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The Film Writings #1
I Lost it at the Movies: Film Writings, 1954-1965
I Lost it at the Movies is vintage Kael on such classics of post-War cinema as On the Waterfront, Smiles of a Summer Night, West Side Story, The Seven Samurai, Lolita, Jules et Jim etc. Her comments are so fresh and direct, it's as if the movies had only been released last week.
250 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1965
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2605 people want to read
About the author
Pauline Kael
56 books188 followersPauline Kael was an American film critic who wrote for The New Yorker magazine from 1968 to 1991. She was known for her "witty, biting, highly opinionated, and sharply focused" movie reviews. She approached movies emotionally, with a strongly colloquial writing style. She is often regarded as the most influential American film critic of her day and made a lasting impression on other major critics including Armond White and Roger Ebert, who has said that Kael "had a more positive influence on the climate for film in America than any other single person over the last three decades."
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 58 reviews
December 5, 2017
Remember when movies were worth seeing ?
Kael on "Lolita" (Kubrick) : "A black slapstick..it's so far out that you gasp as you laugh." It reminds her of the great Preston Sturges pix.
On Fellini/ Antonioni: "Nothing seems more shallow than the dissatisfaction of the enervated rich; nothing is easier to attack."
On "The Cousins" : Here's "Chabrol's almost extravagant command of the medium."
On "West Side Story" : Boobs and wiseguys, she asserts, try to impress with their seriousness. When the always boring Stanley Kauffmann calls it the best musicom ever made, The Kael snorts. The best are those which celebrate high spirits, giddy romance and light satire like "Singin' in the Rain," she counters.
On "A View from the Bridge" : "Arthur Miller's intention is to create tragedy; but what we see is a man behaving so insanely that we keep wondering why he wasn't put away."
On "Breakfast at Tiffany's" : "Patricia Neal is amusing in a rather impenetrable role -- she seems to be a playing a lesbian and she's also keeping George Peppard. I don't think it's wise to let the mind linger too long over that."
Then the bugaboo, The Auteur Theory : This you must read, for The Kael is a Killer here. "What is all this nonsense about?" she asks most sensibly, noting that any film involves a team and Golden Age directors were simply assigned films. With deadly accuracy, she demolishes auteurism.
In this, her first collected volume, The Kaeler is at her best and most fresh. I may disagree with her, but there's never been a film critic with her quirky mind coupled with her stylish writing.
Of the films being made today, to satisfy the greed of multinational companies in 3rd World Countries and our own uneducated, what can one say? We need Kael's voice today, but critics are afraid their publishers will fold! The rest is silence - and grade-C movies. Here's Kael at her best, before she was corrupted (late 70s) by Warren Beatty.
Kael on "Lolita" (Kubrick) : "A black slapstick..it's so far out that you gasp as you laugh." It reminds her of the great Preston Sturges pix.
On Fellini/ Antonioni: "Nothing seems more shallow than the dissatisfaction of the enervated rich; nothing is easier to attack."
On "The Cousins" : Here's "Chabrol's almost extravagant command of the medium."
On "West Side Story" : Boobs and wiseguys, she asserts, try to impress with their seriousness. When the always boring Stanley Kauffmann calls it the best musicom ever made, The Kael snorts. The best are those which celebrate high spirits, giddy romance and light satire like "Singin' in the Rain," she counters.
On "A View from the Bridge" : "Arthur Miller's intention is to create tragedy; but what we see is a man behaving so insanely that we keep wondering why he wasn't put away."
On "Breakfast at Tiffany's" : "Patricia Neal is amusing in a rather impenetrable role -- she seems to be a playing a lesbian and she's also keeping George Peppard. I don't think it's wise to let the mind linger too long over that."
Then the bugaboo, The Auteur Theory : This you must read, for The Kael is a Killer here. "What is all this nonsense about?" she asks most sensibly, noting that any film involves a team and Golden Age directors were simply assigned films. With deadly accuracy, she demolishes auteurism.
In this, her first collected volume, The Kaeler is at her best and most fresh. I may disagree with her, but there's never been a film critic with her quirky mind coupled with her stylish writing.
Of the films being made today, to satisfy the greed of multinational companies in 3rd World Countries and our own uneducated, what can one say? We need Kael's voice today, but critics are afraid their publishers will fold! The rest is silence - and grade-C movies. Here's Kael at her best, before she was corrupted (late 70s) by Warren Beatty.
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June 23, 2015Whether Pauline Kael is singing the praises of Satyajit Ray, or cutting Alain Resnais down to size, she is, without question, the real deal, a true American iconoclast. Fuck, even when I disagree with her (really, how can she hate La Dolce Vita?) I'm immensely, immensely charmed. Like Fran Lebowitz, I could happily sit down at a party while she held court over cigarette after cigarette, and went through the failings of everyone in the room and a significant number of people outside of it. Unfortunately, Ms. Kael has long since left this world and Ms. Lebowitz runs in circles far posher than mine, but they both left their books. And I'd recommend them universally.
