Pauline Kael Critical Essay

Being a film critic is not about raving the most popular and expensive pictures and panning the ones that are sure to be box office misses. Critiquing film is about making an informed personal decision about a picture and relaying that to the public. A critic must be thorough, brutally honest, and have a very distinct and original voice. Pauline Kael was this type of critic.

Kael began writing after graduating from the University of California at Berkeley. By 1967 she was a prominent movie critic for “The New Yorker”. Kael worked at “The New Yorker” for around 24 years and generally reviewed one movie per week. Kael’s reviews are very comprehensive. In her review of “My Left Foot” Kael discusses acting, plot, screenplay, directing, and cinematography. Her commitment to covering all aspects of a film speaks to Kael’s credibility and sincerity in film critiquing.

In her review of “Funny Girl”, Kael states that Barbra Streisand “…conceals nothing; she’s fiercely, almost frighteningly direct.” Kael might as well have been describing herself. Kael’s candor is refreshing when describing multiple aspects of film. For example in her review of Cameron Crowe’s “Say Anything” she states it “…is a lovely piece of work—despite a dumb idea at its center”. This acerbic tone carries through and contributes to the integrity in most of Kael’s pieces.

In the book Afterglow, Francis Davis, in a conversation with Kael, states, “You once said that you wanted to write about movies the way that people actually talked about them on leaving the theatre.” Kael’s response was “Yes, the language we really spoke—and the language of movies. I didn’t want to write academic English in an attempt to elevate movies, because I think that actually lowers them. It denies them what makes them distinctive.”

While Kael does use a vast and varied vocabulary, her writing is highlighted with colloquial and somewhat crude language that is common outside of a theatre. She employs words like “snub-nosed”, “crummy”, “nuzzles”, “high gloss”, “tootsie”, and “surfer accent”, all of which are equally as effective as five-syllable, Latin-based SAT terms. Kael wrote for the average audience, nondependent on the color of their collar. By not attempting to elevate her own critiquing, Kael stylized a unique type of critique that became socially undeniable.

Kael’s reviews also take on a conversational air through her use of rhetorical questions. Rhetorical questioning is often seen as a weakness in critical prose; however, Kael uses questions to allow the reader a chance to speculate on what she is telling them. The process by which her came conclusion is also illuminated by these questions. In her review of “Hiroshima Mon Amour”, she asks her audience “Where did he get this metaphysical identity with Hiroshima?” If the reader has already seen the film, they can consider his or her own thoughts on the matter. If the reader has not already seen the film, he or she can be prepared to ask that question upon seeing it. Kael’s abundance of rhetorical questions provides an appearance of a modest, conventional person chatting with a friend.

Kael’s crisp, frank and unrefined voice brought a new aspect to film critiquing. A strong and lasting aspect that has revived film review as an art form.