Pauline Kael

Infobox Writer
name = Pauline Kael


caption = An undated photograph of Kael.
birthdate = June 19, 1919
birthplace = Petaluma, California
deathdate = death date and age|mf=yes|2001|9|3|1919|6|19
deathplace =Great Barrington, Massachusetts
occupation = Film critic
period = 1951 - 1991
influences =
influenced = Wes Anderson, David Denby, David Edelstein, Anthony Lane, Greil Marcus, Elvis Mitchell, A. O. Scott, Michael Sragow, Quentin Tarantino, Armond White
website =

Pauline Kael (June 19, 1919 – September 3, 2001) was an American film critic who wrote for "The New Yorker" magazine from 1968 to 1991. Kael was known for her "witty, biting, highly opinionated, and sharply focused"cite web|url=http://concise.britannica.com/ebc/article-9368823/Pauline-Kael|title=Pauline Kael|accessdate=2006-09-01|first=|last=|publisher=Encyclopedia Britannica] movie reviews. She approached movies emotionally, with a strongly colloquial writing style. She is often regarded as the most influential American film critic of her daycite news |last=Van Gelder |first=Lawrence |url= http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9E04E2D61639F937A3575AC0A9679C8B63 |title=Pauline Kael, Provocative and Widely Imitated New Yorker Film Critic, Dies at 82 |publisher=The New York Times |date=2001-09-04 |accessdate=2008-03-25 ] [cite web|url=http://www.newyorker.com/online/content/articles/010917on_onlineonly01|title=Remembering Pauline Kael|accessdate=2006-09-01|first=|last=|publisher=New Yorker] and left a lasting impression on many major critics including Armond White [cite web|url=http://www.filmmakermagazine.com/winter2004/features/the_critic.php|title=The Critic (Interview with Armond White)|accessdate=2007-01-19|first=Matthew|last=Ross|publisher=Filmmaker] and Roger Ebert, who has said that Kael "had a more positive influence on the climate for film in America than any other single person over the last three decades."cite web|url=http://www.boston.com/ae/books/articles/2005/09/06/viewing_the_parcels_of_pauline/|title=Viewing the parcels of Pauline|accessdate=2007-01-19|first=Mark|last=Feeney|publisher=Boston Globe]

Biography

Early life and career

Kael was born on a chicken farm in Petaluma, California, to Isaac Paul Kael and Judith Friedman Kael, two Jewish immigrants from Poland. Affected by the Great Depression, her family lost their farm when Kael was eight and moved to San Francisco, California. She matriculated at the University of California, Berkeley in 1936, where she studied philosophy, literature and the arts but dropped out in 1940 before graduating. Despite this, she intended to go on to law school, until she fell in with a group of artists [ [http://www.guardian.co.uk/obituaries/story/0,3604,546921,00.html Obituary: Pauline Kael | Obituaries | guardian.co.uk ] ] and moved to New York City with the poet Robert Horan.

Three years later, Kael returned to San Francisco and "led a bohemian life," marrying and divorcing three times, writing plays, and working on experimental films. In 1948, Kael and filmmaker James Broughton had a daughter, Gina, though Kael would raise her alone. [ Seligman (2004). p. 11.] Gina had a serious illness through much of her childhood, [Brantley (1996). p. 10.] and to support her, Kael worked a series of menial jobs—cook, seamstress—along with stints as an ad-copy writer.cite news |last=Tucker |first=Ken |url= http://www.salon.com/bc/1999/02/09bc.html |title=A gift for effrontery |publisher=Salon.com |date=1999-02-09 |accessdate=2007-04-18] In 1953, the editor of "City Lights" magazine overheard Kael—in a coffeeshop-argument about movies with a friend—and asked her to review Charlie Chaplin's "Limelight". Kael memorably dubbed the movie "slimelight," and began publishing film criticism regularly in magazines.

