119-452: Pauline Kael ( / k eɪ l / ; June 19, 1919 – September 3, 2001) was an American film critic who wrote for The New Yorker from 1968 to 1991. Known for her "witty, biting, highly opinionated and sharply focused" reviews, Kael often defied the consensus of her contemporaries. One of the most influential American film critics of her era, she left a lasting impression on the art form. Roger Ebert argued in an obituary that Kael "had
238-520: A 0 to 10 scale, while some rely on the star rating system of 1–5, 0–5 or 0–4 stars. The votes are then converted into an overall rating and ranking for any particular film. Some of these community driven review sites include Letterboxd , Reviewer, Movie Attractions, Flixster , FilmCrave , Flickchart and Everyone's a Critic . Rotten Tomatoes and Metacritic aggregate both scores from accredited critics and those submitted by users. On these online review sites, users generally only have to register with
357-590: A 1999 The New York Times article titled "My Private Screening With Pauline Kael". He later wrote to Kael, saying: "[Y]our thoughts and writing about the movies [have] been a very important source of inspiration for me and my movies, and I hope you don't regret that". In 1997, cultural critic Camille Paglia said Kael was her second-favorite critic (behind Parker Tyler ), criticizing Kael's commentary on such films as La Dolce Vita and Last Year at Marienbad but also calling her "unfailingly perceptive [...] [her] tart, lively, colloquial style I thought exactly right for
476-479: A biography of Kael, A Life in the Dark . Rob Garver's documentary What She Said: The Art of Pauline Kael was released in 2018. With Sarah Jessica Parker narrating for Kael, the film is a portrait of Kael's work and her influence on the male-dominated worlds of cinema and film criticism. In a 2024 interview, director Ridley Scott revealed that Kael's harsh critique of his 1982 film Blade Runner made him question
595-464: A bohemian life", writing plays and working in experimental film. In 1948, she and the filmmaker James Broughton had a daughter, Gina James, whom Kael raised alone. Gina had a congenital heart defect through much of her childhood, which Kael could not afford the surgery to correct. To support her daughter and herself, Kael worked a series of menial jobs such as cook and seamstress, along with stints as an advertising copywriter. In 1952, Peter D. Martin ,
714-505: A book of her criticism. Published in 1965 as I Lost It at the Movies , the collection was a surprise bestseller, selling 150,000 paperback copies. Coinciding with a job at the high-circulation women's magazine McCall's , Kael (as Newsweek put it in a 1966 profile) "went mass". That same year, Kael wrote a blistering review of The Sound of Music in McCall's . After mentioning that some of
833-558: A book titled Projected Fears , and ending the book during the year 2006 involved Phillips saying that American horror films had fallen into the cycle of being movies that had predictability. Film theory is also part of academic film criticism, since two main film theories have been created. The first main film theory is the part-whole theory. This theory pertains to Eisenstein's philosophy that segments of films are not artistic works on their own, and they are just unemotional aspects of reality. When those segments of films are sequenced in
952-534: A brief five-page review of I Lost It at the Movies . While he states in the beginning of his review that he has, on the whole, favorable sentiments towards the book, he nevertheless criticizes Kael for being "stronger on the intellectual side than on the aesthetic side" as well as her persistence in quoting other critics out of context. In the process, Macdonald confutes some of the assertions Kael makes about his own opinions regarding certain movies. Dwight Macdonald writes: What I like especially about Miss Kael's book
1071-654: A consultant to Paramount Pictures , but left the position after only a few months to return to writing criticism. In the early 1980s, Kael was diagnosed with Parkinson's disease , which sometimes has a cognitive component. As her condition worsened, she became increasingly depressed about the state of American films, along with feeling that "I had nothing new to say". In a March 11, 1991, announcement that The New York Times called "earth-shattering", Kael announced her retirement from reviewing films regularly. She said she would still write essays for The New Yorker and "reflections and other pieces of writing about movies", but over
1190-467: A duration of eight weeks of time, which displays the fact that film critics are influential towards how well films perform in box offices. Film critics are able to influence the choices of people in the public who decide on whether or not they will view a film. Film critics frequently receive invitations to early viewings of movies before the movies are available to all of the moviegoers who aren't film critics, and viewing films at early points in time allows
1309-520: A few movies, including Hiroshima Mon Amour , 8½ , and Last Year in Marienbad , stating that she is "perversely literal-minded" and comments upon "her ascetic insensibility to the sensual pleasures of cinema...when she dislikes the literary content." When Kael ponders in the book "it [is] difficult to understand why Dwight Macdonald with his dedication to high art sacrifices his time to them," Macdonald contends that he has always considered movies to be
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#17331109409691428-493: A film critic before taking up screenwriting and directing full time. Derek Malcolm , who worked for several decades as a film critic for The Guardian , said: "If a director was praised by Kael, he or she was generally allowed to work, since the money-men knew there would be similar approbation across a wide field of publications". Alternately, Kael was said to have had the power to prevent filmmakers from working; David Lean said that her criticism of his work "kept him from making
1547-463: A film critic must enjoy the movies that they are criticizing. In this specific regard, a film critic must also want to make their reviews persuade other people watch the movies that the film critic has criticized. In the academic field of films and cinema, several studies involving research have discovered a positive connection between film critics evaluating films and how well the films perform with audience members. Also, studies involving research in
1666-626: A film should be considered a collaborative effort. In " Raising Kane ", she argues that Citizen Kane relies extensively on the distinctive talents of Mankiewicz and cinematographer Gregg Toland . Kael had a taste for antihero films that violate taboos involving sex and violence; this reportedly alienated some of her readers. But she panned Midnight Cowboy (1969), the X-rated antihero film that won an Oscar for Best Picture . She also strongly disliked films she felt were manipulative or appealed in superficial ways to conventional attitudes and feelings. She