December 8, 2020
This is a book that meant a great deal to me when I was in college and looking forward to a career as a professor of film history and criticism. (It never happened, but that is a long story.)
As Assistant Director of the Dartmouth College Film Society, I was present when Pauline Kael visited the campus in my senior year and had dinner and an interesting conversation with our tiny film community. By then, she had already published I Lost it at the Movies: Film Writings, 1954-1965, and I had read it twice over.
In the course of the intervening years, I have disagreed on several major issues with Miss Kael, but I still regard her as having made a major contribution to film criticism in America -- not to mention my taste in films. (I still do not regard Alain Resnais as a great or even good director.) Where I disagree with her is on the following points.
(1) She is resolutely middlebrow in her taste, with a very light leaning toward the postmodern. While she hates big Hollywood productions like The Sound of Music, she appreciates Antonioni's L'Avventura and Godard's Breathless.
(2) She spends as much time reviewing the other film reviewers such as Bosley Crowther, Stanley Kauffmann, and Dwight MacDonald as she does reviewing the films. I never cared much for that crew anyway, so nothing is gained by setting them up as straw men.
(3) While she brings up some very legitimate points in her long article on Andrew Sarris and the auteur theory to which I subscribed (and, to a major extent, still do), she underappreciates great American filmmakers like John Ford, Howard Hawks, Otto Preminger, and Nicholas Ray. Even Hitchcock does not get full credit for his genius.
I remember Miss Kael very well and liked her as a person. It would be foolish to expect her to fall in line with my own thinking on every point: She was resolutely her own person -- and a very good writer.
As Assistant Director of the Dartmouth College Film Society, I was present when Pauline Kael visited the campus in my senior year and had dinner and an interesting conversation with our tiny film community. By then, she had already published I Lost it at the Movies: Film Writings, 1954-1965, and I had read it twice over.
In the course of the intervening years, I have disagreed on several major issues with Miss Kael, but I still regard her as having made a major contribution to film criticism in America -- not to mention my taste in films. (I still do not regard Alain Resnais as a great or even good director.) Where I disagree with her is on the following points.
(1) She is resolutely middlebrow in her taste, with a very light leaning toward the postmodern. While she hates big Hollywood productions like The Sound of Music, she appreciates Antonioni's L'Avventura and Godard's Breathless.
(2) She spends as much time reviewing the other film reviewers such as Bosley Crowther, Stanley Kauffmann, and Dwight MacDonald as she does reviewing the films. I never cared much for that crew anyway, so nothing is gained by setting them up as straw men.
(3) While she brings up some very legitimate points in her long article on Andrew Sarris and the auteur theory to which I subscribed (and, to a major extent, still do), she underappreciates great American filmmakers like John Ford, Howard Hawks, Otto Preminger, and Nicholas Ray. Even Hitchcock does not get full credit for his genius.
I remember Miss Kael very well and liked her as a person. It would be foolish to expect her to fall in line with my own thinking on every point: She was resolutely her own person -- and a very good writer.
October 31, 2009
My copy of "I Lost it at the Movies" is itself a tribute to my love of Ms. Kael's writing: purchased when I was a teenager, the binding has come apart completely so often has it been opened, and what was once a book is now just a stack of loose sheets of paper. To read it one must pick up each individual sheet from the right-hand stack of papers, read it, turn it over, read that, then place the sheet atop the opposite left-hand stack. I will not - I cannot - part with it; it is one of the building blocks of my adolescence, and it contributed greatly to my lifelong love of old movies. Now over fifty, I don't take her word as gospel as I did when I was twenty - I have my own views these days - but no other critic could so ruthlessly and entertainingly pan a movie the way she could, and no one could explain why a great movie was great like her. She died a few weeks before 9/11, and, in the answer to where were you when the planes hit the Trade Center, I was in my office at my old job, reading some of the online tributes to her, when the phone rang. Eight years after her death, she remains a controversial figure - a lot of people loved her, some hated her - but what is also true is, though she has thousands of imitators, she remains the greatest movie critic of them all.
January 4, 2013
Kael’s problem isn’t that she’s a contrarian, but that she’s obsessed with the lonely, vigilante allure of being a contrarian (i.e. the madness that has overtaken Armond White). This makes for criticism that’s generally less constructive and illuminating than monomaniacally obsessed with pointing out why everyone else is wrong, with dissecting why movies are terrible without giving them much of a fair shake, jumping to conclusions and dismissing viewpoints with maniacal abandon. She obviously has an enormous faculty for perception / interpretation and is usually convincing (and often right), but there’s too much glibness and close-mindedness here, a miasma of acidic malice that often represents itself in moments of diffuse craziness (the bit about The Gays (basically her caps) in the ‘Fantasies of the Art House Audience’ piece, how they hold up certain generously-figured ladies as icons because they’re secretly laughing at their outlandish bodies, is just batshit insane). Kael is useful for calling bullshit on certain things and defending others that have been unfairly ganged up against, and her passion is more than often contagious, but this is disappointingly trite stuff, even if a lot of it is really amusing (love the endless Vincent Canby abuse).
