This is awesome. I love how much she disavows having to be an intellectual or the need academically rewatch movies over and over to truly appreciate them. Thanks for this.
"...And somebody in a society has to make these judgements, or else people will simply go where the advertising money is." Pretty perfect definition of the post-critic, post-intellectual ad-world we live in today. There is still quality, of course, but it usually takes a backseat to the success of the advertising.
Jim Gisriel, Your post here is the best one on Pauline Kael on TH-cam. I like how you have excerpts of her video interviews as well as audio of her talking, combined with select images from movies that are well edited, concise, and have a good flow.
I think what she constantly strived for and valued most in movie criticism was direct unfiltered emotional honesty, which is something that academic study of the arts often tries to quash as silly, unsophisticated and naive. When she got caught up in idle-clever contrarian guessing games about how or why certain movies were made, she typically got into trouble (for example, her factually errant comments about the circumstances surrounding the production of "Gimme Shelter", "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid", and most notoriously, "Citizen Kane"). She was best when she just stuck to what was actually on the screen and didn't indulge in hubristic speculation about what might have happened offscreen or behind the scenes or what the director's hidden agenda was.
I love that she loved Peckinpah and the Wild Bunch, Bertolucci and the Conformist and Last Tango in Paris, Coppola and the first two Godfathers, De Palma and Blow Out, the Long Goodbye by Altman, Point Blank by Boorman, among others but she was wrong on Fellini 8 1/2 and Raging Bull by Scorsese, among various others. Still, she was a fine instinctive critic and her writing has a verve I very much enjoy everytime I read her.
I agree with her on 8 1/2. Any kid that has picked a camcorder/iPhone and started making films has usually also made a "I don't know what to make a movie about so I'll make a movie about writer's block." It's self indulgent but if you're lucky you do it young and never do it again and no one outside of film school ever sees it. Usually these are short films with pretty engaging daydream sequences. 8 1/2 is over two hours long and features a director (a stand-in for Fellini) whining about creative block and how hard it is to be a well-to-do director with a wife and a mistress. I just don't think its as deep as he thinks it is or other people seem to think it is.
I believe it was sometime in October during 2004. I was 9 and my brother's 11th birthday was coming up. He was busy doing something, for the life of me I just can't remember what. So I ended up watching tv alone. Unfortunately nothing on except infomercials and old reruns. I looked at the tvs guide to see what else I could watch. There was going to be movie on that I like 45 minutes. Can't remember the name of that movie or the genre all I know is that it was one I had seen many times. Decided to kill time by flipping channels. After that got boring I decided to watch something else until the movie started. I decided on stopping on a channel I now know as AMC. I picked it since it didn't require me flipping so much to get to the channel where the movie was on. This of course was before I learned of the back and or return button on the remote. It was in commercial and I clicked guide to see what was gonna be on next. The Blues Brothers 1980 it said. This was a movie I had never seen or heard of and it came out from a decade that seemed really old to me. Normally cuz of these factors I would have no interest in it I would pronably change the channel. Yet for some reason something about the title just caught my interest. Don't know why but it just drew me in. I decided to stick around and see it. After all the other movie still had 5 minutes before it started. So the movie began and for the first time in my life I became entranced by what I saw. Every little thing about just seemed to make excited to see where it would go. It was already past 5 minutes and the other movie had already started yet I kept watching. Then it went to commercial I switched it to the other movie thinking I'd just stick with the one I'd seen instead. Still after 4 minutes I switched it back to see if it came back from commercials. It did. For the next 30 minutes I kept doing the same ritual until I just stopped switching to the other movie all together. I watched this old unknown movie that I had never heard of for 3 hours straight. 3 hours do to commercials just want to make that clear. This was my longest sit for a movie ever at that point. I was engrossed. At the climax I remember I told myself that I want to be involved in movies. Didn't matter what I did be it small or big job on set I wanted to work in movies. I wanted to watch more movies what else could be out there? Most of all though I wanted to make at least one movie that would bring this same excitement for seeing something new. I have yet to achieve that dream but hope it happens. Who knows right? Still I won't forget the day that dream began and I'll always treasure the movie that did it. The Blues Brothers 1980 special then......special now.......and always will be. Bit long and kinda like the old rant comments I use to do but I thought it'd connect well with the topic of this Deep Focus episode. I mean I hope it might just be a huge error in judgement on my part. Well if you end up liking it maybe I'll tell the story of how I got into Asian movies and the movie that cemented my love for Hong Kong Cinema above the rest. I guess we'll see how it goes. Until though theres still Juwanna Mann to get to so why not check it out? Couldn't hurt right? Right? Just watch it already. That's all for me folks see ya. Bye.
