De kemels van 

Pauline Kael

                                 

Afgezien van de Amerikaan Roger Ebert, is er wellicht geen filmrecensent waar zo naar opgekeken wordt als diens landgenote Pauline Kael. Beiden zijn intussen overleden: Ebert stierf in 2013, Kael reeds in 2001. Over de doden niets dan goed, zegt men, maar ons moet het toch van het hart dat wij de filmrecensies van Kael zwaar overroepen vinden. 

Roger Ebert.

Roger Ebert zat er ook wel eens naast in zijn beoordelingen van films. Zo gaf Ebert bijvoorbeeld:

- slechts 2,5 (op vier) sterren aan de magistrale western Once Upon a Time in the West van Sergio Leone uit 1969 (onze favoriete western en één van onze favoriete films tout court; bekijk een filmfragment hier);

- slechts 2 sterren aan het onderschatte tragiromantisch dorpsdrama Ryan's Daughter van David Lean uit 1970 (lees onze recensie hier);

- slechts 2 sterren aan het visionaire en maatschappijkritische meesterwerk A Clockwork Orange van Stanley Kubrick uit 1972 (één van onze favoriete sciencefictionfilms en één van onze favoriete films tout court; lees onze recensie hier);

- slechts 2 sterren aan de iconische horrorklassieker The Texas Chain Saw Massacre van Tobe Hooper uit 1974 (één van onze favoriete horrorfilms en één van onze favoriete films over seriemoorden; bekijk de hele film hier);

- slechts 2 sterren aan het briljante en visueel verbluffende psychoseksuele neo noir misdaadmysterie Lost Highway van David Lynch uit 1997 (één van onze favoriete films; lees onze recensie hier en bekijk de hele film hier);

- slechts 1,5 ster aan de uitstekende komedie Raising Arizona van de gebroeders Coen uit 1987; 

- slechts 1 ster aan Le locataire van Roman Polanski uit 1976, waarbij Ebert deze nochtans fascinerende psychologische mysteriethriller ten onrechte afkraakte als "not merely bad-it's an embarrassment (...) it's unspeakably disappointing";

- slechts 1 ster aan de briljante, visueel verbluffende en invloedrijke psychoseksuele neo noir misdaadthriller Blue Velvet van David Lynch uit 1986 (één van onze favoriete films; bekijk een filmfragment hier, de hele film hier, een interview met David Lynch over Blue Velvet hier en een video met Roger Eberts kritiek op Blue Velvet hier).

Daarom vinden wij ook Eberts reputatie als de beste filmrecensent aller tijden niet helemaal verdiend. Maar hij had wél een schitterende pen, gaf blijk van groot inzicht in het filmmetièr, en zijn missers waren uitzonderingen. Niets daarvan kan gezegd worden van Pauline Kael. 

Polemische zelfpromotie

In tegenstelling tot de sporadische missers van Ebert, waren de talrijke kemels van Kael niet louter misverstanden die voortvloeiden uit blinde vlekken in de appreciatie van uitdagende films, zoals bijvoorbeeld Eberts emotionele bezwaren tegen gewelddadige scènes. Terwijl bij Ebert altijd de films centraal stonden, ging het in de recensies van Kael onrechtstreeks vooral om Kael zelf. Haar argumenten om een film af te breken of de hemel in te prijzen waren vaak zo kunstmatig en vergezocht dat zij vooral wilde aantonen hoe origineel, eigenzinnig en moedig haar zienswijze wel was. En hoewel er op zich niets mis is met filmbesprekingen waarin de persoonlijkheid van de recensent doorschijnt en hij/zij sporadisch een autobiografische anekdote vertelt, vermits dat nu eenmaal onvermijdelijk is in een discipline die ook de persoonlijke visie en smaak van de recensent weerspiegelt, overschaduwde Kaels arrogante en aandachtszieke ego vaak de films die zij besprak. Haar recensies staan bol van allerlei provocerende en tegendraadse uitspraken (met inbegrip van ad hominem beledigingen aan het adres van cineasten en acteurs) die vaak meer zeggen over Kaels eigen snobisme, pseudo-scherpzinnigheid en twistzieke zelfpromotie dan over die films. Of in de woorden van de Amerikaanse auteur Alan Vanneman: “All her life Kael wrote as a brilliant schoolgirl, straining for ‘insights’ and exulting in ‘nuances’ that no one else noticed (because they weren’t there). She had to be deeper, more profound, and more shocking than anyone else, which led her to the same sort of pretentiousness she ridiculed in others.” Op die manier verborg Kael, die het kijkplezier van haar lezers bovendien heel vaak verpestte met schaamteloze spoilers, dat zij in feite veel minder verstand had van het medium film dan haar (onterechte) status als één van de meest gerespecteerde en invloedrijke filmrecensenten suggereert.

