After Pauline

Famous Last Words
Review by Mike Gange
Afterglow: A Last Conversation with Pauline Kael
by Francis Davis
Da Capo Press $18.00, 134 pages

Something I had read once from Pauline Kael has always tickled my fancy. The former New Yorker magazine film critic said "The role of the critic is to say what ISN’T there that ought to be, and what is there that ought NOT to be." That was the moment I said "A-Ha! Here is someone worth listening to." And I set about to read Ms. Kael as often as I could, which quite frankly was never often enough, because I could only sporadically get my hands on the New Yorker.

Pauline Kael retired from the New Yorker in 1991 and died on Sept 03, 2001 at age 82. This slim book that speaks volumes on Kael’s ideas, observations and movie icons was published one year after her death. It is written mostly in Q & A format, which helps bring an immediacy to Kael’s responses to questions posed by her friend, jazz critic Francis Davis.

Kael said she liked to write about movies the way people talked, not in academic terms. Her writing style earned her many devoted fans as well as many who were not so enamored of her comments, particularly those in Hollywood circles who were skewered by her wit. Kael admits she had difficulties with editors within her own magazine, because she sometimes felt her writing about pop culture was not fully appreciated by the New Yorker, which she said had gotten "a little stiff."

Kael shows a remarkable memory for details about movies she had seen through out her life, and builds on her observations to analyze genres and styles, trends and careers. And like her bi-weekly columns, Kael is true to form, never being known to be diplomatic about her feelings. "I never liked Chaplin," she said, "because he pushed too many buttons. Much like later movies from Spielberg." Kael said she never believed in the ‘auteur theory’ that certain directors could only make excellent films. "Just look at Hitchcock," she said, "he was only good in the beginning."

Afterglow: A Last Conversation with Pauline Kael is one of those tiny little books that packs a big punch.

 

Mike Gange teaches media studies and journalism at Fredericton High.