For any Pauline Kael fan, or any movie fan, I recommend Rob Garver's documentary What She Said, finally playing in limited release, mostly at film festivals in major cities. I hope it continues to get a bigger distribution, as a result of these festival showings, evidenced by the capacity audience where I saw it this August at a film festival held at the Castro Theater in San Francisco.
@@jimgisriel I look forward to your review of that. It was quite an experience seeing it in a packed movie theater, but I hope it becomes available on DVD, or maybe scheduled for Netfflix, since I know it will have a limited distribution. I hope to find and replace a recording I have on a deteriorating cassette from her sold out appearance at The Herbst Theater, San Francisco in '87, which she gave me written permission to obtain. A great interview by KQED's Sedge Thomson, followed by an entertaining Q & A with audience, at her sharp and funny best.
Too. Many. Words. I liked reading Karl's reviews because without fail in the New Yorker, she forced you to consider her opinion. Which was often contrary to what your own impression of the movie. But her strident voice in these clips. Always strident, hammering on.
I just discovered this gem of a critic. Been binging movies since quarantine and came across a lot of “popular classics”...most of which I thought as complete garbage. Happy to hear of a real critic who goes against the norm and wasn’t paid off like all these shill critics today.
TheDandyGuy I unfortunately did not get to talk to her this is a collection of experts from interviews I found where she talked about criticism. She died in 2001 but I'm glad you dug it
(My mom's name is Pauline too, weird...) Not to crap on Pauline's legacy or anything, but I never understood the part where she talks about only seeing a movie once. If I really love a movie, I will want to see it again almost immediately. Rewatching movies, I get to experience it again while knowing what will happen and can start analyzing the background of shots and stuff like that. I mean, I don't think I've loved a movie quite as much as Race has loved Zootopia, but not rewatching a movie, even just for enjoyment just seems odd to me.
She saw movies more then once she's more talking about people who'd see a movie that they didn't love and keep seeing it to get why it was such a big deal. but i think most movies we actually watch only once. but i personally i watch alot of stuff every year over and over again. I put that in the video cause it was one of the bigger things about her but if you do enjoy a movie she would agree see it again. also i should add all the comments she made about this were before home video so it's more about seeing it in theater more then once.
I understand her defending her craft as it relates to giving a critique after one viewing but I think more understanding can be gained on second watch of some movies.
Pauline Kael light be dead for almost 18 years, but if she would still be alive today, I bet the MARVEL and Star Wars movies would have given her a cardiac arrest
She HATED movies that she felt was basically boys playing with their childhood toys like Star Wars and indiana jones etc. Superhero-movies is all about that.
Kael praised Burton's first Batman film and the second Superman film, but it's hard to predict how she'd react to later efforts. I have no doubt that she'd be disappointed by how constricted mainstream movie-making has become. She wrote several pieces analyzing the rotten state of the film industry in the 80s, which has only gotten worse in late decades.
She probably would've praised Batman Begins and the first couple of Raimi Spiderman flicks as serviceable comfort food, expressed gratitude that the Iron Man flicks provided RDJ with a career resuscitation even though she found the movies mediocre, and lavished high praise on the first GOTG. Otherwise, I think she would've grown weary of them a long time ago
How did you edit this? Like did you go for a particular flow to get some point across? Because with that much material it seems very hard to place them in order? Just curious. Amazing video.
First off Thank you. I did alot of research. Kael is important to me and i wanted to make something really great about her. I mainly left it to when she talked about criticism. i tried to make it sound like her talking. Which she isn't known for. So I also tried to mimic her writing a bit. But really it just took alot of research and figuring out to get it right.
