What She Said: The Art of Pauline Kael

Saw this today at a film festival in Auckland. It felt rushed and over stuffed full of trivia. Almost like the makers wanted coverage and balance :) I would have preferred a little more focus on some of the pivotal moments and we did get some of that.

Clips of Kael being interviewed were some of the best parts and there were also some notable responses by film makers, critics and others.

I suspect the clips from movies that were used were all very short because of licensing constraints but it would have been better to label the less obvious ones.

I didn't know the story about Mankiewicz and Citizen Kane. That seemed like one of the great moments and could have been teased out a little more.

We heard from her daughter and possibly grand daughter? I think the story about the collaboration with Warren Beatty was worth a deeper look but perhaps there were some legal fish hooks there.

The David Lean clips where he mentions he was devastated by a particular event where she took hime to task was interesting. Again I wonder if there was more to add there.

On the whole though I came out of the theatre reminded of the many times Kael had made a call on a movie and had by doing so added a little edge to the movie going experience.

I have enjoyed her writing and will look up some of those essays and reviews now.

"What she said: The Art of Pauline Kael" A portrait of the work of controversial film critic Pauline Kael and her influence on the male-dominated worlds of cinema and film criticism. Loved or hated her influence was undeniable. Image.jpeg Viewed at the 69th Berlin Film Festival 2019. "What She Said --The Art of Pauline Kael", solemnly, compiled and fully packed with testimonials from a steady stream of prominent film personalities, directors, writers, publishers, other film critics, etcetera, by an obvious admirer, New York based Rob Garver, his first feature length film. Among those seen in the film besides Kael herself at various points in her life are: directors Quentin Tarantino, Paul Schrader, Woody Allen, John Boorman, Peter Bogdanovich, and David Lean (Who was so crushed by her panning of his films that he retired from directing for several years!) actor Alec Baldwin, and half a dozen female film critics all commenting on how Kael influenced them one way or another. At one point Allen says that even though Pauline trashed some of his movies he valued her comments and insights and considered her to be the best critic around. Comedian director Jerry Lewis chimes in with: "She's never said a good thing about me yet. That dirty old broad. But she's probably the most qualified critic in the world"

We see flashes of innumerable clips from films she commented on, both positively and negatively, included Citizen Kane, Last Tango in Paris, Bonnie and Clyde, Easy Rider, films of Joan Crawford, and many others. Throughout excerpts from her articles published in the New Yorker and elsewhere are read aloud over shots of the original articles while, most enlightening of all are numerous scenes of Kael herself discussing her views on film criticism and the reactions to her writing. As her notoriety mounted she was released from several other upscale magazines before settling in as the long term resident film critic of the staidly liberal New Yorker where she spent the bulk of her late career. Having become a celebrity in her own right she was a frequent guest on the top TV talk shows, Johnny Carson and Dick Cavett. The Cavett clips are particularly interesting but are cut off just a wee bit too short. We wanna see more of that! Her staunch opinionation earned her at least as much venomous hate mail as ecstatic fan mail, maybe more. But she was so sure of the correctness of her calls that the hate mail to her was like water off a duck's back. (i respect your right to disagree but I'm right and you're wrong). There is so much information, visual and verbal, in the relatively short 98 minutes running time that what we get is virtually a mini history of cinema as seen through the sharpest of eyes with the liveliest of words. Crucially, many people say that even if you had seen a film under discussion Kael's review forced you see it again as if you were seeing it for the first time. This critical study of America's most famous film critic goes back to her earliest days writing program notes for the art films shown at the hole in the wall movie house known as the Cinema Guild on the edge of the Berkeley campus in the late nineteen fifties. As a UCB student back then I began to see old Hollywood movies in a new light and developed a strong taste for foreign films from the insights expressed in her compact summaries. Above all It was Pauline's wit that hooked us all. Like it or not, Pauline Kael with her often acid laden but undeniably well argued views grounded in an encyclopedic knowledge of film history and an astounding memory for details of films seen years earlier, was the most influential film critic of the latter half of the XX. Century. She published 13 books of reviews some of which like "I Lost it at the Movies" became best sellers and conditioned the film views of an entire generation at a time when movies had suddenly become intellectual property, not mere weekend entertainment. This is the kind of film one wishes would have run twice as long because so much interesting material must have been trimmed in the final cut, and the personality of the woman on which it focuses is so utterly fascinating. I myself often disagreed 180° with Kael's opinions regarding certain films, for example, Bertolucci's "Last Tango in Paris", which she praised to High Heaven while I thought it was pure unadulterated garbage -- but I used to read her reviews regularly anyhow, for their verbal agility and pure unadulterated obstreperousness. This film was possibly the hottest ticket of the entire Berlin festival week and I had to purchase a general admission ticket to to make sure I woukdn't miss it. Tickets i had for two other screenings on the final day of the fest were not used because this was the perfect capston to the festival, and the rich taste it leaves behind was not to be further diluted! I personally had numerous differences of opinion with Ms. Kael but always enjoyed her wit and wisdom even when I disagreed. Overall, an Xlnt biodoc.

