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Pauline Kael (1919–2001)

Author of 5001 Nights at the Movies

40+ Works 2,841 Members 22 Reviews 20 Favorited

About the Author

Series

Works by Pauline Kael

5001 Nights at the Movies (1982) 339 copies
I Lost it at the Movies (1965) 295 copies
The Citizen Kane Book (1971) 269 copies
Apocalypse Now Redux [2001 film] (1979) — Contributor — 228 copies
Kiss Kiss Bang Bang (1968) 185 copies
Taking It All in (1984) 147 copies
State of the Art (1985) 144 copies
Deeper into Movies (1973) 127 copies
Going Steady (1970) 107 copies
Reeling (1976) 105 copies
When the Lights Go Down (1980) 105 copies
Hooked (1988) 80 copies
Jean-Luc Godard: Interviews (1998) — Contributor — 67 copies
Raising Kane (1971) 56 copies
The Philosophy of Film: Introductory Text and Readings (2005) — Contributor — 22 copies
Great Film Directors: A Critical Anthology (1978) — Contributor — 17 copies
Kon Ichikawa (Cinematheque Ontario Monographs) (1714) — Contributor — 16 copies
The Bonnie & Clyde Book (1972) — Contributor — 6 copies
Auteurs and Authorship: A Film Reader (2008) — Contributor — 4 copies
Chroniques américaines (2010) 3 copies
Drama in Life: The Uses of Communication in Society (1976) — Contributor — 2 copies
Microsoft Cinemania for Macintosh (1995) — Contributor — 1 copy
CHRONIQUES EUROPEENNES (2010) 1 copy

Associated Works

A Clockwork Orange [Norton Critical Edition] (2010) — Contributor — 914 copies
Melville's Short Novels [Norton Critical Edition] (2001) — Contributor — 271 copies
The Dylan Companion: A Collection of Essential Writing About Bob Dylan (1990) — Contributor, some editions — 95 copies
Film: A Montage of Theories (1966) — Contributor — 82 copies
The Art of Growing Older: Writers on Living and Aging (1992) — Contributor — 36 copies
Last Tango in Paris: The Screenplay With Photographs From The Film (1973) — Contributor, some editions; Contributor — 35 copies
Focus on Hitchcock (1972) — Contributor — 34 copies
The World of Luis Buñuel: Essays in Criticism (1978) — Contributor — 25 copies
Jean-Luc Godard: A Critical Anthology (1968) — Contributor — 11 copies
Readings on West Side Story (2001) — Contributor — 6 copies
Essays Today 6 (1968) — Contributor — 2 copies

Tagged

Common Knowledge

Birthdate
1919-06-19
Date of death
2001-09-03
Gender
female
Nationality
USA
Birthplace
Petaluma, California, USA
Place of death
Great Barrington, Massachusetts, USA
Places of residence
New York, New York, USA
San Francisco, California, USA
Education
University of California, Berkeley
Occupations
film critic
ad-copy writer
Relationships
Broughton, James (lover)
James, Gina (daughter)
Organizations
McCall's
The New Republic
The New Yorker
Awards and honors
George Polk Award (1970)
American Academy of Arts and Letters Academy Award (Literature ∙ 1970)
National Book Award (1974)
Crystal Award (1978)
Muse Award (1980)
Mel Novikoff Award (1991) (show all 9)
Los Angeles Film Critics Association Special Award (1994)
Gotham Independent Film Awards Writer Award (1995)
OFTA Film Hall of Fame (2012)
Short biography
Pauline Kael was born in Petaluma, California, to a family of Jewish immigrants. In 1936, she entered the University of California at Berkeley, where she studied philosophy, literature, and art. She became one of the most influential American film critics of her era. She wrote for The New Yorker from 1967 until her retirement in 1991. As the magazine's film critic, she wrote hundreds of Current Cinema columns, as well as many shorter film reviews. She was the author of 13 books, including I Lost It at the Movies (1965), Kiss Kiss Bang Bang (1968), Deeper Into Movies (which won the 1974 National Book Award), and 5001 Nights at the Movies (1982). She received a Guggenheim fellowship in 1964 and received Front Page Awards from the Newswomen's Club of New York in 1974 and 1983. She won a George Polk Memorial Award in 1970.

