty condescending toward Ray.

A charitable interpretation would be that Truffaut felt threatened by Satyajit Ray, subliminally or otherwise and covered it up by adopting the guise of a stereotypical French snob.

Been trying to put my finger on my problem with PK for a while, think it comes down to something like this. She clearly had a talent for communicating her enthusiasm that is almost, um, seductive, and a way with words, an ability to write well-constructed, memorable sentences in idiomatic English that could run rings, not to mention circles and squares, around most of her contemporaries. But in the end there is some unforgivable flaw in her critical thinking. Perhaps it is because there is some ideal of a well-functioning critical mind, or maybe of any mind, that one has to learn to trust one's instincts but at the same time monitor them with one's analytic mind, to make corrections and provide explanations, to name a few of the many functions involved in this balancing act. Her general approach as I understand it, to watch everything only once, then run home to type out a fever dream to bowl the readers over with an ever more garrulous outpouring of Paulinist Prose (okay maybe there was some editing or revising of the words but not of the opinion), is not really a system, it can't be tinkered with or fixed once it starts misfiring and veering astray. The end result becomes a Cult of Personality of The Gatekeeper, requiring a few well-chosen favorites, old and new, to bestow praise on while others are vilified and not permitted to enter the city walls. As a case in point, maybe if she had anything like a modicum of self-reflection and correction, at least as a critic, she might have recovered from the trauma she experienced when she Went Hollywood and discovered that the Studio Bosses Had No Clothes.

On another note, have you guys heard that My Favorite song that references Hiroshima Mon Amour?

"Burning Hearts" is what it's called. Kind of amazing, ineffable. Art-damaged, Smiths-damaged Long Island kids reimagine fallout-damaged star-crossed lovers as first imagined by imperialism-damaged cinema-saving French aesthetes.

But perhaps I am overrating. Unlike PK, or at least my impression thereof, if I have even the slightest sense of having overpraised something, then according to some variant of Newton's Third Law I have to push in the other direction and distance myself from it.

Kael was ultimately incurious in a distressing way

applaud her for smelling out Celine & Julie tho

That's a more concise way to put it

I prefer to regard her as Gore Vidal's Burr did John Adams: what he knew he knew well; what he didn't he could hardly imagine.

She's one of the great essayists of the century more than a mobie writer.

If they're not...India Song struck me as "The Come-Dressed-As-The-Sick-Soul-of-Europe Parties" turned into a movie.

Sorry what does this mean?!

Love to watch The Truck someday..

Come-Dressed-As-The-Sick-Soul-of-Europe Party was famous dismissive PK put down of most Euro art film, clevering smiting at least two giants, Bergman and Antonioni, along with various fellow travelers, with one blow. This is implicitly in opposition to her love and approval of Kiss Kiss Bang Bang "vital" life-affirming cinema.

Keep in mind that she adored L'Avventura and praised several Bergman films after the essay, notably Shame and The Magic Flute. How La Notte and L'Eclisse diluted the first film's legacy she doesn't say since listing their the strengths and flaws require more adumbration than she's willing to give. These days I prefer L'Eclisse myself because it's zippier and faster and Alain Delon.

Yeah, in the beginning she was more open to that stuff but at some point it became de riguer for her to knock it presumably because it appealed to the effete East Coast intelligentsia or something like that.

Truth be told, there was a time long ago when I might have been under her thrall, but I finally had to rebel, like Sandy Stranger had to rebel against Miss Jean Brodie.

De rigueur

There's no reason to fuss over it though – unless pockets of Paulette recidivism still cause trouble. I ignore Christgau's blind spots and weaknesses too.

B-b-but Xgau has much more catholic tastes and obviously revisits, relistens and reevaluates otherwise how would he be able to change the Original Grade?

Sure. But Edmund Wilson could hardly read poetry and Greil Marcus hyperventilates in the presence of Elvis Costello. At this point I tolerate her crochets.

I'm with Alfred (even though I have to look up "crochets"...they all knit?). All these people we argue about--Kael, Marcus, Christgau, Bill James on ILB--they've all got their blind spots, quirks, and mannerisms. So do I, so does everyone. What I get from them on the other side far outweighs any of that. If you don't take anything positive away, then yes, I'm sure the blind spots, quirks, mannerisms, and knitting are exasperating.

(I actually wasn't even thinking about Kael when I revived this--just looking for a thread to express my dumbfoundedness over India Song, and a search turned up this one.)

Pauline Kael is a bit more interesting than boredom.

Does Oxford have a Very Short Introduction to boredom yet?

spiral_scratch.embed

She's one of the great essayists of the century more than a movie writer.