Even these early reviews were notable for their informality and lack of pretension; Kael later explained, "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 the sound of a human voice." [Brantley (1996). p. 95.] Kael disparaged the supposed critic's ideal of objectivity, referring to it as "saphead objectivity,"cite news |last=Houston |first=Penelope |url= http://www.guardian.co.uk/obituaries/story/0,3604,546921,00.html |title= Obituary: Pauline Kael |publisher=The Guardian |date=2001-09-05 |accessdate=2007-04-19] and incorporated aspects of autobiography into her criticism. In a review of Vittorio De Sica's 1946 neorealist classic "Shoeshine" (Sciuscià) that has been ranked among her most memorable,Seligman (2004). p. 37.] Kael described seeing the film

Kael broadcast many of her early reviews on the alternative public radio station KPFA in Berkeley, and gained further local-celebrity status as Berkeley Cinema Guild manager from 1955 to 1960. As manager of the two-screen theater, Kael programmed the films that were shown, "unapologetically repeat [ing] her favorites until they also became audience favorites." [cite news |last=Hom |first=Lisa|url= http://www.sfweekly.com/2001-11-21/calendar/all-hail-kael/ |title=All Hail Kael: A film series remembers the uncompromising New Yorker critic Pauline Kael |publisher=San Francisco Weekly |date=2001-11-21 |accessdate=2007-04-18] She also wrote "pungent" capsule reviews of the movies, which her patrons began collecting.Thomson, David (2002). "Pauline Kael." "The New Biographical Dictionary of Film". New York: Alfred A. Knopf. ISBN 0-3757-0940-1. p. 449-50.]

Going mass market

Kael continued to juggle writing with other work until she received an offer to publish a book of her criticism. Published in 1965 as "I Lost It at the Movies", the collection sold 150,000 paperback copies and was a surprise bestseller. Coinciding with a job at the high-circulation women's magazine "McCall's", Kael (as "Newsweek" put it in a 1966 profile) "went mass." [Brantley (1996). p. 3-4.]

The same year, she wrote a blistering review of the phenomenally popular "The Sound of Music" in "McCall's". After mentioning that some of the press had dubbed it "The Sound of Money," Kael called the film's message a "sugarcoated lie that people seem to want to eat." [cite book |last=Kael |first=Pauline |title=Kiss Kiss Bang Bang |year=1968 |publisher=Bantam |location=Toronto |id=ISBN 0-31648-163-7 p. 214-5.] Although, according to legend, this review led to her being fired from "McCall's" ("The New York Times" even printed as much in Kael's obituary), both Kael and the magazine's editor have denied this. According to "McCall's" editor Robert Stein, "I [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"." [cite news |url= http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9501E3D81430F930A3575AC0A9669C8B63 |title=THE SOUND OF MUSIC: Kael's Fate|publisher=The New York Times |date=2000-09-03 |accessdate=2007-04-18]

Her dismissal from "McCall's" led to a stint from 1966 to 1967 at "The New Republic", whose editors constantly altered Kael's writing without permission. A few days after quitting the "Republic" "in despair," [Brantley (1996). p. 12] Kael was asked by William Shawn to join "The New Yorker" staff as one of its two film critics (she alternated every six months with Penelope Gilliatt until 1979, after which she became sole film critic.) Her first review in the "New Yorker" was a rave about "Bonnie and Clyde", in which, according to critic David Thomson, "she was right about a film that had bewildered many other critics."

Her colloquial, brash writing style was initially considered an odd fit with the sophisticated and genteel "New Yorker"; Kael remembered "getting a letter from an eminent "New Yorker" writer suggesting that I was trampling through the pages of the magazine with cowboy boots covered with dung." [Seligman (2004). p. 12.] However, it was during her tenure at the "New Yorker," a forum that permitted her to write at some length (and with presumably minimal editorial interference), that Kael achieved her greatest prominence; by 1968, "Time" magazine was referring to her as "one of the country's top movie critics." [cite news |url= http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,712147,00.html |title= The Pearls of Pauline |publisher=Time |date=1968-07-12 |accessdate=2007-04-19] Kael noted that during this period her reviews were so interesting because the movies were so compelling.