Marc Evan, I enjoyed reading your more recent and well written defense of Kael's writing in the comments here. I've been a major fan since around 1980 when I first met her at a book signing and went to see her again at City Arts and Lectures in San Francisco in '87. She answered my first letter, granting me permission to obtain a copy of that interview. And a second time in '91, after her retirement If you haven't already seen it, I highly recommend Rob Garver's documentary What She Said, now available on DVD with some extras. It's great for her fans as well as anyone remotely interested in movies who haven't read her yet. Complete with home movies, interviews, appearances and voice-overs by directors like QuentinTarantino, Paul Schrader, Ridley Scott, David Lean, Jerry Lewis (on Dick Cavett) and other writers, actors and associates. Made with love by Rob Garver but including a few of her detractors for an honest, balanced and entertaining movie.
@@boborrahood Hey...very much appreciate the comment. I first discovered Pauline Kael at15 when I picked up "Reeling" in a neighborhood bookstore. I literally couldn't stop reading and rereading it-and that was before I had actually seen almost all the films she reviewed in that book. I had been fervently interested in movies at a very young age and she opened up a whole way of seeing to me. There really isn't another critic who is even in the same ballpark-and I think I've read them all. I hate to be a spoilsport but I didn't think that documentary was well done. It had worthwhile moments but it seemed carelessly thrown together. The best thing about it was that it included clips of Kael herself. I wish there were more of that. The one I really loved was her ardent defense of Robert Altman's "McCabe and Mrs. Miller, " one of the most beautiful and original movies ever made in this country. I got a kick out of her ripping on Rona Barrett and Rex Reed for their moral hypocrisy. But, again, I was baffled by a lot of the director's choices. Why were the film clips interposed so arbitrarily and clumsily? It struck me as a documentary made in a frantic state of desperation. One thing I will say: I find it amusing (and fairly infuriating) that someone as confused and unfocused as Camille Paglia fancies herself a writer in the Kael tradition. Armond White is another one who suffers from this delusion. I know Kael was supportive of their very early writing but there's no way she would have liked what they turned into. They've both become rancid self-parodies. I'd be curious to hear your thoughts on this.
@@marcevan1141 I don't think Pauline Kael would have been as supportive about the later writing of Armond White or Camile Paglia. She has been less enthusiastic about the later efforts of such writers as Virginia Woolfe and Norman Mailer. I agree that What She Said also left me wanting more, but I'm grateful that some filmmaker finally made a documentary on her. No other critic could get me into a movie as vividly through their writing and make me laugh out loud from their perceptions; a very rare talent. A good example might be that forgotten Arthur Penn movie Four Friends. Her review is more entertaining than the movie. I liked being able to see her on Dick Cavett, plus the home movies of her at home in Berkeley. I have a friend I want to watch this with, who's not that interested, in addition to being a fan of Blade Runner. The only good thing she could say of that was "...a visionary sci-fi movie that has it's own look can't be ignored - it has it's own place in movie history." I hope to replace a worn cassette from '87 of her at City Arts and Lectures, through KQED, in San Francisco, interviewed by Sedge Thompson, plus a question and answer session with the audience. Unfortunately, the owner pulled that audio from online, but I just found that it's available for listening at Bancroft Library at UC Berkeley. It will likely be more difficult to get a copy of that now, than when I first wrote her for permission to obtain a copy of that from KQED when she was at her spontaneous, funny best, both in interview and with the audience..
@@jimgisriel Not deeply enough. The game would be given away if she discussed how deeply passive-making cinema is as a medium; how the phenomenon of movies integrally breeds an attitude of compliance. So no film critics go there, so as to keep their gig. Elsewhere, Kael talks about her unsuccess with book reviewing, attributing her ability to stir writerly excitement to film. This translates into: her incapacity to Respond to literature, thus bringing her to Reaction only - to a fully reactive form: cinema. Her accomplishment was to gain a readership via the mantra 'look at how smart PK is; maybe I'm that smart, too'. Kael was good for the movie industry. She expanded cinephilia by way of setting up identification with herself, a kind of second-rate public intellectual, actually serving the PR machine.