Pauline Kael.

Gebakken lucht

Geukkig zijn er intussen steeds meer cinefielen die Kaels oeuvre doorprikken als gebakken lucht. Zo noemde de New Yorkse auteur Alex Sheremet haar hier terecht "one of film’s worst and most ridiculous critics (...) for all she’s written, and has been written of her, Pauline Kael was not much of a critic, combining the worst flaws of Roger Ebert (over-reliance on emotion) with none of his writing ability, and a pointless viciousness and personal vindictiveness that — had it been well-worded — could have at least been fun. It is not, and as the sudden implosion and inevitable decline of her progeny Armond White shows, it pays more to be right than righteous, a difference few people ever see, and fewer still can ever act on." 

Dat blijkt ook uit onze demythologiserende bloemlezing van Kaels absurde kemels hieronder:

Bloemlezing 

Pauline Kael over de visueel verbluffende en uiterst invloedrijke psychosociale karakterstudie Citizen Kane (1941) van Orson Welles, wellicht het beste filmdebuut aller tijden: "it isn’t a work of special depth or a work of subtle beauty. It is a shallow work (...) it is conceived and acted as entertainment in a popular style (...) so overwrought in style as to be almost a Gothic comedy. What might possibly be considered tragic in it has such a Daddy Warbucks quality that if it’s tragic at all it’s comic-strip tragic. The mystery in 'Kane' is largely fake, and the Gothic-thriller atmosphere and the Rosebud gimmickry (though fun) are such obvious penny-dreadful popular theatrics (...) without much resonance, and certainly without much tragic resonance. (...) The conceptions are basically kitsch; basically, 'Kane' is popular melodrama—Freud plus scandal, a comic strip (...) full of flaws". Bekijk een filmfragment uit Citizen Kane hier.

- Pauline Kael over het visueel verbluffende tragiromantisch balletdrama The Red Shoes (1948) van Michael Powell en Emeric Pressburger: "Blubbery and self-conscious (...) high kitsch". Lees onze eigen recensie van The Red Shoes hier, bekijk een filmfragment hier en de hele film hier.

- Pauline Kael over de avontuurlijke, visueel verbluffende en invloedrijke western The Searchers (1956) van John Ford: "It's a peculiarly formal and stilted movie (...) it isn't very enjoyable (...) The lines are often awkward and the line readings worse, and the film is often static (...) many crude and corny touches (...) Ford's attempts at comic relief are a fizzle". The Searchers behoort tot onze favoriete westerns en onze favoriete road movies.

- Pauline Kael over het briljante, visueel verbluffende en invloedrijke misdaadmysterie Vertigo (1958) van Alfred Hitchcock: "stupid". Vertigo behoort tot onze favoriete films (ongeacht het genre). Ook de getalenteerde Amerikaanse cineast William Friedkin was een bewonderaar van Vertigo. Bekijk de knappe begingeneriek van Saul Bass hier en een analyse van het symbolische kleurgebruik in Vertigo hier.

- Pauline Kael over het fascinerende mysterie Blow-Up (1966) van Michelangelo Antonioni: "reminds one of so many naïvely bad experimental films (...) Antonioni, like his fashion-photographer hero, is more interested in getting pretty pictures than in what they mean. But for reasons I can’t quite fathom, what is taken to be shallow in his hero is taken to be profound in him (...) pompous platitudes (...) so much confused symbolism and such a heavy sense of importance (...) this movie is so ill-formed (...) simply exploits the ready-made symbolic meanings people attach to certain details and leaves us in a profound mess. (The middlebrow moralists think it’s profound and the hippies enjoy the mess)". Bekijk de hele film hier.

- Pauline Kael over het unieke, visueel verbluffende en uiterst invloedrijke sciencefictionepos 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) van Stanley Kubrick: "it’s fun to think about Kubrick really doing every dumb thing he wanted to do, building enormous science fiction sets and equipment, never even bothering to figure out what he was going to do with them (...) stupid stuff (...) a kind of super sci-fi nut’s fantasy (...) amateur movie (...) the most gloriously redundant plot of all time (...) It isn’t accidental that we don’t care if the characters live or die; if Kubrick has made his people so uninteresting, it is partly because characters and individual fates just aren’t big enough for certain kinds of big movie directors. (...) It's a monumentally unimaginative movie". 2001: A Space Odyssey behoort tot onze favoriete sciencefictionfilms en onze favoriete films tout court (ongeacht het genre). Lees onze eigen recensie van 2001: A Space Odyssey hier, bekijk de trailer hier en een filmfragment hier.  

