Pauline Kael

Funny, in a sideways way; the almost-50th anniversary of a review of a film getting some 50th-anniversary attention.

http://flavorwire.com/609140/bonnie-and-clyde-pauline-kael-and-the-essay-that-changed-film-criticism/amp

In the middle of a move and trying to downsize my book collection somewhat. But For Keeps, Conversations with Pauline Kael, A Life in the Dark and Sontag & Kael are all coming with me.

dump em all for The American Cinema :D

It seems weird now that Bosley Crowther's original B&C pan came out four months before the film did

dump em all for The American Cinema :D

Have you read that thing recently? Zzzzzzz.

Kael: stimulating and so frequently wrong.

Josefa:

B&C played the Monreal fest in April; Crowther's last line in his review was "This is the film that opened the Montreal International Festival!" So either he went or had it sneaked for him.

It was regularly released in August. Kael's piece was published in October (apparently it had been turned down by the New Republic before the New Yorker ran it).

PK did not go fulltime at TNY til '68.

Don't know if you have Reeling, Eric, but that's the one regular collection I'd keep.

Her collections were hard to find even used on Amazon until a couple years ago; I guess a proto-Eric dumped his load. I bought , Reeling, Taking it All In, and State of the Art.

They're expensive now. I had an extra hardcover of State of the Art, one I bought a few a years ago, relatively cheap and in perfect condition, that I gave to a friend recently. "If you find out you already have it, I want it back--it's worth something."

I have all the original hardcovers up to Reeling, mostly bought a long time ago. Was wondering if all her stuff came out in HC; if State of the Art did I guess they all did

I still have State of the Art and Taking it All In, and will likely keep them too.

Kael: stimulating and so frequently wrong.

Sarris: boring and right only about as often as average for film critics (and somewhat responsible for lists)

tsk tsk

How much (pre-1984) Sarris have you read that's not in TAC? He hasn't been collected like Kael.

(Also, he was especially good on silent and screwball comedy, so I'm probably barking up the wrong tree...)

To be fair, I haven't read a lot of Sarris' Voice stuff that hasn't been collected in other anthologies.

I love Sarris' You Ain't Heard Nothin' Yet.

Doesn't Confessions of a Cultist have most of his 1960s stuff?

I found a remaindered copy of the Renata Adler collection After the Tall Timber the other day and re-read her Kael piece. It's something...many posts about it above.

I've gotta quote this from Michael Wolff's preface, though:

But the rightness of Adler's view of Kael as nasty, self-promoting gasbag only became more obvious as Kael's reputation disappeared after she lost her New Yorker post and power. She was unreadable, said Adler; and indeed, Kael is unread now.

He wrote that in 2015.

Whatever you think of her, "Kael is unread now" is a truly bizarre assertion. Only four years removed from the biography and The Age of Movies, no less.

"How could Kael be read? - nobody I know reads her."

lol michael wolff

I may see this.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=341&v=zyn23q7g5ok

That's been up for a while--maybe somebody already posted it on one of the other Kael threads. Tarantino looks like he'll be unbearable.

This is a better link:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zyn23q7g5ok

Out soon, presumably.

http://variety.com/2019/film/reviews/what-she-said-the-art-of-pauline-kael-review-1203133864/

Sounds like our kind of Won't You Be My Neighbor.

RIP

pauline would've been the worst kids' show host ever

good sketch potential

still like to see Streep play her in Feud

She'd send kids home crying.

Whether the documentary is good, bad, or mediocre, there'll be a bunch of people who knew her ripping it to shreds within a day. (Unless, I suppose, they were interviewed for it.)

episode one: a kid says his favorite drink is apple juice, pauline responds "oh, try it again. you won't like it."

"There's no ambiguity in apple juice."

pauline's personal hell would be having to watch the same episode of Mr. Rogers or Barney over and over again

I guess "What She Said" is the filmmakers attempt at a "I Lost It At The Movies" Kaelian double entendre?

thought this was a v charming story about meeting pauline back in the 90s:

http://sessumsmagazine.com/2019/02/02/pauline-at-the-buggy-whip-factory-our-day-with-pauline-kael/

That was an entertaining read.

The "disappointment" question Bram raises at the end reminds me of Woody Allen in a '77 interview with Dick Cavett, where they both talked about getting to know elderly Groucho Marx, and Woody says he "just seemed like a funny Jewish uncle."

I thought the funniest line in there was her reaction to the Pee-Wee Herman scandal: “He was visiting his family. Oh fuck. Who hasn’t done something stupid when they were visiting their family?”

i don't think i've ever seen the words "charming" and "pauline kael" in the same sentence before

I saw the documentary yesterday afternoon. I was entertained, and it was nice to see Paul Schrader and vintage clips of Woody Allen, De Palma, Altman, etc reminisce about running to newstands to buy The New Yorker to read what "Pauline" had to say.

However, like the MJ documentary, the absence of any dissenting voices made for a tedious experience no matter how entertaining the result. The director was taking questions and ran out of time; otherwise I would've asked why he thought Kael had no interest in Akerman, Fassbinder, and the other great '70s directors (I have my reasons, but I wanted to hear it from him).

What are your reasons?

She disliked (a) what she considered schlock taken seriously (b) narrative film that abjured sensation.

What about that “sick soul of Europe” business?

Just came across this with respect to that:
http://sensesofcinema.com/2015/cteq/la-notte/

narrative film that abjured sensation

eg, Celine & Julie Go Boating walkout ("I'm going to the movies!")

NYC centennial retro

I'd forgotten she was crazy about Re-Animator

https://quadcinema.com/program/losing-it-at-the-movies-pauline-kael-at-100/

Wait -- she didn't much like Hannah and Her Sisters. Was it included to Stir Debate?

The writer/director’s biggest success of the 1980s took a melancholy yet surprisingly upbeat and even joyful look at love via the familial and romantic ties of three NYC sisters; it won Oscars for Best Original Screenplay and for Best Supporting Actor and Actress (Michael Caine and Dianne Wiest). Amidst rapturous critical acclaim, Kael pumped the brakes: “It’s likable…[Allen has] made the picture halfway human…[but] the wilted sterility of his style is terrifying to think about.”

a melancholy yet surprisingly upbeat and even joyful look at love

imagine telling someone that the wilted sterility of their style is terrifying to think about. pretty harsh

Wilt the Sterilt

imagine telling someone that the wilted sterility of their style is terrifying to think about. pretty harsh

― flopson, Monday, May 13, 2019 7:59 PM

He never spoke to me again iirc

lol