Members

Reviews

My all-time favourite film reviewer. About 1300 pages of fun opinionated pyrotechnics.

Her reviews sometimes have a stream-of-consciousness quality. Not only do we get her thoughts at the typewriter after the screening, but her mood as she walked in the theatre and sat down. Reviewing was not adhering to some objective standard of quality, it was personal.

Anyone that has ever engaged with “the arts” knows that objectivity is a farce, there is too much baggage in us for that. And anyone can write from that position, I suppose, but Pauline Kael had dynamite style for the ages.

I adore her, she's the One!
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Flagged
StefanConradsson | 2 other reviews | Feb 13, 2024 |
I find it somewhat surprising that so few people have this one in their collections, and that I am the first to review it here. Certainly there are a lot of cinephiles on LT, and they would benefit from reading Kael's writings on individual films. I am loathe to call them reviews, because she went much deeper into meaning; they are instead essays that place the film within film history and the trends of the day.

She famously did not buy into French "auteur" theory and celebrated filmmakers for not repeating themselves. It strikes me that one of the reasons a director fits into that theory is just that: repetition. Of themes, of techniques.

This collection cherrypicks her work from various books she wrote, I think about ten books in all. Some of her most famous pieces are included here, such as "Bonnie and Clyde" and "Last Tango in Paris". By championing these two films in The New Yorker, she provided convincing evidence of their worth and managed to help make them financial successes -- that's how much clout she had.

She could be exasperatingly wrong about some films, such as "2001" and "West Side Story". Although I could see her points, I felt like she was missing the forest for the trees at times. But even those bad reviews are compelling reading. I was prepared to be upset, but that didn't happen. It is one of the qualities of a film that it affects each of us differently; it is what we bring to the film from personal experience, our philosophy of life, our visceral reaction that determines our opinion. So we bound to agree here and disagree there with others. Unfortunately, the editor (Sanford Schwartz) picks almost exclusively the best known films of the various decades; I would have loved to see some obscure films that she praised included here.

I have never really bought into the so-called genius of Godard, Fellini, Antonioni, and neither does Kael. After championing early Godard, she rightly dismisses his later "political" films as polemical drudgery. For her there are no sacred cows, which should be a prerequisite for becoming a critic.

She reviewed primarily from the late 60's, when The New Yorker hired her, until the early 90's. She was pretty opinionated, for sure, about the state of American cinema in the 60's, was excited about it in the 70's, and was disappointed by it in the 80's, which she saw as driven by box office receipts and primarily by the success of Spielberg and Lucas. She finally got fed up (and she had health issues).

There is another Kael collection that is somewhat similar, although it is over 1300 pages and this one is about 800. If you're looking for a Maltin-like film guide, they put out the "5001 Nights" collection of capsule reviews; this is obviously not intended for one seeking out her detailed analysis, but it does includes her snapshot opinions of the pre-60's films.

If you are at all interested in film criticism of the period, you need to read Pauline Kael.
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nog | Jan 16, 2022 |
Pauline Kael was an esteemed film critic who was fortunate to be alive for the best times for big budget and moderately intelligent American films. Like a lot of americans she lost her "innocence" at the films, and this anthology ranges from 1654 to 1964. she used these criticisms to become the film maven at the New Yorker, which in those days meant something.
 
Flagged
DinadansFriend | 2 other reviews | Nov 23, 2019 |
Bitingly witty and knowledgeable.
 
Flagged
Karen74Leigh | 2 other reviews | Sep 4, 2019 |

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Works
40
Also by
14
Members
2,841
Popularity
#9,033
Rating
4.1
Reviews
22
ISBNs
93
Languages
3
Favorited
20

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