Film criticism is not about raving the most popular and expensive pictures and panning sure misses. It is about making an informed personal decision about a picture and relaying that to the public. An effective critic must be thorough, brutally honest, and have a distinct voice. Pauline Kael was this type of critic.
After graduating from the University of California at Berkeley, Kael began her writing career. By 1967 she was a prominent movie critic for “The New Yorker”, where she worked for approximately 24 years, typically reviewing 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 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. When describing multiple aspects of film, Kael’s candor is refreshing. With an acerbic tone, Kael describes “Say Anything” as “…a lovely piece of work—despite a dumb idea at its center”. This type of honesty is present in all of Kael’s pieces and contributes to her integrity as a critic.
In the book “Afterglow”, Francis Davis questions Kael on her desire to write the way people actually speak. Kael wanted to write using the language of movies, not in academic English “…in an attempt to elevate movies, because [I think] that actually lowers them. It denies them what makes them distinctive.” Kael’s vast and varied vocabulary is highlighted with colloquial and crude language that is common outside of a theatre. Employing words like “snub-nosed,” “crummy,” “nuzzles,” “high gloss,” “tootsie,” and “surfer accent,” she is equally as effective as if she used 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 artistically undeniable.
A conversational air comes through with Kael’s use of rhetorical questions. Although they are often seen as a weakness in critical prose, Renata Adler, in a negative critique of Kael (“House Critic”), even admits, “it is difficult to convey the effect of…these questions.” Kael uses rhetorical questions to allow the reader a chance to speculate on her point and the process by which she arrived there. In her review of “Hiroshima Mon Amour”, Kael 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 yet to see the film, he or she can be prepared to ask that question upon seeing it. Kael’s abundance of rhetorical questions presents an everyman conversation.
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.
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