"New Yorker" tenure

In 1970, Kael received a George Polk Award for her work as a critic at the New Yorker. She continued to publish hardbound collections of her writings, many with (deliberately) suggestive titles such as "Kiss Kiss Bang Bang", "When The Lights Go Down", "Taking It All In", and others. Her fourth book, "Deeper Into Movies" (1973), was the first non-fiction book about movies to win a National Book Award.

Kael also wrote philosophical essays on moviegoing, the modern Hollywood film industry, and the lack of courage on the part of audiences (as she perceived it) to explore lesser-known, more challenging movies (she never used the word "film" to describe movies because she felt the word was too elitist). Among her more popular essays were a damning review of Norman Mailer's semi-fictional "Marilyn: a Biography," (an account of Marilyn Monroe's life); an incisive look at Cary Grant's career, and an extensively researched look at "Citizen Kane" entitled "Raising Kane" (later reprinted in "The Citizen Kane Book"). Her argument was that Herman J. Mankiewicz ("Citizen Kane's" assistant screenwriter) deserved as much credit for the film as Orson Welles, a thesis that provoked controversy and hurt Welles to the point that he considered suing Kael for libel.cite news |last=Houston |first=Penelope |url= http://www.guardian.co.uk/obituaries/story/0,3604,546921,00.html |title= Obituary: Pauline Kael |publisher=The Guardian |date=2001-09-05 |accessdate=2007-04-19]

Kael battled the editors of the "New Yorker" as much as her own critics. She fought with William Shawn to review the 1972 pornographic film "Deep Throat", though she eventually relented. [Davis (2002). p. 32.] According to Kael, after reading her negative review of Terrence Malick's 1973 movie "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 was printed unchanged.cite news |last=Goodman |first=Susan |url= http://www.paulrossen.com/paulinekael/modernmaturity.html |title= She Lost It At the Movies |publisher=Modern Maturity |date=March/April 1998 |accessdate=2007-04-19 |format= reprint] Other than sporadic confrontations with Shawn, Kael said she spent most of her work time at home writing.Davis (2002). p. 40.]

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." [cite news |last=Adler |first=Renata |authorlink= Renata Adler |url= http://www.nybooks.com/articles/7313#fnr3 |title=The Perils of Pauline |publisher=The New York Review of Books |date=1980-08-14 |accessdate=2007-04-19] Adler argued that Kael's post-sixties work contained "nothing certainly of intelligence or sensibility," and faulted her "quirks [and] mannerisms," including Kael's repeated use of the "bullying" imperative and rhetorical question. The piece, which stunned Kael and quickly became infamous in literary circles, was described by "Time" magazine as "the New York literary Mafia ['s] bloodiest case of assault and battery in years."cite news |url= http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,920938,00.html |title= Kiss Kiss Bang Bang (Ouch Ouch) |publisher=Time |date=1980-08-04 |accessdate=2007-04-19] Although Kael refused to respond, Adler's review became known as "the most sensational attempt on Kael's reputation"; [Seligman (2004). p. 137.] twenty years later, Salon.com (ironically) referred to Adler's "worthless" denunciation of Kael as her "most famous single sentence."cite news |last=Johnson |first=Dennis Loy |url= http://archive.salon.com/books/int/2000/08/21/adler/ |title= Interview with the heretic |publisher=Salon.com |date=2000-08-21 |accessdate=2007-04-19]

In 1979, Kael accepted an offer from Warren Beatty to be a consultant to Paramount Pictures, but she left the position after only a few months to return to writing criticism in mid 1980.

Later years

In the early 1980s, Kael was diagnosed with Parkinson's disease. As her illness worsened, she became increasingly depressed about the state of American movies, along with feeling, she explained, that "I had nothing new to say." On March 11, 1991, in an announcement "The New York Times" referred to as "earth-shattering," Kael announced her retirement from reviewing movies regularly.cite news |last=Maslin |first=Janet |authorlink=Janet Maslin |url= http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9D0CE1D81239F930A25750C0A967958260 |title= For Pauline Kael, Retirement as Critic Won't Be a Fade-Out |publisher=The New York Times |date=1991-03-13 |accessdate=2008-03-25 ] At the time, Kael explained that she would still write essays for "The New Yorker", along with "some reflections and other pieces of writing about movies." However, she ended up publishing no new work in the ensuing ten years, besides an introduction to her 1994 compendium "For Keeps". In the introduction (which was reprinted in "The New Yorker"), Kael stated, in reference to her film criticism, "I'm frequently asked why I don't write my memoirs. I think I have."cite news |last=Corliss |first=Richard |authorlink= Richard Corliss |url= http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,981763,00.html |title= That Wild Old Woman |publisher=Time |date=1994-11-07 |accessdate=2007-04-19]