October 9, 2017
There's no doubt Pauline KAEL has a fancy way of saying things. But what she says is far from being fancy. I mean, I took this book because I thought it's about movies, but I've found out that it's about people watching the movies. Every "review" of her started by criticizing mass or intellectual reception, or criticizing others reviews. Paul Kael is in continuous reaction to the people's reaction to movies. So it seems to me that she just hates movies that are particularly praised by intellectuals, and she can find all the reasons for that, bad reasons, racist or politic reasons (Why people love russian movies? they are the enemy god damn it!), and sometimes she becomes an expert in something else (so she can decide that West Side story dancing was bad). Even the movies towards whom I share with her enthousiam, we don't do it for the same reasons, and her reasons don't teach me anything new about them.. She also seems very conservative, not in an idealogical point of view (although it's kinda true) but in cinema too. Her references are always related to the old american way. In the other hand, she shows tough resistance towards everything new : french new wave, Fellini, Auteur theory, etc.
One thing is sure, I'm done with Paul Kael.
One thing is sure, I'm done with Paul Kael.
October 20, 2008
Pauline Kael wrote masterful prose in the service of the flickering world we see on the screen. Not shy with her opinions, there's rarely a dull moment. Agree or disagree, but hear her out. It's worth it!
January 23, 2024
I don’t know how much Mrs. Kael and I see eye-to-eye in terms of our opinions, but I’ve yet to find her dull to read.
Her (pretty bang-on, though outrageously long-winded) takedown of Kracauer reminded me just how little I miss reading film theory.
Her (pretty bang-on, though outrageously long-winded) takedown of Kracauer reminded me just how little I miss reading film theory.
did-not-finish
September 28, 2023DNF around page 50. I’m calling it on this one. I just can’t seem to want to pick it back up. I’ve tried, but frankly I just don’t give a damn.
July 18, 2018
"She has everything that a great critic needs except judgment. And I don’t mean that facetiously." One of the great lines by Woody Allen on Kael.
And he is quite right. She knows a lot about the history and art of movies. Unfortunately, she suffers from the everything was better in the past syndrome. Which means up to the thirties. She writes this one, her first collection of criticism in the sixties. Birds? Bad. West Side Story? She hates it.
And she prefers foreign movies. But slashes Marienbad and Dolce Vita. Very nice.
A good case of feminism, by the way. The way she defends herself against critics, beautifully polemic.
And he is quite right. She knows a lot about the history and art of movies. Unfortunately, she suffers from the everything was better in the past syndrome. Which means up to the thirties. She writes this one, her first collection of criticism in the sixties. Birds? Bad. West Side Story? She hates it.
And she prefers foreign movies. But slashes Marienbad and Dolce Vita. Very nice.
A good case of feminism, by the way. The way she defends herself against critics, beautifully polemic.
December 19, 2007
Some movie notices by a little known scribe from Petaluma...
October 13, 2021
I cant wait to read more of her work.
May 2, 2025
Ageless like crocodiles
April 10, 2020
My favorite film critic of all time wrote some of the greatest and most perceptive critiques ever. Even when you disagreed, you learned an idea from Kael about the topic. ❤️
June 23, 2018
I have always been a great admirer of Kael's film criticism, even while most of the time I didn't agree with her. There is something about her writing that even while she dislikes a film and will bluntly just say that she dislikes movies that others consider good or even great, she enjoys the act of experiencing the picture and talking about them. I also love how she often will gauge the reactions of an audience around her, even mentioning comments by people made during the viewing. Gauging audience reaction is a big part (in my honest opinion) as to whether a picture is working or not. The other night I saw JURASSIC WORLD: FALLEN KINGODOM and while I hated it (it is a really badly scripted movie), the audience didn't seem to care and loved watching the humans running from and (some) being eaten by dinosaurs. A group behind me made some amusing comments, and it reminded me of Kael and I am sure that if she were alive and reviewing the picture from that screening, she would use some of those comments to enhance her point.
One thing though I did notice that I think hurt this second-time-round reading is the fact that Kael spends an awful amount of time quoting other critics and going out of her way to say how wrong and bad they are. That gets tiresome (and comes off as petty and elitist like "they don't know what they're talking about"). I had a connection on social media (who I have since blocked) who used to do that. Call out people whose reviews he hated and made the statement that he knew more than they did. He used to even call out people who liked the same movie he did stating they didn't like it correctly. What? (I dropped him when he ruthlessly made fun of his wife and her Christmas movie picks - she should seriously divorce this douche). I think that many of these writings picking apart other critics are transcripts of a radio show she hosted, but still they really make her seem unreasonable and overtly contrarian simply to be so. I'd rather just hear what she had to say then weigh it against the others instead of having her dissect their reviews then pick them apart.