She was an extremely opinionated critic to the point of Offensive. Yes: her critiques are very well argued and she undoubtedly knew a whole lot about the filmic process. And yes, I do vehemently disagree with some of her 'attacks'. She dragged a bunch of 'Freudian' talk with her and I can't distinguish that from sheer laziness (of course NOT) or else her Judaism. Still, she had as many admirers as opponents and that is no doubt how you know you're on a good thing.
This is awesome. I love how much she disavows having to be an intellectual or the need academically rewatch movies over and over to truly appreciate them. Thanks for this.
"...And somebody in a society has to make these judgements, or else people will simply go where the advertising money is." Pretty perfect definition of the post-critic, post-intellectual ad-world we live in today. There is still quality, of course, but it usually takes a backseat to the success of the advertising.
Amazing insight on movies and movie critics. Kael's interviews should be required listening. I feel enlightened. Thanks for sharing Jim.
Wonderful to see this video again after a couple years. I'm glad to see others are discovering Kael's impact as a writer on movies, culture.
Nice compilation, well put together
Oh cool thank you
Jim Gisriel, Your post here is the best one on Pauline Kael on TH-cam. I like how you have excerpts of her video interviews as well as audio of her talking, combined with select images from movies that are well edited, concise, and have a good flow.
+Bob Orrahood also thank you I really wanted this to honor how good of a critic she was
I think what she constantly strived for and valued most in movie criticism was direct unfiltered emotional honesty, which is something that academic study of the arts often tries to quash as silly, unsophisticated and naive.
When she got caught up in idle-clever contrarian guessing games about how or why certain movies were made, she typically got into trouble (for example, her factually errant comments about the circumstances surrounding the production of "Gimme Shelter", "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid", and most notoriously, "Citizen Kane").
She was best when she just stuck to what was actually on the screen and didn't indulge in hubristic speculation about what might have happened offscreen or behind the scenes or what the director's hidden agenda was.
I love that she loved Peckinpah and the Wild Bunch, Bertolucci and the Conformist and Last Tango in Paris, Coppola and the first two Godfathers, De Palma and Blow Out, the Long Goodbye by Altman, Point Blank by Boorman, among others but she was wrong on Fellini 8 1/2 and Raging Bull by Scorsese, among various others. Still, she was a fine instinctive critic and her writing has a verve I very much enjoy everytime I read her.
She hated most of Kubricks work too. I’ve always admired her but she was certainly polarizing.
I agree with her on 8 1/2. Any kid that has picked a camcorder/iPhone and started making films has usually also made a "I don't know what to make a movie about so I'll make a movie about writer's block." It's self indulgent but if you're lucky you do it young and never do it again and no one outside of film school ever sees it. Usually these are short films with pretty engaging daydream sequences. 8 1/2 is over two hours long and features a director (a stand-in for Fellini) whining about creative block and how hard it is to be a well-to-do director with a wife and a mistress. I just don't think its as deep as he thinks it is or other people seem to think it is.
@@Narrate918 For the record, Kael praised a number of Kubrick's movies, such as The Killing, Paths of Glory, Spartacus and Lolita, to name a few.
I believe it was sometime in October during 2004.
I was 9 and my brother's 11th birthday was coming up.
He was busy doing something, for the life of me I just can't remember what.
So I ended up watching tv alone.
Unfortunately nothing on except infomercials and old reruns.
I looked at the tvs guide to see what else I could watch.
There was going to be movie on that I like 45 minutes.
Can't remember the name of that movie or the genre all I know is that it was one I had seen many times.
Decided to kill time by flipping channels.
After that got boring I decided to watch something else until the movie started.
I decided on stopping on a channel I now know as AMC.
I picked it since it didn't require me flipping so much to get to the channel where the movie was on.
This of course was before I learned of the back and or return button on the remote.
It was in commercial and I clicked guide to see what was gonna be on next.
The Blues Brothers 1980 it said.
