Pauline Kael Was Not a Film Critic. She Was an Autobiographer.
She Also Found It at the Movies
An essay argues that Pauline Kael's movie reviews, long considered arbitrary and high-handed, are better understood as chapters in a vast, unconventional autobiography. Drawing on observations from Richard Schickel and Sanford Schwartz, the author contends that Kael's writing centered on mixed emotions and used movies as occasions to explore the American experience. Decades after her death, her true achievement emerges not as criticism but as a singular form of self-portraiture.
She didn’t write reviews, or even essays; rather, each of her “reviews” was a chapter in her autobiography—an autobiography written over decades and built not on a narrative arc but rather a long series of occasions.
- seabombs
I often enjoy reading movie reviews more than watching the movie they review, even when I do enjoy the movie.
I can't usually describe that well why I did or didn't like a movie, so it's fun when I read a review that does put into words how I felt about it. It gives me a deeper perspective on my own feelings about the movie.
Shout out to Vince Mancini, my personal go to film critic.
- z0r
I enjoyed reading this review of movie reviews
- bookstore-romeo
there is an archive of her reviews here: https://www.geocities.ws/paulinekaelreviews/
it’s not the best way to browse reviews at random however