Though she published no new writing of her own, Kael was not averse to giving interviews, in which she alternately praised and derided newly-released films and television shows. In a 1998 interview with "Modern Maturity", she said she sometimes regretted not being able to review, saying, "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 Massachusetts in 2001, aged 82.

Opinions

Kael's opinions often ran contrary to consensus critical opinion. Occasionally, she energetically championed movies that were considered critical failures, such as "The Warriors" and, memorably, "Last Tango in Paris". (Soon after that film's release, Kael won the 1973 Harvard Lampoon "Bosley Award", named after Bosley Crowther. She was described by the Award's judges as "Pauline Kael, whose hysterical encomium loosed Bertolucci's "Last Tango in Paris" on an all-too-trusting world.") She was not especially cruel to some films that had been roasted by many critics, such as the 1972 "Man of La Mancha", in which she praised Sophia Loren's performance. She also condemned films that elsewhere attracted admiration, such as "It's a Wonderful Life", "West Side Story", and "Shoah". The originality of her opinions, as well as the forceful way in which she expressed them, won her ardent supporters as well as angry critics.

Notable movie reviews by Kael included a venomous criticism of "West Side Story" that drew harsh replies from the movie's supporters; ecstatic reviews of "Z" and "MASH" that resulted in enormous boosts to those films' popularity; and enthusiastic reviews of Brian De Palma's early films. Kael's scathing critique of "Ryan's Daughter" (1970) allegedly dissuaded director David Lean from making a film for fourteen years afterwards. Her 'preview' of Robert Altman's 1975 movie "Nashville" appeared several months before the film was actually completed, in an (ultimately unsuccessful) attempt to catapult the film to box office glory.

Views on violence

Kael had a taste for anti-hero movies that violated taboos involving sex and violence, and this reportedly alienated some of her readers. She also had a strong dislike for films that she felt were manipulative or appealed in superficial ways to conventional attitudes and feelings.

She was an enthusiastic supporter of the violent action films of Sam Peckinpah and early Walter Hill, as evidenced in her collection "5001 Nights at the Movies", which includes positive reviews of Hill's "Hard Times" (1975), "The Warriors" (1979), and "Southern Comfort" (1981), as well as Peckinpah's entire body of work. Although she initially dismissed John Boorman's "Point Blank" (1967) for what she felt was its pointless brutality, she later acknowledged it was "intermittently dazzling" with "more energy and invention than Boorman seems to know what to do with...one comes out exhilarated but bewildered."Kael, Pauline. "5001 Nights at the Movies," Henry Holt and Company, 1991. ISBN 0-8050-1367-9]

However, Kael did respond negatively to some action films that she felt pushed what she described as "right-wing" or "fascist" agendas. While praising Don Siegel's "Dirty Harry" (1971) as "trim, brutal, and exciting; it was directed in the sleekest style by the veteran urban-action director...," she labelled it a "right-wing fantasy [that is] a remarkably simple-minded attack on liberal values".Kael, Pauline. "5001 Nights at the Movies," Henry Holt and Company, 1991. ISBN 0-8050-1367-9] She also called it "fascist medievalism".Kael, Pauline. "Deeper Into Movies," Warner Books, 1973. ISBN 0-7145-0941-8] In an otherwise extremely positive critique of Peckinpah's "Straw Dogs," Kael concluded that the controversial director had made 'the first American film that is a fascist work of art'.Kael, Pauline. "Deeper Into Movies," Warner Books, 1973. ISBN 0-7145-0941-8]

In her negative review of Stanley Kubrick's "A Clockwork Orange", Kael explained how she felt some directors who used brutal imagery in their films were de-sensitizing audiences to violence:

Alleged homophobia

In preface to a 1983 interview with Kael for the gay magazine "Mandate", Sam Staggs wrote that "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." [Brantley (1996). p. 91.] However, in the early eighties, largely in response to her review of the 1981 drama "Rich and Famous", Kael faced notable accusations of homophobia. First remarked on 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." [Seligman (2004). p. 151.]

