How did Pauline Kael influence film and film criticism?
Pauline Kael really elevated film criticism and was arguably the most famous and controversial film critic of the last fifty years, I would say. She really made a lasting impression in her reign as film critic for The New Yorker from the 60s. She was reviewing movies all the way into the mid-90s up until a few years before she passed away. I think she was the most feared critic and the most discussed. She had a brash, frank, colloquial style; very personal. The names of the books that are compendiums of her film criticism are wonderful; there's "I Lost It At The Movies", and "Kiss Kiss Bang Bang". She really has like this obsession with film and she's not afraid to tell it like it is. She became so feared and so controversial that George Lucas, who of course directed the Star Wars Trilogy which she slammed, tongue-in-cheekly named one of the villains in his movie 'Willow' General Kael. Of course, Pauline Kael was quick to point out that 'Willow' was not a box-office success, so it was sort of like a "touche". Pauline Kael was the first person to really get and understand the counterculture and movies of the 70s; 'Bonnie and Clyde', 'The Godfather: Part II' in particular, and 'Last Tango in Paris'. She did a review of Robert Altman's 'Nashville' months before the movie came out and while ultimately it didn't do very well at the box office, she was somebody who recognised Altman as somebody who has a really different way of telling stories with overlapping dialogue and this sort of mosaic of characters and plots that don't necessarily pay off in the way that you expect them to. She championed the vanguard of 70s moviemaking. I think a lot of directors would say, "I don't read reviews", but everybody read Pauline Kael. Actors read Pauline Kael, directors read Pauline Kael and she inspired a legacy. There's a group of film critics currently today who, you know, cite Pauline Kael as their main inspiration. They're known as the "Paulettes", which is particularly funny because they're mostly men. It's Armand White of the New York Press, it's David Edelstein of New York magazine. There's quite a few of them; they're all guys who just loved Pauline Kael, but they're not afraid to put a movie in the context of the times, to talk about, the undercurrent of sexuality in a movie, or to point out the homoeroticism in Top Gun, which she did. They're that kind of critic; they're really poking at the culture and trying to get a rise out of people who read their reviews. Even if you hate what they're saying, you're fascinated to get to the end of the review.