This was a movie I had never seen or heard of and it came out from a decade that seemed really old to me.
Normally cuz of these factors I would have no interest in it I would pronably change the channel.
Yet for some reason something about the title just caught my interest.
Don't know why but it just drew me in.
I decided to stick around and see it.
After all the other movie still had 5 minutes before it started.
So the movie began and for the first time in my life I became entranced by what I saw.
Every little thing about just seemed to make excited to see where it would go.
It was already past 5 minutes and the other movie had already started yet I kept watching.
Then it went to commercial I switched it to the other movie thinking I'd just stick with the one I'd seen instead.
Still after 4 minutes I switched it back to see if it came back from commercials.
It did.
For the next 30 minutes I kept doing the same ritual until I just stopped switching to the other movie all together.
I watched this old unknown movie that I had never heard of for 3 hours straight.
3 hours do to commercials just want to make that clear.
This was my longest sit for a movie ever at that point.
I was engrossed.
At the climax I remember I told myself that I want to be involved in movies.
Didn't matter what I did be it small or big job on set I wanted to work in movies.
I wanted to watch more movies what else could be out there?
Most of all though I wanted to make at least one movie that would bring this same excitement for seeing something new.
I have yet to achieve that dream but hope it happens.
Who knows right?
Still I won't forget the day that dream began and I'll always treasure the movie that did it.
The Blues Brothers 1980 special then......special now.......and always will be.
Bit long and kinda like the old rant comments I use to do but I thought it'd connect well with the topic of this Deep Focus episode. I mean I hope it might just be a huge error in judgement on my part. Well if you end up liking it maybe I'll tell the story of how I got into Asian movies and the movie that cemented my love for Hong Kong Cinema above the rest. I guess we'll see how it goes. Until though theres still Juwanna Mann to get to so why not check it out? Couldn't hurt right? Right? Just watch it already. That's all for me folks see ya. Bye.
I know this is very late, but this brought a broad grin on my face, almost teared up, don't know why! :)
odyssean - may you find your way amidst these wine dark channels
she's awesome; great episode, Jim.
For any Pauline Kael fan, or any movie fan, I recommend Rob Garver's documentary What She Said, finally playing in limited release, mostly at film festivals in major cities. I hope it continues to get a bigger distribution, as a result of these festival showings, evidenced by the capacity audience where I saw it this August at a film festival held at the Castro Theater in San Francisco.
+Bob Orrahood I really want to see that documentary. Whenever I get to I plan on making a review. Looks like a very promising movie
@@jimgisriel I look forward to your review of that. It was quite an experience seeing it in a packed movie theater, but I hope it becomes available on DVD, or maybe scheduled for Netfflix, since I know it will have a limited distribution. I hope to find and replace a recording I have on a deteriorating cassette from her sold out appearance at The Herbst Theater, San Francisco in '87, which she gave me written permission to obtain. A great interview by KQED's Sedge Thomson, followed by an entertaining Q & A with audience, at her sharp and funny best.
Really nice video - I like the way that clips from movies she liked are spliced into this
Too. Many. Words. I liked reading Karl's reviews because without fail in the New Yorker, she forced you to consider her opinion. Which was often contrary to what your own impression of the movie.
But her strident voice in these clips. Always strident, hammering on.
Do you think it's possible to apply her ideas of criticism to cartoons, anime, etc or only to movies? Great work by the way Jim 😤👌.
yeah absolutely you could apply a lot of those ideas to all sorts of art
I just discovered this gem of a critic. Been binging movies since quarantine and came across a lot of “popular classics”...most of which I thought as complete garbage. Happy to hear of a real critic who goes against the norm and wasn’t paid off like all these shill critics today.
How did you get to talk to her? Also great video as always and super interesting to hear about how a long time reviewer feels.
TheDandyGuy I unfortunately did not get to talk to her this is a collection of experts from interviews I found where she talked about criticism. She died in 2001 but I'm glad you dug it
Sad she's gone. Amazing thoughts on movies. As a reviewer, I really loved her insight.
Thanks for this
she's so awesome
(My mom's name is Pauline too, weird...)