Whether you like her reviews or loathe them, is not to be ignored. Her loosening of film criticism which was reserved as a boys only club that had to be of academic merit cannot be ignored. With archival interviews, interviewees who have discussed interactions with her and voiceover by Sarah Jessica Parker reading her reviews as well as her life story, it makes me feel that this individual no matter how flawed she may be, is an excellent example of why film criticism should not be treated as just entertaining the studio system that caters to only positive reviews without negative criticism for commercial appeal.

Sure there are people who have criticized her work as a critic for being homophobic as well as being negative on commercially successful films that earned positive praise, but there is no denying that she was also a champion for films that had not done terribly well commercially and critically. She understood the difference between what is a good trash film and a bad trash film that caters to all audiences. Unlike her contemporaries at the time who had their own platform on television to give their own takes on films that were released in theaters, her film criticism was only on print and not on any other form of medium.

Starting as a freelance critic on public radio before moving from magazine to magazine was no easy chore for her since she had a daughter and not enough money to pay for her bills. As an admirer of film directors from Walter Hill, Sam Peckinpah, Brian De Palma and Robert Altman she admires how they have been able to take stories that were considered too outside of the mainstream but were able to harness it into works of art. She was a harsh critic of the auteur theory in the prime example of filmmakers repeating the same motifs and themes in their own works but not being able to come up with anything that is original (Stanley Kubrick, Alfred Hitchcock, Charlie Chaplin, David Lean). I can understand why she has difficulty admiring these people. She was a fan of the early film work of Speilberg and Scorsese, but critical of their later work, which I also can understand since they fit in with the corporate machinations of Hollywood during that period.

Her loosening and idiosyncratic style of film criticism is no longer considered daring and shocking anymore. Nowadays it is considered the new norm when it comes to film criticism, and I for one think it is an embarassment. Something about the fractured and broken up world of film criticism is now moved to the online world. I cannot give one example of how film criticism to me can be annoying, but sometimes when humor is injected to make a point, it makes me feel that there is something lacking in it all. No human emotion, no knowledge of how certain people feel when their own works are meant to be shown to people in theaters and now in their homes via streaming services.

Pauline Kael may not have been a feminist, but she was a revolutionary for film criticism, she warned that without film critics that are self independent from the studio system, there would be critics who cater to commercialism and corporate needs that they won't have a voice to those who need to be self aware of the types of films and television shows that they watch. That is why I consider this film better in my opinion than, Life Itself (2013) about Roger Ebert, an individual who with Siskel, they're more like mean girls who are petty, vain and shallow.

That is my review of this individual and the documentary itself.

Good documentary that brings its subject back to life in all her opinionated, maddening, sometimes brilliant, more often nasty, but always fun to read glory. My two caveats are that the plethora of talking heads, other than Kael's, are a bit on the dull side and, more importantly, that the overall tone tends toward the protective rather than the acerbic which would seem, in a work that deals with a famous critic, like the wrong way to go. Take, for example, the notorious evisceration of Kael by Renata Adler in the pages of the NYR, which caused, according to this film, great hurt feelings in its target. The attitude taken toward the incident by director Rob Garver seems to be the very non ironical "That was an unfair hit job" rather than the proper "She could dish it out but she couldn't take it." Give it a B.

A 2018 documentary of the learned & scabrous film critic whose prose sometimes were better than the films she'd invariably review. Coming from humble beginnings w/a voracious appetite for the written word she found herself being a contrarian to the popular sway of criticism, championing smaller films & burgeoning filmmakers (Robert Altman & Brian DiPalma to name a few) while also skewering regarded masterpieces (like Lawrence of Arabia & 2001: A Space Odyssey) incurring the wrath of actors & directors (David Lean & Ridley Scott both voice disdain for her pans) alike but yet gaining traction as a titan of review. Holding court during her tenure at the New Yorker magazine, she inspired & cultivated like minded scribes (Paul Schrader being one of many) but until she began publishing books of her collected works, a sense of financial security finally was achieved. Even after retiring, new filmmakers would hope to gain a word from her as they submitted their material for her to view. Now lost in a sea of user created content on platforms like youtube, her like will probably be never seen (or more importantly read) from again in some time to come.