1785-714: A film's suitability for children. Others focus on a religious perspective (e.g. CAP Alert). Still others highlight more esoteric subjects such as the depiction of science in fiction films. One such example is Insultingly Stupid Movie Physics by Intuitor . Some online niche websites provide comprehensive coverage of the independent sector; usually adopting a style closer to print journalism. They tend to prohibit advertisement and offer uncompromising opinions free of any commercial interest. Their film critics normally have an academic film background. The Online Film Critics Society , an international professional association of Internet-based cinema reviewers, consists of writers from all over
1904-416: A forum that permitted her to write at length—and with minimal editorial interference—thereby achieving her greatest prominence. By 1968, Time magazine called her "one of the country's top movie critics". In 1970, Kael received a George Polk Award for her work as a critic at The New Yorker . She continued to publish collections of her writing with suggestive titles such as Kiss Kiss Bang Bang , When
2023-449: A great critic. She reinvented the form, and pioneered an entire aesthetic of writing." Kael was born to Isaac Paul Kael and Judith Kael (née Friedman), Jewish immigrants from Poland , on a chicken farm among other Jewish chicken farmers, in Petaluma , California. Her siblings were Louis (1906), Philip (1909), Annie (1912), and Rose (1913). Her parents lost their farm when Kael was eight, and
2142-511: A group of young, mostly male critics, some of whom emulated her distinctive writing style. Referred to derisively as the "Paulettes", they dominated national film criticism in the 1990s. Critics who have acknowledged Kael's influence include, among many others, A. O. Scott of The New York Times , David Denby and Anthony Lane of The New Yorker , David Edelstein of New York Magazine , Greil Marcus , Elvis Mitchell , Michael Sragow , Armond White , and Stephanie Zacharek of Salon . It
2261-574: A growing belief in the film industry that critic aggregators (especially Rotten Tomatoes ) are increasing the collective influence of film critics. The underperformance of several films in 2017 was blamed on their low scores on Rotten Tomatoes. This has led to studies such as one commissioned by 20th Century Fox claiming that younger viewers give the website more credibility than the major studio marketing , which undercuts its effectiveness. Today, fan-run film analysis websites like Box Office Prophets, CineBee and Box Office Guru routinely factor more into
2380-404: A high art. This, in a way, highlights the differences in their perspectives on movies: Pauline Kael sees movies as a fusion of pop and art elements (a mixture of lowbrow and highbrow), while Macdonald sees it in more highbrow terms. On the whole, Macdonald seems to respect her critical acumen, but not her methods. A more adverse reaction comes from the auteurist Andrew Sarris, mainly as a result of
2499-440: A little naive, and irrelevant - because they see it as a greater, or lesser, manifestation of the mystery, the godhead of Cinema. Nevertheless, Macdonald goes on to say that some of the quotes that Kael utilizes in her reviews are often used incorrectly especially in regards to him, creating a distorted view of the opinions he had on certain movies such as Jules and Jim . He also questions the validity of some of her assessments of
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#17331109409692618-543: A manifesto proclaiming cinema to be the "Sixth Art" (later "Seventh Art"). For many decades after, film was still being accorded less prestige than longer-established art forms. In Sweden, serious film criticism was spearheaded by Bengt Idestam-Almquist , whom the Swedish Film Institute has called the father of Swedish film criticism . By the 1920s, critics were analyzing film for its merit and value, and as more than just entertainment. The growing popularity of
2737-468: A mass form like the movies." In January 2000, filmmaker Michael Moore posted a recollection of Kael's response to his 1989 documentary film Roger & Me . Moore wrote that Kael was incensed that she had to watch Roger & Me in a cinema after Moore refused to send her a tape for her to watch at home, and she resented Roger & Me winning Best Documentary at the 55th New York Film Critics Circle Awards . Moore said: two weeks later, she wrote
2856-682: A more positive influence on the climate for film in America than any other single person over the last three decades". Kael, he said, "had no theory, no rules, no guidelines, no objective standards. You couldn't apply her 'approach' to a film. With her it was all personal." In a blurb for The Age of Movies , a collection of her writings for the Library of America, Ebert wrote that "Like George Bernard Shaw , she wrote reviews that will be read for their style, humor and energy long after some of their subjects have been forgotten." Owen Gleiberman said she "was more than
2975-508: A movie for 14 years" (referring to the 14-year break between Ryan's Daughter in 1970 and A Passage to India in 1984). In 1978, Kael received the Women in Film Crystal Award for outstanding women who, through their endurance and the excellence of their work, have helped to expand the role of women in the entertainment industry. In his 1998 film Willow , George Lucas named one of
3094-488: A nasty, mean review of my film in The New Yorker . It was OK with me that she didn't like the film, and it didn't bother me that she didn't like the point I was making, or even how I was making it. What was so incredibly appalling and shocking is how she printed outright lies about my movie. I had never experienced such a brazen, bald-faced barrage of disinformation. She tried to rewrite history.... Her complete fabrication of
3213-481: A score to each in order to gauge the general reception a film receives. Another aggregator is the Movie Review Query Engine , which is a large data storage on the internet that stores interviews, reviews about movies, news, and other kinds of materials that pertain to specific films. These areas of storage are not intended to help people find specific films or movie content that has aired on television, but
3332-401: A selective amount of German movies. Barry also wrote film criticisms for French movies that were made as experiments. Barry wrote film criticisms with a critical amount of analysis. Judith Crist and Pauline Kael were two of the most influential film critics of the 1960s and 1970s. The Internet led to a decline in jobs at small newspapers where women were more likely to review films, whereas
3451-461: A similar format. They usually include summaries of the plot of the film to either refresh the plot to the reader or reinforce an idea of repetition in the film's genre. After this, there tends to be discussions about the cultural context, major themes and repetitions, and details about the legacy of the film. Academic film criticism, or film studies can also be taught in academia, and is featured in many California colleges because they are located near
3570-478: A staple among most print media. As the decades passed, some critics gained fame, and a few became household names, among them James Agee , Andrew Sarris , Pauline Kael , and more recently Roger Ebert and Peter Travers . The film industry also got the chance to see that sound was able to influence how people behaved in movie theaters. When people spoke or made other kinds of sounds, they would be causing disruptions that created difficulties for people to listen to
