“You don't have to lay an egg to know if it tastes good,” Pauline Kael on the infimious question of, “well if you know so much about movies why don’t you make one.” Kael knows movies and was a consult to Paramount Pictures. With undisputable commitment to her passion, Kael’s insite, knowledge, and opinion make her the most highly esteemed critique ever; her taste in film leads to a bitter feeling with those she pans.
Her distinguishment between in vivo and in vitro shooting, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid being the prime exaple, is a feat no other notices. Kael, defiantely a nitpicky critic, rips throught a scene with a candle, she states,“someone should have taken a lighted wick to [the scenartist’s] ideas.” Insiteful, without a doubt, in Top Gun Kael rants on longwindedly about the differential height between the leading couple, Tom Cruise and Kelly McGillis. And if there is any one thing that Pauline Kael is, it is passionate! Her passion forefronts her work in the twenty-three years in criticism at The New Yorker, her twelve books, and the influence she has on the movie industry. Why some lose confidence in her criticism leads to opinion, some movies are just enjoyed by a different crowd.
A college girl states to her boyfriend, “Well I don't see what was so special about that one [Shoeshinie].” Kael’s attitude towards the movie was simply close minded, “For if people cannot feel Shoeshine, what can they feel?” Kael in a quarrel with a lover viewed the movie in a different mindset. Kael’s taste focuses primarily on three ideals: physical violence depicted in detail, sex and eroticism, and horror. Her narrow set of guidelines has a far-reaching potential for many movies, exemplified in only a few, those of which she raves.
Kael’s reviews frequently give little background on the movie, switching abruptly to a deeper topic. The greater insight she hands out in her movie critiques is irrelevant to the reader. Trying to fill a word quota, Kael writes of, “cheap and easy congratulations on their liberalism,” during her review of Hiroshima Mon Amour. She continues her promiscuity in review with Top Gun calling it a “self-referential commercial.” Maybe her over-aged crowd has the twenty-minutes to spare, most don’t, get to the point! Kael’s aging opinion is further noticed in her dislike for the Sopranao, Seinfield, and actor such as Chris Farley and Adam Sandler. Her pan of It’s a Wonderful Life just does not line up. This sensational film is idealized by so many, as a masterpiece. So it falls, Kael’s taste just does not match-up to some.
Impressed by her work, she undisputedly knows what she is doing. Her critique of Perer Pan in Afterglow sheds light onto something greatly overlooked and made easily identifiable after she states it. Chaplin’s movie Peter Pan was mean-spirited. It is this type of criticism that catapults Pauline Kael to the position she holds. Art being a media that represents everything to one yet nothing to another is what makes film critique so problematical. In the face of this complicatedness, Kael is revered, rightfully so, as the greatest film critiques of her time.
1 comment:
Hi Gary.
Good job. Your opinion is well-formulated, but I disagree that Kael's insight is "irrelevant" to her audience. Conversely, it makes her reviews more interesting! Contextualizing a film adds appeal, and I think this represents how fearless she is in her writing. Great response overall!
-Emily
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