Pauline Kael reviews film adaptations of James Joyce’s short story “The Dead” and Marilyn Robinson’s novel “Housekeeping.”
Pauline Kael
Pauline Kael wrote for The New Yorker from 1967 until her retirement, in 1991. In 1968, shortly after the publication of her review of “Bonnie and Clyde,” she became the magazine’s film critic. While at The New Yorker , Kael wrote hundreds of Current Cinema columns, as well as many shorter film reviews. She was the author of thirteen books, including “I Lost It at the Movies,” “Kiss Kiss Bang Bang,” “Deeper Into Movies” (which won the 1974 National Book Award), and “5001 Nights at the Movies.” Kael received a Guggenheim fellowship in 1964 and was an honorary member of Phi Beta Kappa. She received Front Page Awards from the Newswomen's Club of New York in 1974 and 1983 and a George Polk Memorial Award in 1970. Kael died at her home in Great Barrington, Massachusetts, in 2001. In 2011, her film criticism was anthologized in the Library of America collection “Deeper Into Movies.”
Read more on The New Yorker →15 picks · 1967–1987
Featured Picks
THE CURRENT CINEMA review of “Law of Desire,” “Raising Arizona,” and “Street Smart.”
Pauline Kael reviews Brian de Palma’s classic gangster film “Scarface,” starring Al Pacino, as the Cuban drug lord Tony Montana, and Michelle Pfeiffer.
Hollywood’s managerial sharks might fancy themselves creative giants, Pauline Kael writes, but what they’re really into are the numbers.
Pauline Kael reviews films by George Lucas, Marguerite Duras, and Robert M. Young, from 1977.
Pauline Kael’s 1976 review of Martin Scorsese’s film “Taxi Driver,” starring Robert De Niro and Jodie Foster.
profiles ·
Pauline Kael’s 1975 Profile of Cary Grant, the star of movies including “Bringing Up Baby,” “The Awful Truth,” “North by Northwest,” “Charade,” and "His Girl Friday.”
Pauline Kael on the ultimate Altman movie, from 1975: In “Nashville,” the director has evolved an organic style of moviemaking that tells a story without the clanking of plot.
Review of "Young Frankenstein,” with Gene Wilder in the title role. Critique of his acting in this & other films.
Pauline Kael’s 1972 review of Francis Ford Coppola’s classic mob movie, based on the Mario Puzo book and starring Marlon Brando, Al Pacino, James Caan, Diane Keaton, and Robert Duvall.
Part two of Pauline Kael's 1971 essay on “Citizen Kane,” Orson Welles, and Herman J. Mankiewicz.
Pauline Kael's 1971 essay on “Citizen Kane,” Orson Welles, and Herman J. Mankiewicz.
Sixties Hollywood ushered in a tidal wave of commercial romantic slop, and now bad movies are more popular than good books, Pauline Kael writes. Can independent criticism save the day?
Pauline Kael on Arthur Penn’s 1967 film, “Bonnie and Clyde,” starring Faye Dunaway and Warren Beatty.
In the chopped-up world of television, where old movies now proliferate, the past has become meaninglessly present, Pauline Kael writes.