3689-454: A stint from 1966 to 1967 at The New Republic , whose editors continually altered her writing without her permission. In October 1967, Kael wrote a long essay on Bonnie and Clyde that the magazine declined to publish. William Shawn of The New Yorker obtained the piece and ran it in the New Yorker issue of October 21. Kael's rave review was at odds with prevailing opinion, which was that
Pauline Kael - Misplaced Pages Continue
3808-443: A theater I can feel them." A New York Times article about the lecture quoted this. Kael was subsequently misquoted as having said, "I can't believe Nixon won. I don't know anyone who voted for him" or something that similarly expressed surprise at the election result. This misquotation became an urban legend , and has been cited by conservatives (such as Bernard Goldberg , in his 2001 book Bias ) as an example of insularity among
3927-399: A traditional style. Writing about academic films puts emphasis on generalized statements that can be verified. Writing academic films also involves film critics preferring to view films that are typical, instead of viewing films that are bizarre. That is because ordinary kinds of films can be reviewed with generalized statements that can be verified. There have been many complaints against
4046-472: A wisecrack Kael made about the gay-themed The Children's Hour : "I always thought this was why lesbians needed sympathy—that there isn't much they can do." Seligman has defended Kael, saying that these remarks showed "enough ease with the topic to be able to crack jokes—in a dark period when other reviewers ... 'felt that if homosexuality were not a crime it would spread. ' " Kael rejected the accusations as "craziness", adding, "I don't see how anybody who took
4165-435: A woman would get into". Byron, who "hit the ceiling" after reading the review, was joined by The Celluloid Closet author Vito Russo , who argued that Kael equated promiscuity with homosexuality, "as though straight women have never been promiscuous or been given the permission to be promiscuous". In response to her review of Rich and Famous , several critics reappraised Kael's earlier reviews of gay-themed films, including
4284-422: A year's leave of absence working in the film industry. Initially, many considered Kael's colloquial, brash writing style an odd fit with the sophisticated and genteel New Yorker . Kael remembered "getting a letter from an eminent The New Yorker writer suggesting that I was trampling through the pages of the magazine with cowboy boots covered with dung". During her tenure at The New Yorker , she took advantage of
4403-531: Is a fascist work of art". In her review of Stanley Kubrick 's A Clockwork Orange (1971), Kael wrote that she felt some directors who used brutal imagery were desensitizing audiences to violence: At the movies, we are gradually being conditioned to accept violence as a sensual pleasure. The directors used to say they were showing us its real face and how ugly it was in order to sensitize us to its horrors. You don't have to be very keen to see that they are now in fact de-sensitizing us. They are saying that everyone
4522-913: Is also associated with structuralism, which involves controlling a situation in an attempt to make it be coherent, and all the aspects of a situation are assumed to be in a structured order. Academic film criticism tackles many aspects of film making and production as well as distribution. These disciplines include camera work, digitalization, lighting, and sound. Narratives, dialogues, themes, and genres are among many other things that academic film critics take into consideration and evaluate when engaging in critique. Some notable academic film critics include André Bazin , Jean-Luc Godard and François Truffaut (all writers for Cahiers du Cinéma ); Kristin Thompson , David Bordwell , and Sergei Eisenstein . Godard, Truffaut and Eisenstein were also film directors. The critics that participated in academic film criticism during
4641-440: Is also associated with the cultural type of criticism, which is also referred to as academic criticism, and academic criticism is able to primarily make interpretations of films from the viewpoint of directors while the interpretations place emphasis on parallels that films have with previous works that were deemed to be of high quality. Film was introduced in the late 19th century. The earliest artistic criticism of film emerged in
4760-467: Is also associated with the journalistic type of criticism, which is grounded in the media's effects being developed, and journalistic criticism resides in standard structures such as newspapers. Journal articles pertaining to films served as representatives for the film critics who desired to increase the amount of communication about movies to a high degree that ascended above content that was normally featured in popular publications. The critics who work in
4879-402: Is analytical and thorough with detail. The third way in how film critics are able to write criticisms that involve critical discussions containing rationality involves critics making blatant statements that are scientific in regards to the workings of films, and how the films are able to affect people. In fact, viewers can watch films to see if they are affected by the movies in the same way that
Pauline Kael - Misplaced Pages Continue
4998-539: Is associated with formalism, which involves visual aspects and the rules regarding how they are organized as if they were forms of artwork. Formalism also involves stages of development occurring in an orderly manner, such as learning easy instructions before learning difficult ones. Stages of development in formalism also involved organized stages of development that are orderly, and one example involves people learning simple instructions before they have to follow instructions that involve complexity. Academic film criticism
5117-549: Is brutal, and the heroes must be as brutal as the villains or they turn into fools. There seems to be an assumption that if you're offended by movie brutality, you are somehow playing into the hands of the people who want censorship. But this would deny those of us who don't believe in censorship the use of the only counterbalance: the freedom of the press to say that there's anything conceivably damaging in these films—the freedom to analyze their implications. If we don't use this critical freedom, we are implicitly saying that no brutality
5236-459: Is notably referred to in Macdonald's book Dwight Macdonald On Movies (1969). When an interviewer asked her in later years as to what she had "lost", as indicated in the title, Kael averred, "There are so many kinds of innocence to be lost at the movies." It is the first of Kael's books titled with deliberately erotic connotations, typifying the sensual relation Kael perceived herself as having with
5355-399: Is that it is written from the outside. The trouble with most film criticism today is that it isn't criticism. It is, rather, appreciation, celebration, information, and it is written by intellectuals who have come to be "insiders" in the sense that they are able to discourse learnedly about almost any movie without thinking much about whether it's any good - the very question must strike them as
5474-400: Is the creation of documentaries on nature and films that are about wild creatures. Film critics are able to be influencers in the circumstances of persuading moviegoers to view or not view in the beginning weeks of movies being available for people to view them. Research has found that negative and positive film reviews are connected to the amounts of money that films earn in box offices over