Not to crap on Pauline's legacy or anything, but I never understood the part where she talks about only seeing a movie once. If I really love a movie, I will want to see it again almost immediately. Rewatching movies, I get to experience it again while knowing what will happen and can start analyzing the background of shots and stuff like that. I mean, I don't think I've loved a movie quite as much as Race has loved Zootopia, but not rewatching a movie, even just for enjoyment just seems odd to me.
She saw movies more then once she's more talking about people who'd see a movie that they didn't love and keep seeing it to get why it was such a big deal. but i think most movies we actually watch only once. but i personally i watch alot of stuff every year over and over again. I put that in the video cause it was one of the bigger things about her but if you do enjoy a movie she would agree see it again. also i should add all the comments she made about this were before home video so it's more about seeing it in theater more then once.
Oh yeah, that's a good point. Forgot that in the before times, there was no way to watch whatever you wanted whenever you wanted.
I understand her defending her craft as it relates to giving a critique after one viewing but I think more understanding can be gained on second watch of some movies.
I don’t personally agree with her on that either. Maybe for the first review on release I get it but it’s not a good universal thing for everyone
wasn't Pauline Kael he person that lied nonstop about citizen kane's pre-production?
and taking sources from
an author without asking permission and passing off as her own. Yeah.
Pauline Kael light be dead for almost 18 years, but if she would still be alive today, I bet the MARVEL and Star Wars movies would have given her a cardiac arrest
The music is a tad incongruous but ok.
I wonder what Pauline would say about all this superhero trash we have nowadays
she wouldnt bother with them
She HATED movies that she felt was basically boys playing with their childhood toys like Star Wars and indiana jones etc.
Superhero-movies is all about that.
Kael praised Burton's first Batman film and the second Superman film, but it's hard to predict how she'd react to later efforts. I have no doubt that she'd be disappointed by how constricted mainstream movie-making has become. She wrote several pieces analyzing the rotten state of the film industry in the 80s, which has only gotten worse in late decades.
She hated the Star Wars and Indiana Jones trilogies (apart of the second of each), The reasons she cited would apply to the super hero movies...
She probably would've praised Batman Begins and the first couple of Raimi Spiderman flicks as serviceable comfort food, expressed gratitude that the Iron Man flicks provided RDJ with a career resuscitation even though she found the movies mediocre, and lavished high praise on the first GOTG. Otherwise, I think she would've grown weary of them a long time ago
Great ending
Very obtuse. Thank you Sim
How did you edit this? Like did you go for a particular flow to get some point across? Because with that much material it seems very hard to place them in order? Just curious. Amazing video.
First off Thank you. I did alot of research. Kael is important to me and i wanted to make something really great about her. I mainly left it to when she talked about criticism. i tried to make it sound like her talking. Which she isn't known for. So I also tried to mimic her writing a bit. But really it just took alot of research and figuring out to get it right.
@@jimgisriel oh. very cool stuff. Good luck on your future projects
This was really great inspiration for movie reviewers and even filmmakers. She's fascinating1
Back here after Quentin Tarantino’s The Movie Critic.
Easily the best film critic this country has ever produced...no one else can even touch her
Marc Evan, I enjoyed reading your more recent and well written defense of Kael's writing in the comments here. I've been a major fan since around 1980 when I first met her at a book signing and went to see her again at City Arts and Lectures in San Francisco in '87. She answered my first letter, granting me permission to obtain a copy of that interview. And a second time in '91, after her retirement If you haven't already seen it, I highly recommend Rob Garver's documentary What She Said, now available on DVD with some extras. It's great for her fans as well as anyone remotely interested in movies who haven't read her yet. Complete with home movies, interviews, appearances and voice-overs by directors like QuentinTarantino, Paul Schrader, Ridley Scott, David Lean, Jerry Lewis (on Dick Cavett) and other writers, actors and associates. Made with love by Rob Garver but including a few of her detractors for an honest, balanced and entertaining movie.