Still though, reading Kael is engaging and inspires actual thought, and I look forward to re-reading my way through her collected writings.
I will add this though. In a piece that picks apart Andrew Sarris' austerest theory (specifically in his book AMERICAN CINEMA which is a must read for every serious cinemaphile) she goes after Peter Bogdanovich's obsession with the work of Hawks as possible misdirected appreciation of a male-dominated aesthetic. It made me think (and I re-watched RED RIVER and ONLY ANGELS HAVE WINGS because of it). And really, making people think about what they are viewing is what criticism is all about, going deeper than just "you should" or "shouldn't" see a picture.
One thing though I did notice that I think hurt this second-time-round reading is the fact that Kael spends an awful amount of time quoting other critics and going out of her way to say how wrong and bad they are. That gets tiresome (and comes off as petty and elitist like "they don't know what they're talking about"). I had a connection on social media (who I have since blocked) who used to do that. Call out people whose reviews he hated and made the statement that he knew more than they did. He used to even call out people who liked the same movie he did stating they didn't like it correctly. What? (I dropped him when he ruthlessly made fun of his wife and her Christmas movie picks - she should seriously divorce this douche). I think that many of these writings picking apart other critics are transcripts of a radio show she hosted, but still they really make her seem unreasonable and overtly contrarian simply to be so. I'd rather just hear what she had to say then weigh it against the others instead of having her dissect their reviews then pick them apart.
Still though, reading Kael is engaging and inspires actual thought, and I look forward to re-reading my way through her collected writings.
I will add this though. In a piece that picks apart Andrew Sarris' austerest theory (specifically in his book AMERICAN CINEMA which is a must read for every serious cinemaphile) she goes after Peter Bogdanovich's obsession with the work of Hawks as possible misdirected appreciation of a male-dominated aesthetic. It made me think (and I re-watched RED RIVER and ONLY ANGELS HAVE WINGS because of it). And really, making people think about what they are viewing is what criticism is all about, going deeper than just "you should" or "shouldn't" see a picture.
October 19, 2011
I Lost It At The Movies is the first book of criticism by iconic film critic Pauline Kael. It has lots of food for thought throughout, and has inspired me to see some classics. many of the films from this era were unfamiliar to me, but several of her essays are thought provoking as well and reflect the tenor of the times. The book is divided into four sections, and the first "Broadsides" had a couple of interesting essays-"The Glamour of Delinquency" (in which she discusses On The Waterfront, East of Eden, and The Blackboard Jungle among others) and an essay on the Paul Newman film Hud.The second section, "Retrospective Reviews: Movies Remembered With Pleasure" includes The Grand Illusion and Seven Samurai among others. The third and largest section is "Broadcasts and reviews 1961-1963." Some notable reviews in this section for me were about the French New Wave and Truffaunt (Shoot The Piano Player and Jules And Jim), Kon Ichikawa (Kagi and Fires On The Plain), Italian films (L'Avventura, LaNotte, 8 1/2, and La Dolce Vita), Kurosawa's Yojimbo, and Satyajit Ray's Devi. The last section is called "polemics" and the essays here look at the larger picture of film criticism and public opinion. Kael is known as one of the leading critics of the 20th century, so it's interesting to see what she thought of certain films and influenced a generation of critics and film makers like Roger Ebert, Paul Schrader, Quentin Tarantino, and Wes Anderson.
June 17, 2012
Of the great film critics, Kael has probably aged the worst. Otis Ferguson, James Agee and Andrew Sarris still retain much of their felicity. Kael, on the other hand, seems capricious, stubborn and willfully inconsistent. Her prose style is wonderful, and her writing has wonderful personality, but her judgments are unfair, and her pieces are instances of performance art. Criticism's is a second order genre. It is about something else. The ideal critic has to have a certain passivity, and a willingness to serve the work. All of Kael's writing is about Kael, never the movie. That is why they don't generally survive their moment.
This collection, though, brings together much of her best, early work and doesn't include the later more decadent period, which has all of her worst writing. The best pieces are the reviews; Kael is best expressing her immediate, spontaneous reaction to a movie. She is weakest the more remote she gets from this context. Lacking the emotional distance to be a theoretical thinker, her general statements on film theory seem without merit today. "Circles and Squares", her diatribe against auteur theory, feels like a performance piece, and an unfair one at that. "Morality Plays, Left and Right" has her attacking a leftist film and then a rightwing anti-Communist one, shows her at her worst, presenting old political bromides as wisdom for the ages.
This collection, though, brings together much of her best, early work and doesn't include the later more decadent period, which has all of her worst writing. The best pieces are the reviews; Kael is best expressing her immediate, spontaneous reaction to a movie. She is weakest the more remote she gets from this context. Lacking the emotional distance to be a theoretical thinker, her general statements on film theory seem without merit today. "Circles and Squares", her diatribe against auteur theory, feels like a performance piece, and an unfair one at that. "Morality Plays, Left and Right" has her attacking a leftist film and then a rightwing anti-Communist one, shows her at her worst, presenting old political bromides as wisdom for the ages.
