Pauline Kael, RIP.

here's something that artforum published when she died - lol @ gary indiana

http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1G1-84182767.html

I've never understood that idea of liking Kael for her writing style but finding her opinions inscrutable.

yeah her opinions aren't hard to understand -- i think she makes good, clear cases for stuff she loves or hates. which is obviously different from agreeing with her, but she's not inscrutable.

Yeah, her detractors are usually taken aback by those royal "we's" and "you's" and other bludgeoning tactics of her early style that they forget how serenely clear the "middle period" (1970-1980) was, and how willing she was to be persuaded by the particular kind of hackery coming from Hollywood in the eighties. Isn't this what we want from critics? I can't understand how they must attach so many qualifiers ("great writer even though I don't agree", yawn).

*are usually SO taken aback

the comments re: welles upthread are missing the point. of course welles was responsible (mostly) for not getting to make another film after "f for fake." but kael's "raising kane" is a big old pudding of lazy criticism and outright calumnies. yes, it's got some great insights, but that doesn't excuse the sloppiness of the piece.

We acknowledged as such.

*much. I really can't type tonight.

anybody ever read renata adler's legendary takedown in the ny review of books - "perils of pauline"??

Yup. Adler's flummoxed by Kael's slang.

haha yes! it's a fantastic piece of writing and analysis, listing in excruciating and hilarious detail every last weird thing about kael's writing. even fans (and i'm a bit one, despite my criticism of "raising kane") should check it out.

uh, i'm a BIG one, that is. not "a bit of one."

Is Atkinson using the word "feckless" correctly?

http://i47.photobucket.com/albums/f163/courtneykaehler/maracas.jpg

At what, the feckless boxer?

Stumped.