5593-469: Is to help readers decide whether they want to see a particular film. A film review will typically explain the premise of the film before discussing its merits or flaws. The verdict is often summarized using a rating system, such as 5- or 4-star scales , academic-style grades, and pictograms (such as those used by the San Francisco Chronicle ). Film reviews are created with the purposes of making
5712-421: Is too much for us—that only squares and people who believe in censorship are concerned with brutality. In his preface to a 1983 interview with Kael for the gay magazine Mandate , Sam Staggs wrote: "she has always carried on a love/hate affair with her gay legions. ... like the bitchiest queen in gay mythology, she has a sharp remark about everything". But in the early 1980s, largely in response to her review of
5831-417: Is very surprising." Kael battled the editors of the New Yorker as much as her own critics. She fought with Shawn to review the 1972 pornographic film Deep Throat , eventually relenting. According to Kael, after reading her unfavorable review of Terrence Malick 's 1973 film Badlands , Shawn said, "I guess you didn't know that Terry is like a son to me." Kael responded, "Tough shit, Bill", and her review
5950-514: The Massachusetts Review , Sight and Sound , Film Culture , Film Quarterly and Partisan Review . It contains her negative review of the then-widely acclaimed West Side Story , glowing reviews of other movies such as The Golden Coach and Seven Samurai , and longer polemical essays such as her largely negative critical responses to Siegfried Kracauer 's Theory of Film and Andrew Sarris 's Film Culture essay " Notes on
6069-572: The Sarris-Kael feud . The book actually does not contain the full range of Kael's writings published in magazines from this period. From 1962–64, Kael had written for a short-lived section of Film Quarterly entitled Films of the Quarter , alongside other critics such as Stanley Kauffmann and the screenwriter Gavin Lambert . Some, but not all, of these writings are included in this book. In reference to
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#17331109409696188-438: The liberal elite . The misquotation has also been attributed to other writers, such as Joan Didion . As soon as she began writing for The New Yorker , Kael greatly influenced her fellow critics. In the early 1970s, Cinerama distributors "initiate[d] a policy of individual screenings for each critic because her remarks [during the film] were affecting her fellow critics". In the 1970s and 1980s, Kael cultivated friendships with
6307-569: The 1981 drama Rich and Famous , Kael faced notable accusations of homophobia . First remarked upon by Stuart Byron in The Village Voice , according to gay writer Craig Seligman , the accusations eventually "took on a life of their own and did real damage to her reputation". In her review, Kael called the straight-themed Rich and Famous "more like a homosexual fantasy", saying that one female character's "affairs, with their masochistic overtones, are creepy, because they don't seem like what
6426-476: The Auteur Theory, 1962 ". The book was a bestseller upon its first release and is now published by Marion Boyars Publishers . Kael's first book is characterized by an approach in which she would often quote contemporary critics such as Bosley Crowther and Dwight Macdonald as a springboard to debunk their assertions while advancing her own ideas. This approach was later abandoned in her subsequent reviews, but
6545-550: The Influence ("murky, ragmop"), The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner , most experimental cinema (calling it "a creature of publicity and mutual congratulations on artistry"), most student films ("freshmen compositions"), It's a Wonderful Life , Shoah ("logy and exhausting"), Dances with Wolves ("a nature boy movie"), and 2001: A Space Odyssey ("monumentally unimaginative"). Her opinions' originality and
6664-571: The Lights Go Down , and Taking It All In . Her fourth collection, Deeper into Movies (1973), won the U.S. National Book Award in the Arts and Letters category . It was the first nonfiction book about film to win a National Book Award. Kael also wrote philosophical essays on movie-going, the modern Hollywood film industry, and what she saw as the lack of courage on the part of audiences to explore lesser-known, more challenging movies (she rarely used
6783-407: The Movies I Lost It at the Movies is a 1965 compendium of movie reviews written by Pauline Kael , later a film critic from The New Yorker , from 1954 to 1965. The book was published prior to Kael's long stint at The New Yorker ; as a result, the pieces in the book are culled from radio broadcasts that she did while she was at KPFA , as well as numerous periodicals, including Moviegoer ,
6902-494: The age of 82. Kael's opinions often ran contrary to her fellow critics'. Occasionally, she championed films considered critical failures, such as The Warriors and Last Tango in Paris . She was not especially cruel to some films that many critics deplored—such as the 1972 Man of La Mancha (she praised Sophia Loren 's performance). She panned some films that had widespread critical admiration, such as Network , A Woman Under
7021-479: The artwork highlight social justice issues? Does it adequately meet Equality and Diversity briefs? Is the artwork, in one of the words of the age, problematic ?" As of 2021, movie critics earned a yearly average salary of $ 63,474. As of 2013, American film critics earned about US$ 82,000 a year. Newspaper and magazine critics made $ 27,364-$ 49,574. Online movie critics earned $ 2-$ 200 per review. TV critics made up to $ 40,000-$ 60,000 per month. I Lost It at
7140-460: The author. Another challenge in film criticism pertains to film critics being pressured into writing reviews that are hasty, since users of the internet will give their attention to other topics if film critics do not post movie reviews quickly. Community-driven review sites, that allow internet users to submit personal movie reviews, have allowed the common movie goer to express their opinion on films. Many of these sites allow users to rate films on
7259-796: The characters, movie plots, and the directors be known in detailed descriptions to influence audience members into deciding if films need to be viewed or be ignored. Some well-known journalistic critics are James Agee ( Time , The Nation ); Vincent Canby ( The New York Times ); Roger Ebert ( Chicago Sun-Times ); Mark Kermode (BBC, The Observer ); James Berardinelli ; Philip French ( The Observer ); Pauline Kael ( The New Yorker ); Manny Farber ( The New Republic , Time , The Nation ); Peter Bradshaw ( The Guardian ); Michael Phillips ( Chicago Tribune ); Andrew Sarris ( The Village Voice ); Joel Siegel ( Good Morning America ); Jonathan Rosenbaum ( Chicago Reader ); and Christy Lemire ( What The Flick?! ). Roger Ebert and Gene Siskel popularised