July 31, 2009
the late, great Pauline Kael. This is a collection of her early, pre-New Yorker, writings about film. I have always been a Pauline Kael fan. I love the way she writes about movies -- even when I don't agree with her, or have no idea what she's talking about, it makes me excited about film and I find myself wanting to watch Last Year at Marienbad again (which normally is the kind of idea that should make you say OH FOR HEAVEN'S SAKE, NO.) just to see particular things she is talking about. All of that said, in many ways the woman was a raving lunatic, and that also comes through. I'm torn over whether or not to include some specific examples of her kookiness, mostly involving homosexuality but some real gems on race as well, because I worry that the fun of pointing and laughing at the crazy lady (and to be fair, some of it no doubt seemed less demented in the late 1950s/early 1960s) would overshadow her truly perceptive exploration of the movies and American culture.
Grade: A-
Recommended: For the film geekery set, although I will note that despite her protestations, her focus is on movies that we would now categorize as artsy or academic films with some notable exceptions. This is probably not a bad choice if you feel nostalgic about your Intro to Film History classes in college.
2008/23
Grade: A-
Recommended: For the film geekery set, although I will note that despite her protestations, her focus is on movies that we would now categorize as artsy or academic films with some notable exceptions. This is probably not a bad choice if you feel nostalgic about your Intro to Film History classes in college.
2008/23
September 21, 2009
This has been fun. Since it's a collection of reviews and essays, I can pick it up and read part and put it down later, which makes it perfect for reading in-between all the books I have to read for class. She's a really great writer, so it's enjoyable even when I don't agree with her. She is fantastically bitchy when she doesn't like a movie, and doesn't hold back (she's also pretty snarky about other critics' opinions, and doesn't hesitate to call them stupid if she thinks they are), so that's fun, too. She goes after a lot of sacred cows (La Dolce Vita, for example, or West Side Story, Hiroshima Mon Amour or Last Year at Marienbad). Of course, part of this is as much because she was writing when these movies were coming out and not so firmly established as great art, but as someone who wasn't even born until after those movies were thoroughly canonized, it's nice to just even actually see a negative, questioning opinion of them. (She's still pretty fun when she actually likes a movie, too.)
The only problem is, of course, that I usually end up wanting to watch or rewatch several movies each time I pick it up.
(I also seem to be learning way more from it than my actual film studies textbook/class, but I suppose it is early in the semester.)
The only problem is, of course, that I usually end up wanting to watch or rewatch several movies each time I pick it up.
(I also seem to be learning way more from it than my actual film studies textbook/class, but I suppose it is early in the semester.)
September 26, 2023
Despite having some extremely different views to Pauline Kael (mainly in her disillusionment with auteur theory, her outright rejection of many arthouse/experimental films that lean towards surrealism and certainly politically), it amazes me that I still consider her one of the greatest critics of all time. She challenges my whole perception of a masterpiece. There are works that I would consider flawless that she will find flaws in and the oddest thing is I don't necessarily disagree with the point she makes.
Her arguments are so good that not only do they make me respect her more, I also end up respecting the film more too. It somehow increases the films power that one could find and explore these particular readings that are so articulated and far from cheap. As though they have that ability to stir heavily on opposite ends. Their achievement lying in that they do have these problems and somehow that doesn't take away from their impact. It doesn't stop them being great, as with some people you come across in life knowing their flaws and struggles that had to be overcome, it only makes them greater.
Generally, she's pretty damn good and seems well read bringing in all kinds of influences and models to examine a movie. Her contributions to criticism in terms of form are still some of the best. For someone so well read though her complete misunderstanding of surrealist and abstract movies is pretty embarrassing. To some extent it goes back to her political leanings in that she can't see the usefulness in these movies and how they deconstruct so called normal life. The fact she has such an equal love for the rich and poor is just disgusting to me. Repeatedly makes her sound silly. Sometimes she does find ways out of this though. She'll comment on British social dramas and say how the genre has come predictable lessening the impact of the message and critics just warm to them because they share the same beliefs or want the social validation of supporting such causes. All of this I can get behind.
She completely refuses to accept auteur theory because she understands it on the most primitive level of all it can be. She disapproves of it too quickly because on the basic level she doesn't believe the director is the sole author and that it is a collaborative effort. I fell in love with that stuff years ago and it's only continued to challenged me over the years as to what it is and what it means. It branches out so much more than authorship into the workings of the studio system, classification, distribution, subversion and the very definition of artistry over time. Sure, it has its flaws in that it can allow weakening directors to be protected at festivals but who cares, it's not like Hollywood is supportive with their whole only as good as your last hit business. Kael should have been smart enough to realise its a tool and with all tools in criticism it's about what you can unlock with that (she even acknowledges this saying that there is no grand theory, you have to approach each case individually, so can she reject the theory entirely?!). How far can you go with it until it is limited. Given the choice between her empty reviews of Fellini movies and a critic who's dived in to it head first and gathered all this useful information using auteur theory I know who I'd pick. As a critic, you should be selecting your weapons adequate for that battle. This is a game of how much we can unlock. Hers does nothing for the greats like Fellini and it's reflected in her weak reviews of his films.