@@boborrahood Hey...very much appreciate the comment. I first discovered Pauline Kael at15 when I picked up "Reeling" in a neighborhood bookstore. I literally couldn't stop reading and rereading it-and that was before I had actually seen almost all the films she reviewed in that book. I had been fervently interested in movies at a very young age and she opened up a whole way of seeing to me. There really isn't another critic who is even in the same ballpark-and I think I've read them all. I hate to be a spoilsport but I didn't think that documentary was well done. It had worthwhile moments but it seemed carelessly thrown together. The best thing about it was that it included clips of Kael herself. I wish there were more of that. The one I really loved was her ardent defense of Robert Altman's "McCabe and Mrs. Miller, " one of the most beautiful and original movies ever made in this country. I got a kick out of her ripping on Rona Barrett and Rex Reed for their moral hypocrisy. But, again, I was baffled by a lot of the director's choices. Why were the film clips interposed so arbitrarily and clumsily? It struck me as a documentary made in a frantic state of desperation. One thing I will say: I find it amusing (and fairly infuriating) that someone as confused and unfocused as Camille Paglia fancies herself a writer in the Kael tradition. Armond White is another one who suffers from this delusion. I know Kael was supportive of their very early writing but there's no way she would have liked what they turned into. They've both become rancid self-parodies. I'd be curious to hear your thoughts on this.
@@marcevan1141 I don't think Pauline Kael would have been as supportive about the later writing of Armond White or Camile Paglia. She has been less enthusiastic about the later efforts of such writers
as Virginia Woolfe and Norman Mailer. I agree that What She Said also left me wanting more, but I'm grateful that some filmmaker finally made a documentary on her. No other critic could get me into a movie as vividly through their writing and make me laugh out loud from their perceptions; a very rare talent. A good example might be that forgotten Arthur Penn movie Four Friends. Her review is more entertaining than the movie. I liked being able to see her on Dick Cavett, plus the home movies of her at home in Berkeley. I have a friend I want to watch this with, who's not that interested, in addition to being a fan of Blade Runner. The only good thing she could say of that was "...a visionary sci-fi movie that has it's own look can't be ignored - it has it's own place in movie history." I hope to replace a worn cassette from '87 of her at City Arts and Lectures, through KQED, in San Francisco, interviewed by Sedge Thompson, plus a question and answer session with the audience. Unfortunately, the owner pulled that audio from online, but I just found that it's available for listening at Bancroft Library at UC Berkeley. It will likely be more difficult to get a copy of that now, than when I first wrote her for permission to obtain a copy of that from KQED when she was at her spontaneous, funny best, both in interview and with the audience..
One minute in, she hits on it: it's about what movies do to viewers. Then nowhere in her work does she touch deeply on that.
Everything she’s written is about what the movie does to her as a viewer. Her work actually touches on that a lot.
@@jimgisriel Not deeply enough. The game would be given away if she discussed how deeply passive-making cinema is as a medium; how the phenomenon of movies integrally breeds an attitude of compliance. So no film critics go there, so as to keep their gig. Elsewhere, Kael talks about her unsuccess with book reviewing, attributing her ability to stir writerly excitement to film. This translates into: her incapacity to Respond to literature, thus bringing her to Reaction only - to a fully reactive form: cinema. Her accomplishment was to gain a readership via the mantra 'look at how smart PK is; maybe I'm that smart, too'. Kael was good for the movie industry. She expanded cinephilia by way of setting up identification with herself, a kind of second-rate public intellectual, actually serving the PR machine.
only watch once huh?
she ever watch big lebowski?
The book is called Afterglow, and she said that she hadn't seen it.
She retired a few years before it was released so she might not have seen it
She was an extremely opinionated critic to the point of Offensive. Yes: her critiques are very well argued and she undoubtedly knew a whole lot about the filmic process. And yes, I do vehemently disagree with some of her 'attacks'. She dragged a bunch of 'Freudian' talk with her and I can't distinguish that from sheer laziness (of course NOT) or else her Judaism. Still, she had as many admirers as opponents and that is no doubt how you know you're on a good thing.
"Her Judaism"? Really?
What does her Judiasm have to do with it, you brainless anti-semite?
Cool video, but ditch the distracting music.