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#17331109409697378-601: The conversations that were occurring in films. Audience members changed how they behaved in movie theaters, since they would shush people as a way of communicating the messages related to telling other people that they needed to be silent. By keeping themselves in silence, audience members such as film critics were able to make all of their attention be on the movies that they were watching. Film critics working for newspapers , magazines , broadcast media , and online publications mainly review new releases, although they also review older films. An important task for these reviews
7497-413: The critical response to the 2015 film The Intern , which received mixed reviews from critics: The critical response to The Intern was fascinating. There's a subset of male critics that clearly see Nancy Meyers as code for chick flick and react with according bile. What's very interesting, though, is that I think female critics, working in an industry that is coded as very male, if not macho, often feel
7616-779: The different review sites, even though there are certain movies that are well-rated (or poorly-rated) across the board. Research has found that moviegoers are inclined to leave reviews for films that are not available in movie theaters, and the amount of reviews will decrease as the films earn more money each week. When the amount of money that films earn in movie theaters is increasing, the expected quantity of movie reviews that were posted at prior points in time also increases. This ends up making individuals experience increases in their desires to write movie reviews about films that are earning high quantities of money. When movies are given high ratings, those high ratings are able to persuade viewers of movies to watch other films that share aspects of
7735-473: The early 1900s. The first paper to serve as a critique of the film came out of The Optical Lantern and Cinematograph Journal , followed by the Bioscope in 1908. Film is a relatively new form of art, in comparison to music , literature and painting which have existed since ancient times. Early writing on film sought to argue that films could also be considered a form of art. In 1911, Ricciotto Canudo wrote
7854-431: The editor of City Lights magazine , overheard Kael arguing about films in a coffeeshop with a friend and asked her to review Charlie Chaplin 's Limelight . Kael dubbed the film "Slimelight" and began publishing film criticism regularly in magazines. Kael later said of her writing: "I worked to loosen my style—to get away from the term-paper pomposity that we learn at college. I wanted the sentences to breathe, to have
7973-617: The essay '" Circles and Squares ", which was originally published in Film Quarterly . Sarris's reaction was in response to Kael's denunciation of the Auteur theory's merits, and has, in later years, occasionally jabbed at Kael's work. Examples of his critical observations are available in his books, e.g., The Primal Screen and Politics and Cinema . With the exception of "Circles and Squares", Kael has rarely responded. Notwithstanding Kael's unresponsive silence, this has gone down in film lore as
8092-476: The existences of movie critics who had respect for films, and those new film critics sought to make film criticism be a respected job. In the 1940s, new forms of criticism emerged. Essays analyzing films were written with a distinctive charm and style, and sought to persuade the reader to accept the critic's argument. This trend brought film criticism into the mainstream, gaining the attention of many popular magazines; this eventually made film reviews and critiques
8211-489: The fact that criticisms cannot communicate messages for forms of artwork, and only the artworks can communicate their messages. The second way in how film critics are able to write criticisms that involve critical discussions containing rationality involves critics analyzing their reasons for not liking specific movies, and critics must discover if they dislike movies for the same criteria that caused them to initially dislike specific movies. That requires utilizing criticism that
8330-433: The fact that the industry related to film even attempted to use intimidation as a way of making movie critics cease with reviewing films. In the year of 1948, a critic named Eileen Arnot Robertson was forcibly removed from her job as a critic. Despite the fact that she filed a lawsuit against the film industry, the film industry said that Robertson's firing did not occur out of maliciousness. These difficult challenges led to
8449-649: The facts was so weird, so out there, so obviously made-up, that my first response was this must be a humor piece she had written.... But, of course, she wasn't writing comedy. She was a deadly serious historical revisionist. Kael's career is discussed at length in the 2009 documentary For the Love of Movies by critics whose careers she helped shape, such as Owen Gleiberman and Elvis Mitchell , as well as by those who fought with her, such as Andrew Sarris . The film also shows several of Kael's appearances on PBS , including one alongside Woody Allen . In 2011, Brian Kellow published
8568-461: The family moved to San Francisco, where Kael attended Girls High School . In 1936 she matriculated at the University of California, Berkeley , where she studied philosophy, literature, and art. She dropped out in 1940. Kael had intended to go to law school, but fell in with a group of artists and moved to New York City with the poet Robert Horan . Three years later, Kael returned to Berkeley and "led
8687-418: The fields of films and cinema have discovered a connection between film critics evaluating films and audience members having interests or no interests in viewing those films. Based in the perspective of an audience member, a review serves as more than an object that is useful for making decisions. Listening to a review from a critic, watching a critic's review, and reading a critic's review are all ways in which
8806-599: The film critics to write film reviews that are influential to other moviegoers. Film critics have access to information regarding the earliest phases of films, unlike the public, and the earliest phases of films are when film critics are the only reliable sources of information pertaining to the movies that will be in theaters. Research has also displayed the fact that film critics desire to give moviegoers encouragement towards viewing films that are worth viewing while they also display innovation, instead of viewing movies that are simplistic. However, in recent years, there has been
8925-595: The film critics were affected by them. The fourth way in how film critics are able to write criticisms that involve critical discussions containing rationality involves critics being less arrogant when they want they perceptions of films to be talked about, and critics must be aware of criticisms that have been published. The critics who want to argue must base their arguments in criticisms that have been stated by other critics. The fourth way in how film critics are able to write criticisms that involve critical discussions containing rationality pertains to critics moving away from
9044-457: The film was completed, in an attempt to prevent the studio from recutting the film and to catapult it to box-office success. Kael was an opponent of the auteur theory , criticizing it both in her reviews and in interviews. She preferred to analyze films without thinking about the director's other works. Andrew Sarris , a key proponent of the theory, debated it with Kael in the pages of The New Yorker and various film magazines. Kael argued that
