Kael: Pan or Rave

It’s not often that a writer comes along where absolutely all his or her readers have strong feelings of love or hate. In the case of Pauline Kael, everyone seems to be on the edges of the continuum, either rave or pan. In Afterglow; A Last Conversation with Pauline Kael, the narrator and interviewer Francis Davis is a fan of Kael, to put it lightly. Not only is he a fellow critic, albeit of music, he was also a personal friend of Kael’s. Due to the fact, it is difficult to listen to his ravings and feel that everything he gushes about Kael is not embellished or at least slightly biased. Then at the other end of the spectrum, Renata Adler in Canaries in the Mineshaft, pans Kael’s literary style. Literally from the types of words or sentences that are used in Kael’s critiques to the analogies made are attacked. Adler describes Kael’s method of questioning in her literature as “bullying, insulting, frightening, enlisting, intruding, dunning, rallying” (334) The language that Adler uses to describe Kael’s words is, at best, hostile. Her strong feelings also make her view of Kael seem biased.

So the question remains, is Pauline Kael as brilliant as the New York Times claims as “the most influential film critic of her time” in an Arts piece by Lawrence Van Gelder or is she overrated? That question can only be answered by observing her work. In the entertainment aspect, Kael accomplished her goal. Even if it was only obtained by the shock value of her words, her easily understandable critiques were entertaining, even when the movie critique did not critique the film itself. Kael often found the story behind the story of whatever film she was writing about. For art films, she blamed the intellectuals for raving the movie just for the sake of raving art films.

Kael appeals to the dark side of the public. The mass of readers who do not know technical “filmic” words such as filmic. The same group of people who enjoy lowbrow film, the kind that “excites them sexually”(34), she says in her interview in Afterglow. Adler attacks Kael’s interests in the following quote, “She (Kael) has, in principal, four things she likes; frissions of horror; physical violence depicted in explicit detail; sex scenes, so long as they have an ingredient of cruelty and involve partners who know each other either casually or under perverse circumstances; and fantasies of invasion by, or subjugation of or by, apes, pods, teens, bodysnatchers, and extraterrestrials.” (129) Adler goes on to state that these are the necessary evils that Pauline Kael subscribes to in a film. Yet it seems that many of her readers agree with her in enjoying somewhat sick and twisted situations. She appeals to the dirtiness of humanity and acknowledges the pleasure one retains from it. Even her words, as Adler points out, aren’t necessarily the classiest. She often uses words such as “whore”, “trash”,”pop”, and “crud” to describe her emotions.

Perhaps in the critical sense of the word, Kael is not a great critique, as she does not critique the film itself for its actors, plot, or scene. Yet, her pieces are interesting and engaging, something that is highly valuable when writing to sell newspapers and ultimately, a lot harder to do.