Pauline's Fans (13)

Pauline Kael

Author profile

born

June 19, 1919 in Petaluma, California, The United States

died

September 03, 2001

gender

female

genre

Nonfiction

About this author

edit data

Pauline Kael was an American film critic who wrote for The New Yorker magazine from 1968 to 1991. She was known for her "witty, biting, highly opinionated, and sharply focused" 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 day and made a lasting impression on other major critics including Armond White 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."

combine editions
Books by Pauline Kael

Average rating: 4.26 · 1,223 ratings · 81 reviews · 23 distinct works

	I Lost it at the Movies: Film Writings, 1954-1965 4.23 avg rating — 188 ratings — published 1965 — 3 editions	My rating:
	For Keeps: 30 Years at the Movies 4.53 avg rating — 163 ratings — published 1994 — 2 editions	My rating:
	5001 Nights at the Movies 4.31 avg rating — 110 ratings — published 1982 — 8 editions	My rating:
	Kiss Kiss Bang Bang: Film Writings, 1965-1967 4.25 avg rating — 95 ratings — published 1968 — 4 editions	My rating:
	Reeling: Film Writings, 1972-1975 4.44 avg rating — 73 ratings — published 1976 — 4 editions	My rating:
	When the Lights Go Down: Film Writings, 1975-1980 4.30 avg rating — 66 ratings — 2 editions	My rating:
	The Citizen Kane Book by Pauline Kael, Orson Welles, Herman J. Mankiewicz 4.23 avg rating — 73 ratings — published 1971 — 9 editions	My rating:
	Deeper Into Movies: Film Writings, 1969-1972 4.30 avg rating — 57 ratings — published 1973 — 5 editions	My rating:
	Going Steady: Film Writings, 1968-1969 4.24 avg rating — 63 ratings — published 1970 — 4 editions	My rating:
	Hooked: Film Writings 1985-1988 4.14 avg rating — 49 ratings — published 1989 — 3 editions	My rating:

More books by Pauline Kael…

Series by Pauline Kael

The Film Writings (10 books)
by Pauline Kael

4.29 avg rating — 1,024 ratings

Quotes by Pauline Kael

“A good movie can take you out of your dull funk and the hopelessness that so often goes with slipping into a theatre; a good movie can make you feel alive again, in contact, not just lost in another city. Good movies make you care, make you believe in possibilities again. If somewhere in the Hollywood-entertainment world someone has managed to break through with something that speaks to you, then it isn’t all corruption. The movie doesn’t have to be great; it can be stupid and empty and you can still have the joy of a good performance, or the joy in just a good line. An actor’s scowl, a small subversive gesture, a dirty remark that someone tosses off with a mock-innocent face, and the world makes a little bit of sense. Sitting there alone or painfully alone because those with you do not react as you do, you know there must be others perhaps in this very theatre or in this city, surely in other theatres in other cities, now, in the past or future, who react as you do. And because movies are the most total and encompassing art form we have, these reactions can seem the most personal and, maybe the most important, imaginable. The romance of movies is not just in those stories and those people on the screen but in the adolescent dream of meeting others who feel as you do about what you’ve seen. You do meet them, of course, and you know each other at once because you talk less about good movies than about what you love in bad movies.”
― Pauline Kael, For Keeps: 30 Years at the Movies

tags: film , films , loneliness , movies , society

9 people liked it

“A mistake in judgment isn't fatal, but too much anxiety about judgment is. ”
― Pauline Kael

6 people liked it

“Movies are so rarely great art that if we cannot appreciate great trash we have very little reason to be interested in them.”
― Pauline Kael

tags: film , movies