9163-421: The film was inconsistent, blending comedy and violence. According to critic David Thomson , "she was right about a film that had bewildered many other critics." A few months after the essay ran, Kael quit The New Republic "in despair". In 1968, Shawn asked her to join The New Yorker staff; she alternated as film critic every six months with Penelope Gilliatt until 1979, and became the sole critic in 1980 after
9282-502: The film-criticism industry for its underrepresentation of women. A study of the top critics on Rotten Tomatoes shows that 91 per cent of writers for movie or entertainment magazines and websites are men, as are 90 per cent of those for trade publications, 80 per cent of critics for general interest magazines like Time , and 70 per cent of reviewers for radio formats such as NPR . Writing for The Atlantic , Kate Kilkenny argued that women were better represented in film criticism before
9401-422: The forceful way she expressed them won her ardent supporters and angry detractors. Kael's reviews included a pan of West Side Story (1961) that drew harsh replies from its fans; ecstatic reviews of Z and MASH that enormously boosted their popularity; and enthusiastic appraisals of Brian De Palma 's early films. Her "preview" of Robert Altman 's film Nashville appeared in print several months before
9520-407: The form of a montage, then the films are artwork. The second film theory is that films are related to reality. Bazin 's philosophy involves movies being connected to the real world, which is reality. Green film criticism is defined as eco-cinecriticism. This pertains to the specific film critics who are interested in environmental types of films. The cinematic counterpart to writings about nature
9639-405: The form of a review; instead it is more likely to analyse the film and its place in the history of its genre, the industry and film history as a whole. Film criticism is also labeled as a type of writing that perceives films as possible achievements and wishes to convey their differences, as well as the films being made in a level of quality that is satisfactory or unsatisfactory. Film criticism
9758-513: The home of the United States film industry: Hollywood . Some of these colleges include University of California, Davis , University of California, Berkeley , University of California, Los Angeles , Stanford University , as well as many other colleges across the world. Academic criticism is typically divided and taught in the form of many different disciplines that tackle critique in different manors. These can include: Academic film criticism
9877-424: The idea that artwork such as a film shall have clear meanings. Instead, critics must view artwork such as films to be the results of working hard, many hours of thinking, and ideas being compromised for meanings to not be clear. This research concludes that film critics must repeatedly view films as a way of studying them, if they desire to write thorough reviews on those particular films. Secondly, film critics have
9996-588: The man with whom I had quarreled had gone the same night and had also emerged in tears. Yet our tears for each other, and for Shoeshine , did not bring us together. Life, as Shoeshine demonstrates, is too complex for facile endings. Kael broadcast many of her early reviews on Berkeley's alternative public radio station KPFA , and in 1955 she married Edward Landberg, the owner of the Berkeley Cinema-Guild and Studio. Their marriage soon ended in divorce, but he agreed to pay for Gina's heart surgery, and made Kael
10115-402: The manager of the cinema in 1955, a position she held until 1960. In that role, she programmed the films at the two-screen facility, "unapologetically repeat[ing] her favorites until they also became audience favorites". She also wrote "pungent" capsule reviews of the films, which her patrons began collecting. Kael continued to juggle writing with other work until she received an offer to publish
10234-595: The media are normally commissionaires who affect culture, since the judgments and choices of critics have the effect of influencing what audience members perceive about objects that are supplied to them, and critics are also able to influence how the audience members choose to think about objects that are supplied to them. In the current era of history, film criticism is rich in having digital devices that allow films to be analyzed through visual and auditory methods that involve critical strategies of creativity that allow people to become immersed in film criticism. Film criticism
10353-404: The medium caused major newspapers to start hiring film critics. In the 1930s, the film industry saw audiences grow increasingly silent as films were now accompanied by sound. However, in the late 1930s audiences became influenced by print news sources reporting on movies and criticism became largely centered around audience reactions within the theaters. In the decades of the 1930s and the 1940s,
10472-404: The more male-dominated jobs at major newspapers survived better. The Internet also encouraged a growth in niche review websites that were even more male-dominated than older media. Kilkenny also suggested that the shortage of female critics was related to the shortage of female opinion columnists. Clem Bastow, culture writer at The Guardian Australia , discussed the possible effects of this on
10591-811: The movies that viewers prefer to see. The explanations for why movies are given high ratings are able to reach online groups of people who watch movies, and the explanations for movies having high ratings are explained through the usage of reviews that are posted in those online groups. More often known as film theory or film studies , academic critique explores cinema beyond journalistic film reviews. These film critics try to examine why film works, how it works aesthetically or politically, what it means, and what effects it has on people. Rather than write for mass-market publications their articles are usually published in scholarly journals and texts which tend to be affiliated with university presses; or sometimes in up-market magazines. Most academic criticism of film often follows
10710-795: The movies, as opposed to the theoretical bent that some among her colleagues had. The book is divided into an introduction and four sections. These sections are entitled as such: I) Broadsides; II) Retrospective Reviews: Movies Remembered with Pleasure; III) Broadcasts and Reviews, 1961–1963; and IV) Polemics. The introduction is entitled "Zeitgeist and Poltergeist; Or, Are Movies Going to Pieces?" The contents of Section One (Broadsides): Movies reviewed in Section Two (Retrospective Reviews): Movies reviewed and titles of articles in Section Three (Broadcasts and Reviews): Contents of Section Four (Polemics): In Dwight Macdonald On Movies , Macdonald includes
10829-498: The need to go hard on certain films for women, presumably because they worry that they'll be dismissed, critically speaking, if they praise a film like The Intern as though they're only reviewing it favorably because they're women. Matt Reynolds of Wired pointed out that "men tend to look much more favorably on films with more masculine themes, or male leading actors." On online review sites such as IMDb , this leads to skewed, imbalanced review results as 70 per cent of reviewers on