Although the language she can use maybe outdated (could consider some racist and homophobic but she did write in the 50s so can be cut some slack), so much of her pieces have a timeless quality to them. Even at the time she was trying to link the films to their political audiences that would support them or despise them. Way beyond that commercial rubbish people call criticism that I can't fucking stand. It only goes to show how little the form has developed that whilst I don't always agree with her points, the way she's engaging with the movies is still respectable. If anything, they have become increasingly relevant. She is like myself a lover of the anti hero and understands cinema and criticism as a site of misdirection, tomfoolery and ambiguous jokes. These are aspects sadly disappearing from the game, mainly due to cancel culture. Transparency is the preferred method of communication these days and I utterly despise that. Nothing will ever beat her playful fueding with Clint Eastwood. She has my respect eternally for that. Criticising his limited facial expressions, fascist films and still appreciating his "spaghetti sexiness".
We need more beefs and we need them to be sexually fuelled like a school boy crush. Their entire career long battle summarises my love for Kael. She's the wicked witch of the west but she's the most admirable foe you'll ever have. Someone that can recognise that which is wrong and still laugh about their attraction to it in line with the human experience. A quality rapidly disappearing from our culture with all this unhealthy false self perfectionism and fear of opinions that detach from ones aligned pier groups. I've mentioned disagreeing with her probably more than I agree but there are times she's called out a classic that I have agreed is utter shite like Shoah and It's A Wonderful Life and there have been times shes defended that which I have loved that originally took a bashing from critics like Last Tango in Paris, Sam Peckinpah movies, Brian DePalma movies and she even gave Paul Schrader some advice in his early days. Whenever this happens I get so overjoyed. She's the type who you can disagree over and over but somehow come to respect more than those you agree with. Pauline Kael is literally the enemy who was actually a friend all along. We should not forget this, no matter how much she destroys our favourite films. Or maybe she's just a half decent critic who didn't live up to her potential.
Her arguments are so good that not only do they make me respect her more, I also end up respecting the film more too. It somehow increases the films power that one could find and explore these particular readings that are so articulated and far from cheap. As though they have that ability to stir heavily on opposite ends. Their achievement lying in that they do have these problems and somehow that doesn't take away from their impact. It doesn't stop them being great, as with some people you come across in life knowing their flaws and struggles that had to be overcome, it only makes them greater.
Generally, she's pretty damn good and seems well read bringing in all kinds of influences and models to examine a movie. Her contributions to criticism in terms of form are still some of the best. For someone so well read though her complete misunderstanding of surrealist and abstract movies is pretty embarrassing. To some extent it goes back to her political leanings in that she can't see the usefulness in these movies and how they deconstruct so called normal life. The fact she has such an equal love for the rich and poor is just disgusting to me. Repeatedly makes her sound silly. Sometimes she does find ways out of this though. She'll comment on British social dramas and say how the genre has come predictable lessening the impact of the message and critics just warm to them because they share the same beliefs or want the social validation of supporting such causes. All of this I can get behind.
She completely refuses to accept auteur theory because she understands it on the most primitive level of all it can be. She disapproves of it too quickly because on the basic level she doesn't believe the director is the sole author and that it is a collaborative effort. I fell in love with that stuff years ago and it's only continued to challenged me over the years as to what it is and what it means. It branches out so much more than authorship into the workings of the studio system, classification, distribution, subversion and the very definition of artistry over time. Sure, it has its flaws in that it can allow weakening directors to be protected at festivals but who cares, it's not like Hollywood is supportive with their whole only as good as your last hit business. Kael should have been smart enough to realise its a tool and with all tools in criticism it's about what you can unlock with that (she even acknowledges this saying that there is no grand theory, you have to approach each case individually, so can she reject the theory entirely?!). How far can you go with it until it is limited. Given the choice between her empty reviews of Fellini movies and a critic who's dived in to it head first and gathered all this useful information using auteur theory I know who I'd pick. As a critic, you should be selecting your weapons adequate for that battle. This is a game of how much we can unlock. Hers does nothing for the greats like Fellini and it's reflected in her weak reviews of his films.
