Author portrait of Kael from the dust jacket of Kiss Kiss Bang Bang (1968)
Born
(1919-06-19)June 19, 1919 Petaluma, California, U.S.
Died
September 3, 2001(2001-09-03) (aged 82) Great Barrington, Massachusetts, U.S.
Occupation
Film critic
Alma mater
University of California, Berkeley
Period
1951–1991
Spouse
Edward Landberg
(m. 1955; div. 1959)
[1]
Children
1
Pauline Kael (/keɪl/; 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,[2] Kael's opinions often ran contrary to those of her contemporaries.
One of the most influential American film critics of her era,[3] she left a lasting impression on the art form. Roger Ebert argued in an obituary that Kael "had 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."[4] 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."[5] Owen Gleiberman said she "was more than a great critic. She reinvented the form, and pioneered an entire aesthetic of writing."
^"Former Wife Sues Cinema Guild Boss". Oakland Tribune. May 25, 1961. p. 14E – via Newspapers.com. The Landbergs, who were married in El Cerrito on Jan. 23, 1955 and separated Jan. 15, 1958, were divorced and she won a final decree April 7, 1959.
^"Pauline Kael". Encyclopædia Britannica. Archived from the original on June 21, 2006. Retrieved September 1, 2006.
^Van Gelder, Lawrence (September 4, 2001). "Pauline Kael, Provocative and Widely Imitated New Yorker Film Critic, Dies at 82". The New York Times. p. C12. Retrieved March 25, 2008.
^Ebert, Roger (October 22, 2011). "Knocked up at the movies". Retrieved March 2, 2017.
^"The Age of Movies: Selected Writings of Pauline Kael (paperback) | Library of America". www.loa.org. Retrieved March 8, 2023.
PaulineKael (/keɪl/; 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...
American film critic PaulineKael, in which she revived controversy over the authorship of the screenplay for the 1941 film Citizen Kane. Kael celebrated screenwriter...
Hollywood era had emerged with studios granting directors broad leeway. PaulineKael argued, however, that "auteurs" rely on creativity of others, like cinematographers...
before pursuing film studies at UCLA on the encouragement of film critic PaulineKael. He then worked as a film scholar and critic, publishing the book Transcendental...
far less about Keating than about a handful of impressionable boys". PaulineKael was unconvinced about the film and its "middlebrow highmindedness", but...
Britannica Kael, Pauline. "Marlon Brando: An American Hero". The Atlantic. Archived from the original on April 18, 2017. Retrieved February 19, 2017. Kael, Pauline...
has also been championed by American critics such as Roger Ebert and PaulineKael. De Palma was born on September 11, 1940, in Newark, New Jersey, the...
famous and controversial essay by author Renata Adler about film critic PaulineKael, published in The New York Review of Books in 1980. This disambiguation...
screen presence than Roger Moore or George Lazenby". On the other hand, PaulineKael said "Connery's James Bond is less lecherous than before and less foppish—and...
Malle avoids any heavy-handed explanations of family behavior." Critic PaulineKael called Massari "superb". In his 2002 Movie & Video Guide, Leonard Maltin...
Miss Kael had always intended, the complete, original text of the Mankiewicz–Welles shooting script, published here for the first time. Kael, Pauline; Welles...
Press, 1989, pp. 1–42 Kael, Pauline. "Bonnie and Clyde", in For Keeps. Ed. by PaulineKael. NY: Plume, 1994, pp. 141–57. Kael, Pauline. "Trash, Art, and the...
recovered. Some critics were put off by the complicated plot, although PaulineKael enjoyed the film and Vincent Canby called it "pure, nutty fun." Buckaroo...
first ever Time 100 Impact Award in the U.S. Reviewing Close Encounters, PaulineKael called the young Spielberg "a magician in the age of movies." Spielberg...
France where it was the fourth highest earning film of the year. In 1982, PaulineKael called it "an existential thriller—the most original and shocking French...
trop parole, il se mesfait" ("A wagging tongue bites itself"), PaulineKael wrote, "Pauline, who is the moral center of the film, doesn't carry tales. She...
thrusting, jabbing eroticism. The movie breakthrough has finally come. —PaulineKael The film opened February 1, 1973 at the Trans-Lux East in New York City...
Director Nominated Best First Film Won Best Original Screenplay Won PaulineKael Breakout Award Runner-up Gotham Awards Best Feature Won Breakthrough...
and an emotionally gripping power." In addition, renowned film critic PaulineKael, in her New Yorker review of the film, noted of Fonda: "[She] has been...
November 8, 2020. Retrieved August 15, 2019. "What She Said: The Art of PaulineKael". Archived from the original on July 5, 2020. Retrieved July 15, 2020...
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