Talk to us Pauline!

Pauline Kael certainly had a lot to say. And it was not simply about film as a traditional art form—commentary on the mechanics of direction, acting, production, point of view—these elements are not why Kael is considered one of the most notable film critics ever. Criticism, constructive or destructive, is an addition to an ongoing conversation about something’s quality. Oscar Wilde said “without the critical faculty, there is no artistic creation at all, worthy of the name,” and that sort of self-importance certainly exists in Kael’s work. Reading Kael, there is a sense that the criticism of film was often her criticism of common culture—an exploration of the deeper intellectual and emotional journey one could experience. Something unique about Kael was that his ride was not always obvious but almost always, indirectly, about her personal relationship with the film and everything that she felt it was connected with outside the theater.

In “Canaries in the Mineshaft,” Reneta Adler comments that films are unique in that there is an assumption that everyone goes to the movies, or should for cultural literacy. Films are seen as a reflection of an overall state, a common culture, and thus can be critiqued in relation to the big ideas, an overarching authority. Adler is deeply critical of Kael and literally picks apart her voice, word choice, sentence structure, and overall positive reputation. After quoting a few Kael reviews that make some severe accusations about the character or nature of the films she’s reviewing, Adler remarks that “each marks a kind of breakthrough in vulgarity and unfairness” (343). Adler objects to being superfluously critical, absolutist, dramatic, and overly and personally presumptuous, for the sake of having a noticeable opinion.

Its true Kael was unique; her unfocused content and unfixed point of view identified her as an outlier, extending an idea that film could touch the world around us, could be identified as worthwhile by our own critical eye, not just at the movies but in life. Her passion for films seems to be equal to her passion and general enjoyment of directing others though her own thought process.

This smattering self-absorption is alluring.

There is no doubt of some feelings of reader self-indulgence in reading Kael’s reviews. She storms into your conscience and demands some substance, a sense of higher mindedness, an appropriately decisive and serious attitude about the implications of any given film, and a feeling that subjectivity and individual voice is vital and valid in its self-importance. Kael wants to criticize her, our world, her frustrations, our frustrations, using film as a medium (sometimes for better, sometimes for much much worse) and in our heart of hearts we want to her to too. Like watching a Steven Spielberg film, it’s easy to jump on the melodramatic ride. Her overstatements make it easy to join in the fun, and as right as Adler is about much of her flashy (sometimes meaningless) prose her value as entertainer is irrefutable.

Readers experience her as she experiences the film; she is part of the show and its endearing. Kael doesn’t demand others to encounter films as energetically and indulgently as she does, but she certainly convinces us to try.