Although the language she can use maybe outdated (could consider some racist and homophobic but she did write in the 50s so can be cut some slack), so much of her pieces have a timeless quality to them. Even at the time she was trying to link the films to their political audiences that would support them or despise them. Way beyond that commercial rubbish people call criticism that I can't fucking stand. It only goes to show how little the form has developed that whilst I don't always agree with her points, the way she's engaging with the movies is still respectable. If anything, they have become increasingly relevant. She is like myself a lover of the anti hero and understands cinema and criticism as a site of misdirection, tomfoolery and ambiguous jokes. These are aspects sadly disappearing from the game, mainly due to cancel culture. Transparency is the preferred method of communication these days and I utterly despise that. Nothing will ever beat her playful fueding with Clint Eastwood. She has my respect eternally for that. Criticising his limited facial expressions, fascist films and still appreciating his "spaghetti sexiness".
We need more beefs and we need them to be sexually fuelled like a school boy crush. Their entire career long battle summarises my love for Kael. She's the wicked witch of the west but she's the most admirable foe you'll ever have. Someone that can recognise that which is wrong and still laugh about their attraction to it in line with the human experience. A quality rapidly disappearing from our culture with all this unhealthy false self perfectionism and fear of opinions that detach from ones aligned pier groups. I've mentioned disagreeing with her probably more than I agree but there are times she's called out a classic that I have agreed is utter shite like Shoah and It's A Wonderful Life and there have been times shes defended that which I have loved that originally took a bashing from critics like Last Tango in Paris, Sam Peckinpah movies, Brian DePalma movies and she even gave Paul Schrader some advice in his early days. Whenever this happens I get so overjoyed. She's the type who you can disagree over and over but somehow come to respect more than those you agree with. Pauline Kael is literally the enemy who was actually a friend all along. We should not forget this, no matter how much she destroys our favourite films. Or maybe she's just a half decent critic who didn't live up to her potential.
February 7, 2021
Pauline Kael's reviews were a revelation; here was someone who could write insightfully, bring in current and past events, make connections, write a thesis (my downfall) and present it persuasively. When I ask friends why they like or don't like a book or movie, I really want to know if their ideas and connections I'm missing, how the elements of a movie cohere to convey the story or ideas. Kael taught me to better appreciate a film, provided perspective, delved into themes and ideas, and her writing was as smooth as butter.
August 5, 2013
Ms. Kael was a fine writer. Her reviews and opinions are wry, engaging and clear evidence of an educated mind at work. There is no doubt she loved the cinema down to her very bones. Had I seen a few of the more important art house films focused on in this volume prior to reading her criticisms, I might have taken more away from her perspective. Still, they were worth reading for the philosophical content alone.
November 5, 2021
Even though I found Ms Kael to be very intelligent I found her to also be quit cruel in some of her reviews. I know that film critics are allowed to be cynical, snippy, and/or egotistic but in some of her reviews she seemed to go a little beyond that! The whole book was just too bitter for me.
July 26, 2010
Some good stuff, but I'm afraid I found my attention wandering at times. A bit heavy for me.
November 18, 2014
Kael really is something else. So many have tried to imitate her but no one had the same elegance and bite. I don't always agree with her, but even when I don't she's a joy to read.
April 30, 2021
I've been reading these reviews while ticking off movies from the era, hoping to get a sense of what it was like to see these films as they came out. But Pauline Kael is fascinating in her own right: she is simultaneously the most intelligent and puzzling critic I've ever come across. Her reviews feel like they fall into two categories, which in my mind have to be written by two different Pauline Kaels.
The first Kael -- Light Kael -- writes these incredibly nuanced, incredibly humane essays that do what criticism is supposed to do: they show you something about a work of art you could not see yourself. For instance, she's able to take an art house film that I didn't fully understand (e.g. Jules and Jim) and show me exactly what made it worthwhile; or take a movie that I had reservations about (e.g. 8 1/2) and put words to what I couldn't, pinpointing precisely why the movie rings hollow. She just cares about art so much, and that shines in every sentence Light Kael writes.
But then there's Dark Kael. Every once in a while, and truly out of nowhere, you get these spiteful attacks on films that are baffling to read. Usually, she frames them saying that so-and-so told her she just *had* to like this movie, and, well, that person is a boob (a favorite term of hers) and here's why the movie is Actually Trash; however, her reasons for thinking so are either nonsensical or outright dishonest. A common move of hers goes like this: She'll take a film, say Hiroshima Mon Amour, and say it's about a certain theme, in this case sexual deprivation, and then spend pages upon pages saying how ineffectively it treats the theme of sexual deprivation. The only problem is, Hiroshima Mon Amour is not at all about sexual deprivation, like, not even a little bit! So of course it treats the theme poorly. These are high school debate pervert tactics and I have no patience for them. Another move is to say something sassy yet ultimately meaningless, e.g. "The dancing in West Side Story is so busy trying to be great that it's not even good." Like, ?????? Dark Kael reviews run, on average, about twice as long as reviews from Light Kael, and they say infinitely less.
What's remarkable about reading the collection then is that these are somehow the same person. Opening up the book to a new review, I never know which Kael I'm going to get. And this has me obsessed. She's such an overwhelmingly human being.
