http://k09aw02.blogspot.com/2010/02/pauline-kael-revision.html
The post is entitled "Pauline Kael Revision: A Criticism of Kael's Criticism." It's basically a refutation of many things Kael and her approach to criticism stood for. I tried to post my response but was blocked or something, so I decided to post it here and voilá - instant blog.
I think the writer is way off the mark here. Let me enumerate for my patient readers.
The author states: "Her taste was for lowbrow art, her writing is anything but academic, and her opinions often differed drastically from much of the critical world."
Kael's taste was not necessarily in favor of "lowbrow art"--she appreciated high art as well (Ray, Bunuel, Renoir, etc.), just not all the snobbish sanctity that so often went along with it (insert name of trendy French director here) as well as how some used it to legitimize their liberal views and castigate anyone else's. As for the second two points, yes, thank heavens. Her direct, bold approach and feverish intensity hooked me early on, so unlike the sometimes stuffy, distant academic prose I slogged through through in my undergraduate years. In fact, I venture to say she single-handedly kept my interest in letters alive during those years, in really connecting on a human level with a readership without condescending or underestimating their intelligence--she expected you to keep up with her lightning quick joyride through the annals of film and her subtle analysis of Godard, Truffaut, Peckinpah, et al. Her iconoclastic opinions could be refreshing too--she was loathe to accept received wisdom and stood out for her willingness to champion the underdog and eviscerate the sacred cow. Harsh terms, but as much as it is an art form, with all that that sloppily used term implies, criticism is frequently a blood sport.
Piu: "Kael's vulgar, repetitive vocabulary does not bother me: the "whore" and the "trash" and the "horny" do not phase my teenage mind in the current era of violence and profanities."
Vulgar? Repetitive? I can only say that someone who has neither read deeply nor understood la Kael (or whose "teenage mind" has not had the good fortune to experience much beyond the safe nest of home) could ever draw that underanalyzed conclusion from her work. If she was vulgar (her response to her editor who wanted to withdraw one of her reviews on the basis of his friendship with the filmmaker in question: "Tough s--t."), it was refreshing in an era when genteel snobbery ruled. At her height, Kael's prose was an exciting brio, a dizzying display of wit, style, encyclopedic knowledge, and shrewd observation. It is true that in her later years her work appeared to decline somewhat--depleted of adjectives, seen it all before, running out of new ways of describing old cinematic tricks. Easily forgiven given the awesome display of erudition and intellectual generosity so often on display in the bulk of her corpus.
Avvanti: "Pauline Kael's snobbish and conceited attitude toward her audience is repulsive."
Another gross misreading. Not so much snobbery (a reverse snobbery, it would appear, given the writer's above insistence that Kael was only interested in the lowbrow), I would say, but impatience with conventional attitudes toward art in general and filmmaking in particular. Exasperated, yes, impatient, certainly, but snobbish? Anyone who appreciates the inspired juvenile lunacy of National Lampoon's Animal House is surely no snob.
Allora: "And although no one can contest Kael's love for film, she uses this admiration as a justification to speak as the most knowledgeable person in regards to movies. She writes, "But, oh, God, why isn't it better? Why isn't there the daring and the exaltation that our senses fairly cry out for?" speaking on behalf of all audience members and their senses, as if her opinion is that of a constant truth."
I don't think Kael ever purported to be speaking for everyone, only those who looked to the movies to inspire, move, and restore faith in human potential. If she did exhibit a certain hubris at times, it was certainly well deserved--her memory of film is vast and impressive; in fact, I would venture to say she was the most knowledgeable person around in regard to movies, at least as far as a public readership goes. I don't see anything amiss with asking or even demanding that filmmakers excite and challenge and not cater to audience wish fulfillment, to the easy path to success; she championed artistry in an industry which rewarded commercial success and regarded big moneymakers as de facto Best Pictures (and, yes, Oscar, I'm looking at you here). Has the writer never felt the despairing isolation which comes from realizing that despite one's brains and talent the world might very well pass you by with nary so much as a glance while others of lesser gifts flourish?
E dopo: "In the opening paragraph, Kael admonishes educated audiences who enjoy foreign or experimental films, accusing them of using film for the wrong purpose. According to Kael, movies are intended for an escape "from the tensions of their complex lives and work," rather than for an appreciation of "movies as an art. This rule is extremely frustrating, begging the question of what right Pauline Kael has to decide what functions films should or shouldn't have, or how the public should perceive them."
Citing above Hiroshima, Mon Amour (Kael's review of which, perchance, I read only the night before, oddly enough), the author reveals her gift for misunderstanding. Kael never said movies were intended as an escape from the tensions of life; she said educated people used art movies in an escapist way not really so far removed from how less educated types used popular films. There is really not much difference between a popular filmgoer who goes to movies to have his worldview reassured, to see the same tired old middle class stereotypes and clichés of the valor of war, the timelessness of romantic love, and the indestructibility of American gumption acted out and that of a leftist liberal who expects to see in his foreign and arthouse films stale tropes of sinister corporate America, the seductive glamor of alternative lifestyles, and the sanctity of same sex households upheld. Kael was actually in favor of a cinema which reflected life's complexities without laying on any clichés or sanctimony or liberal stereotypes. It wasn't "a rule" either--Kael was not this type of writer. She didn't codify anything--she disliked writers of this stamp (e.g., Kracauer and Sarris). This type of rulemaking tends to close one off from the spontaneity of good filmmaking, which is what I think she loved most. Re: the opinionmaking point, Kael refuted serious schools of criticism on the basic (I think inarguable) premise that at some point all taste is subjective, based on one's preferences and biases. Any attempt to objectify it is fundamentally misguided.
Incidentally, the quote I was looking for was something Kael said about not wanting to stand with elitist types but with the vulgarians instead. It wasn't exactly that, I found out: "There's no way I could make the case that National Lampoon's Animal House is a better movie than (Warren Beatty's) Heaven Can Wait, yet on some sort of emotional-aesthetic level I prefer it. One returns you to the slobbiness of infancy, the other to the security of childhood, and I'd rather stand with the slobs." I believe this is from Reeling, but I'm not sure. Funny how things change in memory.
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