Pauline Kael Quotes - Page 2

Quotes about:

• Movies are our cheap and easy expression, the sullen art of displaced persons.

  Pauline Kael

  Movie, Art, Expression

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

  9 Copy quote

• What this generation was bred to at television's knees was not wisdom, but cynicism.

  Pauline Kael

  Political, This Generation, Generations

  16 Copy quote

• It is a depressing fact that Americans tend to confuse morality and art (to the detriment of both) and that, among the educated, morality tends to mean social consciousness.

  Pauline Kael

  Depressing, Art, Mean

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

  4 Copy quote

• Her only flair is in her nostrils.

  Pauline Kael

  Sarcastic, Memorable, Flair

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

  11 Copy quote

• Art doesn't come in measured quantities: it's got to be too much or it's not enough.

  Pauline Kael

  Art, Too Much, Enough

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

  4 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

• There seems to be an assumption that if you're offended by movie brutality, you are somehow playing into the hands of the people who want censorship. But this would deny those of us who don't believe in censorship the use of the only counter-balance: the freedom of the press to say that there's anything conceivably damaging in these films - the freedom to analyze their implications. How can people go on talking about the dazzling brilliance of movies and not notice that the directors are sucking up to the thugs in the audience?

  Pauline Kael

  Movie, Believe, Thug

  "Stanley Strangelove". Review of "A Clockwork Orange" in January 1972. "Deeper into Movies". Book by Pauline Kael, www.visual-memory.co.uk. 1973.

  7 Copy quote

• Irresponsibility is part of the pleasure of all art; it is the part the schools cannot recognize.

  Pauline Kael

  Art, School, Pleasure

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

  27 Copy quote

• One of the surest signs of the Philistine is his reverence for the superior tastes of those who put him down.

  Pauline Kael

  Culture, Taste, Reverence

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

  85 Copy quote

• At the movies, we are gradually being conditioned to accept violence as a sensual pleasure. The directors used to say they were showing us its real face and how ugly it was in order to sensitize us to its horrors. You don't have to be very keen to see that they are now in fact desensitizing us.

  Pauline Kael

  Movie, Real, Order

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

  4 Copy quote

• There is something spurious about the very term 'a movie made for TV,' because what you make for TV is a TV program.

  Pauline Kael

  Television, Tvs, Program

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

  9 Copy quote

• Moviemaking is so male-dominated now that they think they’re being pro-feminine when they have women punching each other out.

  Pauline Kael

  Thinking, Males, Punching

  Interview with Susan Goodman, Modern Maturity, www.paulrossen.com. March/April 1998.

  10 Copy quote

• The words "Kiss Kiss Bang Bang" which I saw on an Italian movie poster, are perhaps the briefest statement imaginable of the basic appeal of movies

  Pauline Kael

  Movie, Kissing, Italian

  Kiss Kiss Bang Bang "A Note on the Title" (1968)

  7 Copy quote

• Economy, speed, nervousness, and desperation produce the final wasteful, semi-incoherent movies we see.

  Pauline Kael

  Movie, Finals, Desperation

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

  8 Copy quote

• If you're afraid of movies that excite your senses, you're afraid of movies.

  Pauline Kael

  Movie, Senses, Ifs

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

  4 Copy quote

• For some strange reason we don't go to charming, light movies anymore. People expect a movie to be heavy and turgid, like "American Beauty." We've become a heavy-handed society.

  Pauline Kael

  Light, People, Strange

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

  7 Copy quote

• The romance of movies is not just in those stories and those people on the screen but in the adolescent dream of meeting others who feel as you do about what you’ve seen.

  Pauline Kael

  Dream, People, Romance

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

  7 Copy quote

• This movie is a toupee made up to look like honest baldness.

  Pauline Kael

  Movie, Looks, Actors

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

  9 Copy quote

• We will never know the extent of the damage movies are doing to us, but movie art, it appears, thrives on moral chaos. When the country is paralyzed, the popular culture may tell us why. After innocence, winners become losers. Movies are probably inuring us to corruption; the sellout is the hero-survivor for our times.

  Pauline Kael

  Country, Art, Hero

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

  4 Copy quote

• Moviegoers like to believe that those they have made stars are great actors. People used to say that Gary Cooper was a fine actor probably because when they looked in his face they were ready to give him their power of attorney.

  Pauline Kael

  Stars, Believe, People

  Pauline Kael (1991). “Movie love: complete reviews 1988-1991”, E P Dutton

  7 Copy quote

• If I never saw another fistfight or car chase or Doberman attack, I wouldn't have any feeling of loss. And that goes for Rottweilers, too.

  Pauline Kael

  Loss, Car, Feelings

  "King Candy". Review of Against All Odds on March 19, 1984. "State of the Art". Book by Pauline Kael, p. 145, 1985.

  19 Copy quote

• Before seeing Truffaut 's Small Change, I was afraid it was going to be one of those simple, natural films about childhood which I generally try to avoid I'm just not good enough to go to them. But this series of sketches on the general theme of the resilience of children turns out to be that rarity a poetic comedy that's really funny.

  Pauline Kael

  Children, Simple, Small Changes

  Pauline Kael (1980). “When the lights go down”, Henry Holt & Co

  4 Copy quote

• Imagining [The Wizard of Oz] without Judy Garland is a bit like dancing on wet cement: you can do it, but why would you want to?

  Pauline Kael

  Dancing, Wizards, Want

  4 Copy quote

• if you think it so easy to be a critic, so difficult to be a poet or a painter or film experimenter, may I suggest you try both? You may discover why there are so few critics, so many poets.

  Pauline Kael

  Thinking, Trying, May

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

  4 Copy quote

• Vulgarity is not as destructive to an artist as snobbery.

  Pauline Kael

  Artist, Vulgarity Is, Destructive

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

  4 Copy quote

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