In her review, Kael called the straight-themed "Rich and Famous" "more like a homosexual fantasy," saying that one female character's affairs "are creepy, because they don't seem like what a woman would get into."Seligman (2004). p. 152.] 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 the sixties gay-themed movies "Victim" and "The Children's Hour", including a wisecrack Kael made about the lesbian-themed "Children's Hour": "I always thought this was why lesbians needed sympathy—that there isn't much they "can" do." [Seligman (2004). p. 155.] Craig Seligman has defended Kael, saying that her perceived "bigotry" was simply her showing "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.'" [Seligman (2004). p. 156.] Kael herself rejected the accusations as "craziness," adding, "I don't see how anybody who took the trouble to check out what I've actually written about movies with homosexual elements in them could believe that stuff." [Brantley (1996). p. 96.]

Influence

Almost as soon as she began writing for "The New Yorker", Kael carried a great deal of influence among fellow critics. In the early seventies, Cinerama distributors "initiate [d] a policy of individual screenings for each critic because her remarks [during the film] were affecting her fellow critics." [Brantley (1996). p. 16.] In the seventies and eighties, Kael cultivated friendships with a group of young, mostly male critics, some of whom emulated her distinctive writing style. Referred to derisively as the "Paulettes," they came to dominate national film criticism in the 1990s. Critics who have acknowledged Kael's influence include, among many, A. O. Scott of "The New York Times", [Scott, A. O. [http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9F04EFDB1538F935A2575AC0A9679C8B63 "The Movies Lose a Love And a Friend"] , "The New York Times", 2001-09-16. Retrieved on 2008-04-02.] David Denby and Anthony Lane of "The New Yorker", [Denby, David. "My Life As a Paulette," "The New Yorker", 2003-10-20.] [ [http://www.charlierose.com/shows/2002/11/01/2/an-interview-with-anthony-lane Charlie Rose interview with Lane] ] David Edelstein of "New York Magazine",Menand, Louis. [http://www.nybooks.com/articles/1959 "Finding It at the Movies"] , "The New York Review of Books", 1995-03-23. Retrieved on 2008-04-02. In his review, Menand writes of Kael's influence on Sragow, Edelstein, and Marcus.] Greil Marcus, Elvis Mitchell, [ [http://undercoverblackman.blogspot.com/2007/03/q-elvis-mitchell-pt-1.html "Q&A: Elvis Mitchell: Part 1"] , Undercover Black Man, 2007-03-05.] Michael Sragow, Armond White, and Stephanie Zacharek of Salon.com. [Zacharek, Stephanie. [http://archive.salon.com/ent/movies/feature/2001/09/03/pauline_kael/ "The critic: Pauline Kael, R.I.P."] , Salon.com, 2001-09-03.] It 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. [cite news |url= http://72.166.46.24//archives/1997/documents/00524486.htm |title=Pauletteburo?: Fur flies over the Kael "kopy kats" |publisher=The Phoenix |date=1997-03-27 |accessdate=2007-04-19 ] When confronted with the rumor that she ran "a conspiratorial network of young critics," Kael said she believed that critics imitated her style rather than her actual opinions, stating, "A number of critics take phrases and attitudes from me, and those takings stick out—they’re not integral to the writer’s temperament or approach."Espen, Hal. "Kael Talks," "The New Yorker" 21 March 1994. p. 134-43.]