I guess this is why I'm not an aesthete; I don't care how pretty the pirouette is if it's bullshit at the core.

unless pockets of Paulette recidivism still cause trouble.

I mentioned her to a rather peripatetic ex-critic not long ago; he put a finger in his mouth and made a gagging sound. Qualifies?

he put a finger in his mouth and made a gagging sound.

when he saw you coming?

quoting Addison deWitt's outtakes now, i see

champion to champion

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_PlrXXfn9_Cg/SrO5syYFA5I/AAAAAAAACF4/BN111w9zfNQ/s1600-h/2341973,57RcmBk1FkB4xOPiPAtbxXaZ8losuKFZ4EpfFXDwEb3UuQZpM6LPlArm0UA5ENB2KSQKrAPtYcJjzPcJVNgyTw%3D%3D.jpg

http://media.web.britannica.com/eb-media/06/69106-004-3B98C103.jpg

And I don't care how spotless a movie's diaper is if it doesn't have a few flowers on it.

out of a medieval melodrama!

Are the medievalists back from Iceland yet?

she's a weird critic because she's at her worst when she loves something

Maybe not "worst," but I agree her raves are less convincing than her pans.

to make this thread not all about PK but "meditative" too, i actually did fall asleep during Norte, the End of History

Saw India Song last night. Viscerally hated it. I was in such a hurry to vacate the theatre, I forgot my sunglasses.

I really wish clemenza could see Duras' Nathalie Granger as i did tonight. It makes India Song look like Bringing Up Baby.

How great is it that Kael praised El Camion in the same column in which she savaged Star Wars?

Even a broken clock, etc. *ducks*

Been trying to put my finger on my problem with PK for a while, think it comes down to something like this. She clearly had a talent for communicating her enthusiasm that is almost, um, seductive, and a way with words, an ability to write well-constructed, memorable sentences in idiomatic English that could run rings, not to mention circles and squares, around most of her contemporaries. But in the end there is some unforgivable flaw in her critical thinking. Perhaps it is because there is some ideal of a well-functioning critical mind, or maybe of any mind, that one has to learn to trust one's instincts but at the same time monitor them with one's analytic mind, to make corrections and provide explanations, to name a few of the many functions involved in this balancing act. Her general approach as I understand it, to watch everything only once, then run home to type out a fever dream to bowl the readers over with an ever more garrulous outpouring of Paulinist Prose (okay maybe there was some editing or revising of the words but not of the opinion), is not really a system, it can't be tinkered with or fixed once it starts misfiring and veering astray. The end result becomes a Cult of Personality of The Gatekeeper, requiring a few well-chosen favorites, old and new, to bestow praise on while others are vilified and not permitted to enter the city walls. As a case in point, maybe if she had anything like a modicum of self-reflection and correction, at least as a critic, she might have recovered from the trauma she experienced when she Went Hollywood and discovered that the Studio Bosses Had No Clothes.

― I Don't Zing Like Nobody (James Redd and the Blecchs), Thursday, July 24, 2014 5:00 AM (2 months ago)

this is a great post, and pretty much otm.

tho i think kael's early work -- the stuff collected in "i lost it at the movies," and i think her second collection as well -- is still really great and mostly avoids the pitfalls you describe.

I don't disagree with anything in James' (yes, excellent) post, and to count her as a major, or even your biggest, influence does not mean you're oblivious to his reservations. She had a way of doing things, and you take that into account. To me, the sainted Manny Farber had his own kind of breathlessness too.

i think i'd need some examples of other critics showing off this analytic self-monitoring system in their later years before i buy that this is what negatively distinguishes her from her peers

As a case in point, maybe if she had anything like a modicum of self-reflection and correction, at least as a critic, she might have recovered from the trauma she experienced when she Went Hollywood and discovered that the Studio Bosses Had No Clothes.

what makes you think she suffered from a trauma the rest of her life? I've said this already but her writing shows no loss of verve in the eighties.

Besides, the first essay in her first book is this Didion-esque account of California phonies. I don't think it's an inhuman reaction when she got a chance to work in Hollywood it was worse than she expected.

she abused the second person for sure, but when guys talk about her like this whirling dervish who lacked their critical distance and intellectual restraint it just sounds like a chickenshit, self-flattering way to disqualify her prose despite its relative memorability and influence. "yes, i can't compete with her language and passion, but i'm smarter, trust me."

"after all, she liked that DePalma movie"

Plus, critics are artists too and thus lack the Olympian detachment and capacity for self-analysis that no one has.