The first Kael -- Light Kael -- writes these incredibly nuanced, incredibly humane essays that do what criticism is supposed to do: they show you something about a work of art you could not see yourself. For instance, she's able to take an art house film that I didn't fully understand (e.g. Jules and Jim) and show me exactly what made it worthwhile; or take a movie that I had reservations about (e.g. 8 1/2) and put words to what I couldn't, pinpointing precisely why the movie rings hollow. She just cares about art so much, and that shines in every sentence Light Kael writes.
But then there's Dark Kael. Every once in a while, and truly out of nowhere, you get these spiteful attacks on films that are baffling to read. Usually, she frames them saying that so-and-so told her she just *had* to like this movie, and, well, that person is a boob (a favorite term of hers) and here's why the movie is Actually Trash; however, her reasons for thinking so are either nonsensical or outright dishonest. A common move of hers goes like this: She'll take a film, say Hiroshima Mon Amour, and say it's about a certain theme, in this case sexual deprivation, and then spend pages upon pages saying how ineffectively it treats the theme of sexual deprivation. The only problem is, Hiroshima Mon Amour is not at all about sexual deprivation, like, not even a little bit! So of course it treats the theme poorly. These are high school debate pervert tactics and I have no patience for them. Another move is to say something sassy yet ultimately meaningless, e.g. "The dancing in West Side Story is so busy trying to be great that it's not even good." Like, ?????? Dark Kael reviews run, on average, about twice as long as reviews from Light Kael, and they say infinitely less.
What's remarkable about reading the collection then is that these are somehow the same person. Opening up the book to a new review, I never know which Kael I'm going to get. And this has me obsessed. She's such an overwhelmingly human being.
January 15, 2024
Pauline Kael is a pleasure to read. I saw a few reviews that took her to task, didn’t think she held up as a reviewer or that she was too attached to her identity - as they see it, an outsider who only likes obscure and arty films. I don’t really know what to say about that. I think what some people dislike about her is the very thing I love about her writing - it’s honest and opinionated with a nice dose of personal anecdote and thought. I generally find critics so boring and full of it, Kael is comparatively fun to read. I mean, these are still dated criticisms of film - a boring proposition of reading. So not for everyone. And I am not a cinema buff. I read it because I’d heard her writing was worth it. And it did not disappoint. In trying to explain how I liked it, I will just say this. When people ask you that silly hypothetical question of who you’d like to hang out with (you know, in the famous or dead realm) in a day dreamy way, I usually am like, nobody. I love David Bowie, but spending an afternoon with him would be weird and all about being star struck. But after reading this, I’m like, Pauline Kael. Her writing is not some bland “high minded” criticism in god’s voice. It’s human and for me, just makes me want to get a cup of coffee and hang out with her. I imagine the conversation would be some of the most rewarding you can find.
June 13, 2021
When I was reading Pauline Kael in the New Yorker, or reading her capsule reviews of older movies, I thought I liked her. But after reading an entire book of her early pieces, I'm not so sure. She has a gruff and combative tone, constantly harping against other critics, that is off-putting. She also seems to have no consistent critical standards; she loves L'Avventura and hates Last Year at Marienbad and I can't quite figure out why--though I like her point about being bored watching filmmakers target the immorality of the decadent rich; why not target the immorality of the hoi polloi? (Perhaps because the common folk that make movies hits don't want to see themselves railed against?) The fact that she hates West Side Story was the clincher here for me--she says the dance numbers are actually bad, something I can't imagine anyone saying, even someone who may not like the movie as a whole. I read most of this while I was laid up after a hip replacement, so maybe it was the intensity of reading what were meant to be separate articles as large chunks of prose that turned me against her.
January 5, 2022
As someone who's written a lot of criticism but sometimes wonders what the point of it all is, Kael's description of the purpose of the critic in her takedown of auteur theory -- that critics are meant to "help people see what is in a work, what is in it that shouldn't be, and what is not in it that could be" and that this if done well this can "excite people so that they want to experience more of the art that is there" -- really struck me, especially in an era where the role of critics has been questioned by both filmmakers and fans alike. Her take down of Salt of the Earth also felt quiet prescient and relevant, a historical version of the insufferable Don't Look Up debate that's been going on. You kind of get her ticks after reading a few of her shorter reviews, but anyone interested in film or criticism should at least give this a shot.
January 23, 2025
A high but delicate three stars. Kael evolved into one of the pivotal film critics of the second half of the 20th century, and the seeds are here already but I think this, her first collected volume, is in some ways less essential than what comes after. It's astonishing how many films listed here are still important but inevitably some are less so. Kael's core traits - a desire to be contrary and a resistance to films that seek to be art-for-art's-sake - both shine through here, but not always in ways that are pleasing to me. I love disagreeing with Kael as much as I love agreeing with her, and she offers eternal riches to the film student. But more casual lovers of film may find her later volumes more relevant and varied.
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