Deeper Into Movies

Pauline Kael's third collection of film reviews from The New Yorker magazine covers the period September 1969 to March 1972. Kael's anti-intellectual stance (she is fond of cursing) and wicked sense of humour makes her probably the most accessible of the critics. Her desultory reviews can be often more entertaining than the complimentary ones. In this volume she praises (among others) The Sterile Cuckoo, La Femme Infidele, They Shoot Horses Don't They, M*A*S*H*, McCabe and Mrs Miller, Sunday Bloody Sunday, The Last Picture Show, Fiddler on the Roof, Cabaret, and The Godfather. She pans The Arrangement, Hello Dolly, Topaz, The Honeymoon Killers, Ryan's Daughter, Love Story, Carnal Knowledge, Dirty Harry, and The Boyfriend. As for most of her writing, one can read the reviews simply for the pleasure of her craft, without having to or even wanting to see the film she is discussing. A few things gave me a giggle. Her list of deterrents to movie-going. Keir Dullea at the premiere of de Sade getting applause for a closeup of his face, then the next shot being a closeup of his horse's face and the horse getting applause, too. Her constitutional aversion to movies about beautiful women whose souls have been lost, stolen or destroyed, especially when it isn't clear - and it never is - whether the heroine had a soul in the first place. And how in Nicholas and Alexandria, the actor playing Lenin is photographed like the statues of Lenin and he behaves like a statue.