When asked in 1998 if she thought her criticism had affected the way films were made, Kael deflected the question, stating, "If I say yes, I’m an egotist, and if I say no, I’ve wasted my life." Several directors' careers were indisputably affected by her, though, most notably "Taxi Driver" screenwriter Paul Schrader, who was accepted at UCLA Film School's graduate program on Kael's recommendation. Under her mentoring, Schrader worked as a film critic before taking up screenwriting and directing full-time. Also, film critic Derek Malcolm claimed that, "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."cite news |last=Houston |first=Penelope |url= http://www.guardian.co.uk/obituaries/story/0,3604,546921,00.html |title= Obituary: Pauline Kael |publisher=The Guardian |date=2001-09-05 |accessdate=2007-04-19] Alternately, Kael was said to be able to prevent filmmakers from working; David Lean claimed that her criticism of his work "kept him from making a movie for 14 years." [cite news |last=Jacobs |first=Diane |url= http://movies2.nytimes.com/mem/movies/review.html?res=9B04E7DB1E3BF937A25752C1A96F958260 |title= REVIEW: Running Time: 17,356,680 Minutes |publisher=The New York Times |date=1999-11-14 |accessdate=2007-04-19]

Though he began directing movies after she retired, Quentin Tarantino was also influenced by Kael. He read her criticism voraciously 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 a 1999 "The New York Times" article titled [http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9C01E6DD1339F932A05752C0A96F958260 "My Private Screening With Pauline Kael"] . He later wrote Kael that "your 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 his 1988 film "Willow", George Lucas named the lead villain "General Kael," after the critic. Kael had often reviewed Lucas' work without enthusiasm; in her own (negative) review of "Willow", she stylishly described the character as an "hommage a moi"."

Bibliography

Books

* "I Lost It at the Movies" (1965)
* "Kiss Kiss Bang Bang" (1968) ISBN 0-31648-163-7
* "Going Steady" (1969) ISBN 0-55305-880-0
* "Deeper Into Movies" (1973) ISBN 0-7145-0941-8
* "Reeling" (1976)
* "When The Lights Go Down" (1980) ISBN 0-03042-511-5
* "5001 Nights at the Movies" (1982, revised in 1984 and 1991) ISBN 0-8050-1367-9
* "Taking It All In" (1984) ISBN 0-03069-362-4
* "State of the Art" (1987) ISBN 0-71452-869-2
* "Hooked" (1989)
* "Movie Love" (1991)
* "For Keeps" (1994)
* "Raising Kane, and other essays" (1996)

elected reviews and essays

* [http://www.paulrossen.com/paulinekael/trashartandthemovies.html "Trash, Art, and the Movies"] , essay published in the Feb. 1969 issue of "Harper's".
* [http://www.paulrossen.com/paulinekael/raisingkane.html "Raising Kane"] , book-length essay on the making of "Citizen Kane" published in the Feb. 20, 1971 and Feb. 27, 1971 issues of "The New Yorker".
* [http://www.visual-memory.co.uk/amk/doc/0051.html "Stanley Strangelove"] , review of "A Clockwork Orange" from a January 1972 issue of "The New Yorker".
* [http://www.pbs.org/wnet/americanmasters/database/grant_c.html "The Man From Dream City"] , profile of Cary Grant from the August 14, 1975 issue of "The New Yorker".
* [http://www.paulrossen.com/paulinekael/whymoviesbad.html "Why Are Movies So Bad? Or, The Numbers"] , essay published in the June 23, 1980 issue of "The New Yorker".
* [http://www.davidlean.com/reviews3.html "A Passage to India, Unloos'd Dreams"] , review of "A Passage to India" from the January 14, 1985 issue of "The New Yorker".

Footnotes

References

* Brantley, Will, ed. (1996). "Conversations with Pauline Kael". University Press of Mississippi. ISBN 0-87805-899-0.
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External links

* [http://rockcriticsarchives.com/links/paulinekael.html Pauline Kael Archives] , a collection of articles and commentary about Kael
* [http://www.geocities.com/paulinekaelreviews/ Pauline Kael A-Z] , 2,846 capsule film reviews written by Kael
* [http://www.brightlightsfilm.com/46/kael.htm The Pearls of Pauline from Brights Lights Film Journal]

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