10948-763: The next 10 years, she published no new work except an introduction to her 1994 compendium For Keeps . In the introduction (which was reprinted in The New Yorker ), Kael wrote: "I'm frequently asked why I don't write my memoirs. I think I have". Though she published nothing new, Kael was not averse to giving interviews, occasionally giving her opinion on new films and television shows. In a 1998 interview with Modern Maturity , she said she sometimes regretted not being able to review: "A few years ago, when I saw Vanya on 42nd Street , I wanted to blow trumpets. Your trumpets are gone once you've quit." She died at her home in Great Barrington, Massachusetts , on September 3, 2001, at
11067-458: The opinions of the general public on films produced. Research says that academic studies pertaining to films had a thorough histiography pertaining to films, which also included different styles of films throughout history. However, the academic studies almost made film criticism reach its end. The academic type of writing pertaining to films had created knowledge, which ended up appearing in areas that had been useful for writing film criticisms in
11186-754: The practice of reviewing films via a television program, in the show Siskel & Ebert At the Movies , which became syndicated in the 1980s. Both critics had established their careers in print media, and continued to write reviews for newspapers during the run of their television show. Research says that there are ways in how film critics are able to write criticisms that involve critical discussions containing rationality. When critics are looking for film criticisms that are factual, they must not behave with excessive optimism or be too demanding. Creations and criticisms are activities that humans participate in, and these activities cannot be substituted out for an objective list of morals to be utilized. Humans are restrained by
11305-592: The press had dubbed it "The Sound of Money", she called the film's message a "sugarcoated lie that people seem to want to eat". According to legend, this review got her fired from McCall's ( The New York Times said as much in Kael's obituary), but Kael and the magazine's editor, Robert Stein, denied this. According to Stein, he fired her "months later, after she kept panning every commercial movie from Lawrence of Arabia and Dr. Zhivago to The Pawnbroker and A Hard Day's Night ." Kael's dismissal from McCall's led to
11424-458: The review is useful to an audience member. The critic's review is able to be referenced in conversations where audience members communicate with other individuals, and audience members can communicate messages about the artistic film that was critically examined or connect the criticism to problems that occur in society. Websites such as Rotten Tomatoes and Metacritic seek to improve the usefulness of film reviews by compiling them and assigning
11543-653: The rise of the Internet. In the past, when film was considered less prestigious than visual art and literature, it was easier for women to break into film criticism. In the year 1929, Iris Barry was a female film critic from Britain. When Barry lived in London, she earned money from being a writer for magazines, a newspaper, and periodical articles. Barry wrote film criticisms that discussed films that were made in Britain, films that were made in America, and Barry only wrote film criticisms on
11662-517: The shooting script in The Citizen Kane Book , "Raising Kane" was first printed in two consecutive issues of The New Yorker . The essay extended Kael's dispute of the auteur theory , arguing that Herman J. Mankiewicz , the screenplay's coauthor, was virtually its sole author and the film's actual guiding force. Kael further alleged that Orson Welles had schemed to deprive Mankiewicz of screen credit. Welles considered suing Kael for libel . He
11781-548: The site are men. A study using Johanson analysis was used evaluate the representation of women in 270 films. Johanson complied statistics for the year 2015 on how having a female protagonist affected a movie, with the following results: James Harris, writing for The Critic , argued that "Previously engaging review sites such as Vox , The Guardian and The Onion AV Club have all become The World Social Justice Website , and they are now assessing works in all disciplines in line with wider social justice criteria. Does
11900-420: The site in order to submit reviews. This means that they are a form of open access poll , and have the same advantages and disadvantages; notably, there is no guarantee that they will be a representative sample of the film's audience. In some cases, online review sites have produced wildly differing results to scientific polling of audiences. Likewise, reviews and ratings for many movies can greatly differ between
12019-500: The sound effects or images from the other films to be used in criticizing the sounds or images that pertain to the YouTube clips that are being criticized. Film critics are also reviewers who are amateurs on websites such as IMDb. Also, many postings from amateur film critics are on IMDb. Some websites specialize in narrow aspects of film reviewing. For instance, there are sites that focus on specific content advisories for parents to judge
12138-437: The sound of a human voice." She disparaged the supposed critic's ideal of objectivity, calling it "saphead objectivity", and incorporated aspects of autobiography into her criticism. In a review of Vittorio De Sica 's 1946 film Shoeshine that has been ranked among her most memorable, Kael described seeing the film after one of those terrible lovers' quarrels that leave one in a state of incomprehensible despair. I came out of
12257-610: The storages are able to help people find reliable film criticisms that can be used as readings for students. Blogs are a good example to view in relation to how the internet has grown to where social networks and live chats exist alongside websites such as YouTube where people can post their own content. That is because blogging has created new ways for people to make themselves engage with cinematic movies. People who engage themselves with movies choose to participate in various forms of film criticism by using video or DVD clips from YouTube that are placed alongside parts of other films for
12376-505: The task of making sure that they are highly informed about the film and film critics are also responsible for initiating the discussions about the films. Film critics are also responsible for knowing the creators of the films. Thirdly, film critics must blatantly state their own biases and preferences without associating them with any theories. Fourthly, film critics must appreciate the films that are given positive criticisms and film critics must not be ungrateful towards those films. Finally,
12495-490: The theater, tears streaming, and overheard the petulant voice of a college girl complaining to her boyfriend, "Well I don't see what was so special about that movie." I walked up the street, crying blindly, no longer certain whether my tears were for the tragedy on the screen, the hopelessness I felt for myself, or the alienation I felt from those who could not experience the radiance of Shoeshine . For if people cannot feel Shoeshine, what can they feel? ... Later I learned that
