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andymascola's review against another edition
4.0
A greatest hits collection of Kael reviews & essays from 1955-90. Good stuff!
keitto's review against another edition
3.0
I only got through about a fifth of the "selected writings" from this 800-plus-page tome. I can happily say that I'm more familiar with Kael's work now, and I hope to buy this book someday when I have more shelf space, and really read each essay. Of the essays I got through, I enjoyed her writing on Orson Welles and Bonnie and Clyde most. I did NOT understand her hatred for West Side Story. I mean really, who could hate it that much?!
charlesvandoren's review against another edition
3.0
Even when I disagreed, I always found it interesting to read her thoughts.
My favourite review was her one of E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial. It was actually really quite touching and I wasn't expecting it. Besides my friends, I do not follow the writings of any living film critics. But I'm always curious to know Pauline Kael's opinion.
My favourite review was her one of E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial. It was actually really quite touching and I wasn't expecting it. Besides my friends, I do not follow the writings of any living film critics. But I'm always curious to know Pauline Kael's opinion.
litdreamer's review
5.0
I've been on a bit of a Pauline Kael kick lately, seeing the documentary What She Said: The Art of Pauline Kael and then reading Pauline Kael: A Life in the Dark and now this book, which is a collection of reviews and essays covering her entire career, including "Movies, The Desperate Art," which was one of her first pieces on film (though not one of her better-written ones).
Though even a 786-page-book (excluding the acknowledgments page and the index) is missing some of her more outrageous and controversial reviews and essays ["Raising Kane" - excluded "for reasons of space" (Introduction, xxi), 2001, The Sound of Music, Shoah], it includes so much Kael, including her great article on Cary Grant ("The Man From Dream City") and her appreciations of Bonnie and Clyde and (of course) Last Tango in Paris, that if you only read this collection, you'll understand why she was considered the greatest movie critic of her time.
Roger Ebert might've been more famous (and less prone to using superlatives in his reviews, which became a more prominent feature of Kael's writing later in her career), but her reviews and essays are more in-depth, knowledgeable, and encompassing than what Ebert or, indeed, any newspaper reviewer at the time could or did do (she had a luxury -- and a liability -- in having William Shawn as an editor at the New Yorker, since he didn't hinder his writers verbosity by including word limits). In fact, Louise Brookes -- herself an excellent writer -- thought Kael was the best movie critic since James Agee (which is mentioned in Kael's biography).
For not only did she bring her personal experiences to bear on film, she also included her vast knowledge and appreciation of literature, plays, and operas. For example, she includes what Wagner said to the audience after the premier of Gotterdammerung in a review of Pennies from Heaven,, and she offers insight into "Billy Budd" the book when commenting on how the movie version misses the hidden evil of the captain -- an evil far less noticeable than that of Claggart, and all the more dangerous because of it.
If you're a movie lover (or a lover of criticism or a lover of great writing and analysis), I can't tell you which collection(s) of Kael's you should have on your shelf, but you should have at least one. And with her reviews much harder to find online than Ebert's (unless you have a subscription to the New Yorker), book collections like this one are the only way that readers who grew up after her heydey can discover her (she retired in 1991 and passed away in 2001). And yes, some of her views on race and gender and male/female relationships seem dated and even shocking now, but most of her writing has aged better than the majority of movies she reviewed, even when she disagreed with the current critical consensus (such as on Raging Bull, which she didn't like -- and having slogged through that film, I kinda found myself agreeing with her).
One more thing to note: the book mentions that some of the reviews in this collection were part of larger articles in which Kael reviewed several other films. Not including them can be a bit odd when she's referencing them in other parts of the review, but unless the Library of America wanted to come out with a multi-volume book of her work, this was a wise decision. It also highlights films where her critical writing was at its best, removing it from other films which might not have needed her deep critical insight.
Though even a 786-page-book (excluding the acknowledgments page and the index) is missing some of her more outrageous and controversial reviews and essays ["Raising Kane" - excluded "for reasons of space" (Introduction, xxi), 2001, The Sound of Music, Shoah], it includes so much Kael, including her great article on Cary Grant ("The Man From Dream City") and her appreciations of Bonnie and Clyde and (of course) Last Tango in Paris, that if you only read this collection, you'll understand why she was considered the greatest movie critic of her time.
Roger Ebert might've been more famous (and less prone to using superlatives in his reviews, which became a more prominent feature of Kael's writing later in her career), but her reviews and essays are more in-depth, knowledgeable, and encompassing than what Ebert or, indeed, any newspaper reviewer at the time could or did do (she had a luxury -- and a liability -- in having William Shawn as an editor at the New Yorker, since he didn't hinder his writers verbosity by including word limits). In fact, Louise Brookes -- herself an excellent writer -- thought Kael was the best movie critic since James Agee (which is mentioned in Kael's biography).
For not only did she bring her personal experiences to bear on film, she also included her vast knowledge and appreciation of literature, plays, and operas. For example, she includes what Wagner said to the audience after the premier of Gotterdammerung in a review of Pennies from Heaven,, and she offers insight into "Billy Budd" the book when commenting on how the movie version misses the hidden evil of the captain -- an evil far less noticeable than that of Claggart, and all the more dangerous because of it.
If you're a movie lover (or a lover of criticism or a lover of great writing and analysis), I can't tell you which collection(s) of Kael's you should have on your shelf, but you should have at least one. And with her reviews much harder to find online than Ebert's (unless you have a subscription to the New Yorker), book collections like this one are the only way that readers who grew up after her heydey can discover her (she retired in 1991 and passed away in 2001). And yes, some of her views on race and gender and male/female relationships seem dated and even shocking now, but most of her writing has aged better than the majority of movies she reviewed, even when she disagreed with the current critical consensus (such as on Raging Bull, which she didn't like -- and having slogged through that film, I kinda found myself agreeing with her).
One more thing to note: the book mentions that some of the reviews in this collection were part of larger articles in which Kael reviewed several other films. Not including them can be a bit odd when she's referencing them in other parts of the review, but unless the Library of America wanted to come out with a multi-volume book of her work, this was a wise decision. It also highlights films where her critical writing was at its best, removing it from other films which might not have needed her deep critical insight.