Too often I come across the age-old question: What is the point of film critics? Every other month the debate as to whether we need film critics seems to rear its ugly head as people try to defend either side. In this day and age, it would seem that everyone and anyone can be a critic thanks to the internet and social media sites such as Twitter, and sites such as Letterboxd or YouTube. Pauline Kael regarding film criticism as an art, and who am I to argue with one of the most impactful film critics of the 20th Century?
In a lot of ways, it could be argued that the purpose of a critic is to educate the reader and to help them see a film in a new light. In order to write a review, a critic must argue their case regarding their reaction to a certain film. A good piece of film criticism will flow from the page, it will help you analyze films and see them from a new perspective. It is not an easy task to take up film criticism and too often people underestimate the challenge. Pauline Kael was always one who took on a new challenge and was completely honest in her opinion, even if it did lead to her to receive death threats over certain reviews.
To those who aren’t familiar with the story of Kael, Rob Garver’s new documentary does a very good job covering all the major key moments of her life. The documentary opens with home video footage of Kael as her grandson asks her about her life. And it’s an interesting approach by Garver to show a softer, more human side to the great critic who could make grown men tremble in their boots with the power of her words.
We discover how she failed at being a playwright and by her late 20s, she became a single mother of a daughter, named Gina James, via a relationship with gay San Francisco underground filmmaker James Broughton. This was during the 1950s, a conservative time where single mothers were pretty much unheard of. Like most great talents, Kael fell into film criticism almost accidentally. She began writing film reviews locally after seeing Charlie Chaplin’s Limelight and hating it. From the very beginning, Kael was someone who spoke her mind and it would often get her into trouble.
Kael may not be the most well-known film critic, and she never had her own TV show like Ebert and Siskel, but there’s no denying that Kael helped bring wide attention and focus to certain films which led them to become classics. Of course, there were times where Kael would go overboard in her admiration for a film. For example, in her review of Last Tango in Paris, she almost seems giddy with excitement over this very controversial film.
There is much to enjoy about the documentary, with fascinating little tidbits being revealed about Kael. For example, we find out that Kael would get so worked up watching certain films that she would be quite a distraction for other audience members, as they had to put up with her sighing loudly if she wasn’t enjoying a certain film. Kael also had her own group of writers that she helped educate and nurture called the “Paulettes” which shows her softer side.
While many of us would agree to her response to Bonnie and Clyde (among other New Hollywood classics), it’s clear that her tastes were often unpredictable and that she could be very ruthless towards certain directors (David Lean even gave up filmmaking for a period because of Kael’s attack on one of his films). Kael famously gave the epic Holocaust documentary, Shoah, a negative review, in which she described the film as exhausting to watch.
The documentary never really fully explores why Kael would react in such a way to certain films which were widely praised by other critics. This feels like an area that could have been quite interesting to explore. Like all documentaries on a contradictory figure like Kael was, there’s just too much ground to cover and not enough runtime to do it in.
The documentary is at its most interesting when it begins to explore the complexities of Kael’s relationship between herself and her daughter. Certainly, Gina had a very unconventional upbringing, with her mother holding social gatherings in which Gina would mingle with adults. Still, this was the 60s and the age of the baby boomer, so it was simply accepted. We discover that Gina would type up all her mother’s reviews (Kael would always write in shorthand and never learned to type) and one wonders whether there’s a sense of resentment that Gina might be nursing towards her mother.
Overall, the documentary does a good job covering Kael’s life. And there are a wealth of interesting interviews with the likes of Quentin Tarantino, Alec Baldwin, and David O. Russell, along with proud “Paulettes” like David Edelstein and critic-turned filmmaker Paul Schrader. Although it’s probably worth mentioning that she panned Schrader’s debut film, you know what they say about with friends like that, who needs enemies?
There’s much here for cinephiles to enjoy and its certainly a treat to see Kael’s story being told on the big screen. We can only wonder how Kael would have reacted to the documentary, and personally speaking, I think she would have been quite amused by all the attention.