12614-469: The title of the book, the critic Jonathan Rosenbaum wrote an article entitled "I Missed It at the Movies: Objections to Raising Kane " as a rebuttal to Kael's essay on Citizen Kane , which had been entitled " Raising Kane ". In Lemony Snicket: The Unauthorized Autobiography , the book is referenced under the parody title I Lost Something at the Movies , and a short snippet of the made-up book
12733-555: The trouble to check out what I've actually written about movies with homosexual elements in them could believe that stuff." In December 1972, a month after U.S. President Richard Nixon was reelected in a landslide , Kael gave a lecture at the Modern Language Association during which she said: "I live in a rather special world. I only know one person who voted for Nixon. Where they [Nixon's other supporters] are I don't know. They're outside my ken. But sometimes when I'm in
12852-453: The type of criticism pertaining to films had to overcome some difficult challenges. The first difficult challenge involves how film criticism in the 1930s decade did not have any stable foundations to reside on, and film criticism also involved critics having vocabularies that were limited. During the 1930s, the jobs of critics weren't perceived to be great and critics did not earn high wages for their work. The next difficult challenge involves
12971-577: The value of such reviews, and stated he never read any other reviews of his films after that. Film criticism Film criticism is the analysis and evaluation of films and the film medium. In general, film criticism can be divided into two categories: Academic criticism by film scholars , who study the composition of film theory and publish their findings and essays in books and journals, and general journalistic criticism that appears regularly in press newspapers , magazines and other popular mass-media outlets. Academic film criticism rarely takes
13090-553: The villains "General Kael" after her. Kael had often reviewed Lucas's work unenthusiastically; in her review of Willow , she called the character an " hommage à moi ". Though he began directing films after she retired, Quentin Tarantino was also influenced by Kael. He read her criticism voraciously while growing up and said that Kael was "as influential as any director was in helping me develop my aesthetic". Wes Anderson recounted his efforts to screen his film Rushmore for Kael in
13209-457: The word "film" because she felt it was too elitist). Among her more popular essays were a damning 1973 review of Norman Mailer 's semi-fictional Marilyn: a Biography (an account of Marilyn Monroe 's life); an incisive 1975 look at Cary Grant 's career; and " Raising Kane " (1971), a book-length essay on the authorship of the film Citizen Kane that was the longest piece of sustained writing she had yet done. Commissioned as an introduction to
13328-563: The world, while New York Film Critics Online members handle reviews in the New York tri-state area. Online film criticism has provided online film critics with challenges related to journalism's purpose changing on the internet. For example, critics must contend with the drawback of too many critics being online to the extent of preventing critics from writing original statements. Critics can write original statements online, but there are websites that will steal their ideas and not give credit to
13447-485: The writer's temperament or approach". Asked in 1998 whether she thought her criticism had affected the way films were made, Kael deflected the question, saying, "If I say yes, I'm an egotist, and if I say no, I've wasted my life". Several directors' careers were profoundly affected by her, most notably that of Taxi Driver screenwriter Paul Schrader , who was accepted at UCLA Film School 's graduate program on Kael's recommendation. Under her mentorship, Schrader worked as
13566-502: The years between 2002 and 2006 had written reviews pertaining to the fact that they disapproved of modern films that were in the horror genre. In the year 2002, a critic named Reynold Humphries made his own discussion in The American Horror Film reach its end when he said that the horror genre's films were not good, and Humphries also stated that films in the horror genre weren't enjoyable. A critic named Kendall Phillips wrote
13685-527: Was defended by critics, scholars and friends, including Peter Bogdanovich , who rebutted Kael's claims in a 1972 article that included the revelation that Kael had appropriated the extensive research of a UCLA faculty member without crediting him. Woody Allen said of Kael: "She has everything that a great critic needs except judgment. And I don't mean that facetiously. She has great passion, terrific wit, wonderful writing style, huge knowledge of film history, but too often what she chooses to extol or fails to see
13804-632: Was its pointless brutality, she later called it "intermittently dazzling" with "more energy and invention than Boorman seems to know what to do with ... one comes out exhilarated but bewildered". But Kael reacted badly to some action films she felt pushed what she called "right-wing" or "fascist" agendas. She called Don Siegel 's Dirty Harry (1971), starring Eastwood, a "right-wing fantasy", "a remarkably single-minded attack on liberal values", and "fascist medievalism". In an otherwise extremely favorable review of Peckinpah's Straw Dogs , Kael concluded that Peckinpah had made "the first American film that
13923-644: Was particularly critical of Clint Eastwood : her reviews of his films and acting were resoundingly unfavorable, and she became known as his nemesis. Kael was an enthusiastic, if occasionally ambivalent, supporter of Sam Peckinpah and Walter Hill 's early work, both of whom specialized in violent action dramas. Her collection 5001 Nights at the Movies includes favorable reviews of nearly all of Peckinpah's films except The Getaway (1972), as well as Hill's Hard Times (1975), The Warriors (1979), and Southern Comfort (1981). Despite her initial dismissal of John Boorman 's Point Blank (1967) for what she felt
14042-1038: Was printed unchanged. Other than sporadic confrontations with Shawn, Kael said she did most of her work at home, writing. Upon the release of Kael's 1980 collection When the Lights Go Down , her New Yorker colleague Renata Adler published an 8,000-word review in The New York Review of Books that dismissed the book as "jarringly, piece by piece, line by line, and without interruption, worthless." Adler argued that Kael's post-1960s work contained "nothing certainly of intelligence or sensibility" and faulted her "quirks [and] mannerisms", including repeated use of "bullying" imperatives and rhetorical questions. The piece quickly became infamous in literary circles, described by Time magazine as "the New York literary Mafia['s] bloodiest case of assault and battery in years." Kael did not respond to it, but Adler's review became known as "the most sensational attempt on Kael's reputation". In 1979, Kael accepted an offer from Warren Beatty to be
14161-477: Was repeatedly alleged that, after her retirement, Kael's "most ardent devotees deliberate[d] with each other [to] forge a common School of Pauline position" before their reviews were written. When confronted by the rumor that she ran "a conspiratorial network of young critics", Kael said she believed that critics imitated her style rather than her opinions, saying, "A number of critics take phrases and attitudes from me, and those takings stick out—they're not integral to
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