Half an Hour of Pauline Kael Talking About Movies and Writing? Yes please!

A lot of today’s cinephiles don’t know the name Pauline Kael, or if they do, they have some mistaken impression of her. For everyone who is ooh-ing and aah-ing over the first couple of Tarantino-programmed New Beverly calendars, or about his work in general, you must look to Kael. She provided the intellectual basis of QT’s critical thought and you can see it not only throughout all of his work but also in the way we have processed and understood (particularly Hollywood) films ever since. She wasn’t perfect and to invoke her name is to draw fire from many quarters, but she was brilliant both as critic and writer.

Here’s a nice long interview with her where she goes places she never did in her writing. Also, it’s a joy to hear her speak extemporaneously in such recognizably Kaelian sentences and paragraphs.