Pauline Kael Quotes

Quotes about:

• 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

  Art, Appreciate, Littles

  Pauline Kael (1994). “For keeps”, E P Dutton

  49 Copy quote

• The first prerogative of an artist in any medium is to make a fool of himself.

  Pauline Kael

  Artist, Fool, Firsts

  pauline kael (1965). “i lost it at the movies”

  38 Copy quote

• In the arts, the critic is the only independent source of information. The rest is advertising.

  Pauline Kael

  Art, Business, Independent

  Newsweek, December 24, 1973.

  9 Copy quote

• Where there is a will, there is a way. If there is a chance in a million that you can do something, anything, to keep what you want from ending, do it. Pry the door open or, if need be, wedge your foot in that door and keep it open.

  Pauline Kael

  Doors, Feet, Needs

  17 Copy quote

• 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.

  Pauline Kael

  Stupid, Believe, Dirty

  Pauline Kael (1994). “For keeps”, E P Dutton

  10 Copy quote

• If there is any test that can be applied to movies, it's that the good ones never make you feel virtuous.

  Pauline Kael

  Tests, Virtuous, Feels

  Pauline Kael (1989). “Hooked”, E P Dutton

  15 Copy quote

• Watching old movies is like spending an evening with those people next door. They bore us, and we wouldn't go out of our way to see them; we drop in on them because they're so close. If it took some effort to see old movies, we might try to find out which were the good ones, and if people saw only the good ones maybe they would still respect old movies. As it is, people sit and watch movies that audiences walked out on thirty years ago. Like Lot's wife, we are tempted to take another look, attracted not by evil but by something that seems much more shameful -- our own innocence.

  Pauline Kael

  Doors, Years, People

  Pauline Kael (1996). “Raising Kane and Other Essays”, Marion Boyars Publishers

  5 Copy quote

• What is getting older if it isn't learning more ways that you're vulnerable?

  Pauline Kael

  Getting Older, Way, Vulnerable

  Pauline Kael (1994). “For keeps”, E P Dutton

  6 Copy quote

• It's sometimes discouraging to see all of a director's movies, because there's so much repetition. The auteurists took this to be a sign of a director's artistry, that you could recognize his movies. But it can also be a sign that he's a hack.

  Pauline Kael

  Directors, Sometimes, Repetition

  Pauline Kael, Francis Davis (2002). “Afterglow: A Last Conversation with Pauline Kael”

  4 Copy quote

• 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.

  Pauline Kael

  Believe, Cities, Good Movie

  1970 Going Steady.

  7 Copy quote

• The critical task is necessarily comparative, and younger people do not truly know what is new

  Pauline Kael

  People, Tasks, Critical

  Pauline Kael (1994). “For keeps”, E P Dutton

  16 Copy quote

• a steady diet of mass culture is a form of deprivation.

  Pauline Kael

  Mass Culture, Deprivation, Form

  Pauline Kael (1994). “For keeps”, E P Dutton

  6 Copy quote

• Trash has given us an appetite for art.

  Pauline Kael

  Art, Trash, Appetite

  Pauline Kael (1970). “Going Steady: Film Writings, 1968-1969”, Marion Boyars

  14 Copy quote

• I am mystified. I know only one person who voted for Nixon.

  Pauline Kael

  Persons, Knows

  7 Copy quote

• Protagonists are always loners, almost by definition.

  Pauline Kael

  Hero, Loner, Definitions

  14 Copy quote

• We read critics for the perceptions, for what they tell us that we didn't fully grasp when we saw the work. The judgments we can usually make for ourselves.

  Pauline Kael

  Perception, Criticism, Saws

  4 Copy quote

• Sex is the great leveler, taste the great divider.

  Pauline Kael

  Sex, Taste

  Pauline Kael (1994). “For keeps”, E P Dutton

  9 Copy quote

• The problem with a popular art form is that those who want something more are in a hopeless minority compared with the millions who are always seeing it for the first time, or for the reassurance and gratification of seeing the conventions fulfilled again.

  Pauline Kael

  Art, Want Something, Minorities

  Pauline Kael (1994). “For keeps”, E P Dutton

  13 Copy quote

• Movies that are consciously life-affirming are to be consciously avoided.

  Pauline Kael

  Life Affirming, Avoided, Affirming

  Pauline Kael (1989). “Hooked”, E P Dutton

  7 Copy quote

• We may be reaching the end of the era in which individual movies meant something to people. In the new era, movies may just mean a barrage of images.

  Pauline Kael

  Movie, Mean, People

  6 Copy quote

• An artist must either give up art or develop.

  Pauline Kael

  Art, Giving Up, Artist

  pauline kael (1965). “i lost it at the movies”

  4 Copy quote

• Great movies are rarely perfect movies.

  Pauline Kael

  Perfect

  Pauline Kael (1994). “For keeps”, E P Dutton

  4 Copy quote

• Good movies make you care, make you believe in possibilities again.

  Pauline Kael

  Movie, Believe, Care

  1970 Going Steady.

  8 Copy quote

• When a picture can't make it on its own, the producers pull in a 'controversial' message - the way a couple whose marriage is falling apart decide to have a baby.

  Pauline Kael

  Movie, Baby, Couple

  16 Copy quote

• A mistake in judgment isn't fatal, but too much anxiety about judgment is.

  Pauline Kael

  Mistake, Anxiety, Judgement

  pauline kael (1965). “i lost it at the movies”

  9 Copy quote

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