Pauline Kael

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Pauline Keal the women behind the Legend.

                                                                            

Pauline Keal 

By: Samantha Weiss

Criticism was a formal affair and then Pauline Kael was born. 

Before Pauline critics wore detachment like it was a badge of honor. They handed down movie reviews from a professional distance. 

Then on June 19, 1919, in Petaluma, California the daughter of a Polish immigrant farmer

Rottentomatoes
Pauline Keal's biography photo

threw all we knew about movie reviews out the window. 

Pauline did not just analyze movies she experienced them, when she wrote about her experience, she had such an emotional honesty that no one from America had when they wrote about film. 

Her path in this industry was anything but straight. She went to UC Berkeley where she studied philosophy and tried to become a playwriter but ultimately failed. After this she spent years in New York writing for tiny journals, and she even broadcasted for a San Francisco radio. She never got a large audience to pay attention. 

Until... She did and when they did 

Her 1965 collection of "I Lost It at the Movies" became a bestseller and by 1968 she was at The New Yorker where she stayed for 23 years. 

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"Bonnie and Clyde" Keal's review

The moment that made her a legend in this field was her movie critic of Arthur Penn's Bonnie and Clyde. When she was writing this, she sat down and wrote over seven thousand words calling this movie the most exciting American film in years. 

This review single handily saved this film at the box office and even helped it earn ten Academy Award nominations. 

What made her so popular?

Well, Keal had a method, she had no rubric, no star system, no theory to apply. She brought everything she was to every single screening. She honestly just trusted her gut and went with it. She could write an amazing review on Bonnie and Clyde and the with the same voice and conviction take down West Side Story. 

Both felt true

Both felt alive

She retired in 1991 and unfortunately died on September 3, 2001, in Massachusetts at the young age of 82. 

Even though she has passed her legacy continues on. 

Two huge movie critics A.O. Scott and Manohla Dargis say that Keal is the reason that they write about film. 

history.com
The art of Pauline Kael

She even won the National Book Award in 1974 which was the first time it went to a book about movies. This was a couple years prior to her death. She went on to publish 13 of them.

Pauline Kael gave us a way to be passionate, personal, and completely unafraid. In a world that never stops arguing about movies. 

That is a legacy that is worth more than any award.  

Claude AI was used for research and my speech for the presentation.