Some authors seem immortal, others sink into oblivion. After a while, what’s left? In its monthly series Should we reread…?, The duty revisits one of these writers with the help of admirers and attentive observers. This week, it’s time for cinema, or rather the art of criticism, with one of the best-known writers of this profession in the United States in the second half of the 20th century.e century: Pauline Kael (1919-2001). She was featured in the prestigious magazine The New Yorker for several decades, and his influence was so great that generations of apprentices sought to imitate him, and his disciples were nicknamed the “paulettes”.
The writer Norman Mailer named her “Lady Vinegar”. Filmmaker John Cassavetes threw his shoes out of a taxi window. The actor Jerry Lewis said she knew how to concoct ” a personal poison “. Andrew Sarris, his eternal rival associated with the weekly The Village Voiceasserted that “ Pauline is loved by people who don’t know about movies “. Which, when Pauline Kael was at the height of her popularity, brought together a considerable number of film buffs… and people in the film industry, terrified of her judgment of their work.
Sarris, always him, had crowned her “ Queen Bee of Film Criticism »: it wasn’t quite a compliment, but we also measure the influence of a personality by the number and quality of his enemies. Pauline Kael did not lack it, thanks to her exceptional pen, her abrasive observations (“ Clint Eastwood, a delicious joke “), his overflowing enthusiasm (The last tango in Parisby Bernardo Bertolucci, compared to Rite of Springby Igor Stravinsky, no less…), as well as his refusal to bow to the essentials of the moment.
This former Berkeley law student, born on a ranch in California, liked to cut to the chase. Alain Resnais (Hiroshima my love, My uncle from America) never found favor in his eyes; David Lean (Lawrence of Arabia, Doctor Zhivago) was shaken by his attacks; the supposedly “exhausting” nature of the documentary Holocaustby Claude Lanzmann, earned her the opprobrium of her colleagues, who described this woman of Jewish origin who grew up in a non-practicing family as anti-Semitic.
However, it was his outbursts and his rants that gave great impetus to his career and forged his legend. We can think of his very first review on Limelightby Charlie Chaplin, put off by its sentimentalism, or to that, grating, on The Sound of Musicby Robert Wise, in a women’s magazine, McCall’s, which earned him dismissal. In contrast, his passionate, now famous, defense of Bonnie and Clydeby Arthur Penn — a brilliant plea contributing to the commercial success of the film — wanted to be extensively reworked by the magazine The New Republic ; outraged, she will offer it to New Yorkerbeginning in 1967 a collaboration which would last, with a few breaks and parentheses, including one in Hollywood, until 1991.
The iron lady of criticism
Before becoming a critic, first for public radio in San Francisco, Pauline Kael also wore the hats of movie theater manager and programmer, writing thousands of film summaries, thus laying the foundations of her style. But that’s not where she forged her rebellious temperament and her unfailing confidence.
José Arroyo, professor of film studies at the University of Warwick in the United Kingdom, believes he knows the source. “She was 10 years old in 1929,” he explains, “and experienced the great economic crisis, saw her father lose everything. This shaped her character, she who was also inspired by the great actresses of the time, Bette Davis, Barbara Stanwyck and Katharine Hepburn. » This native Montrealer who discovered Kael as a teenager is categorical: “She had a lot of confidence, knew how to detect ridicule in the comments of others and demonstrated great perseverance, succeeding in becoming an important intellectual figure in the sixties. And let’s never forget that she was hated for many reasons, including these: first because she was a woman, then because she came from the west coast. » In New York, sometimes, this is unforgiving.
If Hollywood feared her so much, it was first and foremost for her inimitable style — still copied to this day! —, but also for his way of assuming his subjectivity. Reading Pauline Kael sometimes feels like leafing through her diary; she hides nothing of her preferences, her desires and her disappointments. Because films were also “objects of sensual fascination”. Even the titles of his collections of texts bear witness to this: Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, I Lost It at the Movies, Deeper Into Moviesetc.
“In my first cinema class, I will never forget the teacher’s remark: “Saying that we are bored watching a film is not a criticism, because it must be explained!” » Justine Peres Smith uses this example to illustrate certain limits in Pauline Kael, who, according to some, took her moods for truth. “I like its singular and provocative side,” underlines the magazine’s film critic Cult MTL, but her devotion to popular films, her many paradoxes – she can say one thing and its opposite two years apart -, and the fact that she feels betrayed by a film that bores her shows to what extent she approached cinema in an intense way. »
Excerpts from reviews by Pauline Kael:
Pauline one day, Pauline always
This intensity was often directed towards the personalities of the filmmakers and actors, not being very keen on technique, criticizes Adam Nayman, professor of cinema studies at the University of Toronto. He is far from being in the “paulettes” club, admiring more Jonathan Rosenbaum (formerly associated with Chicago Reader) and James Hoberman (at Village Voice for more than 30 years). Although he recognizes her undeniable talent, Nayman considers that, aware of her value, she began to do… Pauline Kael, especially in the 1980s.
Collaborator at The Ringer and to Cinema Scopealso the author of an essay on the filmmaker Paul Verhoeven (It Doesn’t Suck: ShowgirlsECW Press), Adam Nayman remembers the vitriolic charge of another collaborator of the New Yorker, Renata Adler. In 1980, in the pages of New York Review of Booksthe writer and critic signs The Perils of Pauline, emphasizing in broad strokes the “sadistic” nature of his colleague’s criticisms. “It was unspeakably vicious,” laments Nayman, “and Adler increased the number of personal attacks. However, even if this article is bad, it has the merit of pinpointing various problems in Pauline Kael’s writing, such as her tics and her repetitions. »
We could perhaps also talk about inconsistencies, such as his clashes with Andrew Sarris, the one who allowed Americans to know, and understand, the famous theory of authors defended by André Bazin, François Truffaut, Éric Rohmer, etc. Pauline Kael has often contested this passionate defense of filmmakers such as John Ford or Alfred Hitchcock, “but her way of praising Sam Peckinpah or Brian De Palma was not so different,” asserts Justine Peres Smith. In fact, it was Andrew Sarris most of all that she didn’t like, a shy man from an academic background, unlike her. »
No matter for José Arroyo: yesterday as today, he still takes immense pleasure in reading Pauline Kael, for the singularity of her writing, “her jazzy style” and her personal approach. “She had a phenomenal memory and picked up lots of details after just one viewing. In fact, she was not content to approach films as an artistic object, but as an experience. Seeing them a week before or after, in another room, in another state of mind, can completely change the assessment. And she knew better than anyone how to describe the actors’ performances. »
Quentin Tarantino said that his critics were “his only film school”, and has long let rumors circulate that he is preparing a film inspired by his life. We bet that generations of “graduates” of this unique academy will want to reconnect with this great lady unworthy of film criticism.