- Pauline Kael over het onderschatte tragiromantisch drama Ryan's Daughter (1970) van David Lean: "a cheap romance (...) gush made respectable by millions of dollars 'tastefully' wasted (...) The emptiness of 'Ryan's Daughter' shows in practically every frame". Lees onze eigen recensie van Ryan's Daughter hier. 

- Pauline Kael over het maatschappijkritische meesterwerk A Clockwork Orange (1971) van Stanley Kubrick: "it has no depth (...) done in such a slow, heavy style (...) self-important (...) corrupt (...) an abhorrent viewing experience (...) offensive (...) it has no shadings. Kubrick, a director with an arctic spirit, is determined to be pornographic, and he has no talent for it. (...) terrible performances from everybody but McDowell (...) portentous (...)  Many of the dialogue sequences go on and on, into a stupor of inactivity. (...) at times you feel as if you were trapped in front of the frames of a comic strip for a numbing ten minutes per frame. (...) the purest exploitation (...) sucking up to the thugs in the audience". A Clockwork Orange behoort tot onze favoriete sciencefictionfilms en onze favoriete films tout court (ongeacht het genre). Lees onze eigen recensie van A Clockwork Orange hier.

- Pauline Kael over de briljante, realistische en invloedrijke politiefilm The French Connection (1971) van William Friedkin: "It is, I think, what we once feared mass entertainment might become: jolts for jocks. There's nothing in the movie that you enjoy thinking over afterward (...) sloppy plotting (...) full of holes, but mostly you're too stunned to notice them (...) total commercial opportunism (...) meaningless (...) the movie can be seen as justifying police brutality". The French Connection behoort tot onze favoriete politiefilms. Lees onze eigen recensie van The French Connection hier en bekijk de trailer hier. 

- Pauline Kael over de invloedrijke horrorklassieker en kaskraker The Exorcist (1973) van William Friedkin, één van de beste en meest angstaanjagende griezelfilms aller tijden: "It's an obtuse movie (...) A viewer can become glumly anesthetized by the brackish color and the senseless ugliness of the conception. (...) in the worst imaginable taste (...) unpleasant (...) it’s entirely mechanical and impersonal (...) there's nothing the actors can do with the juiceless stock roles (...) tiresomely moralistic (...) It’s all so tired that we can keep going only on fresh atrocities. (...) the picture is in a slugging, coercive style. (...) As a movie, 'The Exorcist' is too ugly a phenomenon to take lightly. (...) of no taste and no imagination (...) can’t muster up any feeling (...)  Neither the producer-writer, William Peter Blatty, nor the director, William Friedkin, shows any feeling for the little girl's helplessness and suffering, or for her mother's. (...) Aren't those who accept this picture getting their heads screwed on backward?". The Exorcist behoort tot onze favoriete horrorfilms. Bekijk de trailer hier.

- Pauline Kael over het poëtische meesterwerk Badlands (1973) van Terrence Malick, een als road movie en misdaaddrama verpakte tragiromantische ode aan liefde en vrijheid: "draggy art (...) so cold and formal (...) condescending (...) An intellectualized movie (...) so preconceived that there's nothing left to respond to (...) I didn’t admire it, I didn’t enjoy it, and I don’t like it". Badlands behoort tot onze favoriete road movies, onze favoriete films over seriemoorden en onze favoriete films tout court (ongeacht het genre).

- Pauline Kael over het avontuurlijke en visueel verbluffende historisch kostuumdrama Barry Lyndon (1975) van Stanley Kubrick: "By Kubrick’s insistence that this is a piece of wisdom that must be treated with Jansenist austerity and by his consequent refusal to entertain us, or even to involve us, he has made one of the vainest of all movies. He suppresses most of the active elements that make movies pleasurable (...) It’s a coffee-table movie; we might as well be at a three-hour slide show for art-history majors. (...) Obviously, Stanley Kubrick does not have a gift for sensual fury (...) he’s indifferent to the possibilities in the interaction of images and doesn’t build his sequences by editing (...) inert (...) the music might as well be embalming fluid. (...) it’s essentially a bloodless, elongated version of a thirties costume picture (...) I wish Stanley Kubrick would come home to this country to make movies again, working fast on modern subjects — maybe even doing something tacky, for the hell of it.". Barry Lyndon behoort tot onze favoriete historische drama's en onze favoriete road movies. Bekijk een filmfragment hier.

- Pauline Kael over het visueel verbluffende drama Days of Heaven (1978) van Terrence Malick: "The film is an empty Christmas tree: you can hang all your dumb metaphors on it. (...) The movie suffers from too many touches, too many ideas that don't grow out of anything organic."

- Pauline Kael over het briljante psychosociaal anti-oorlogsdrama The Deer Hunter (1978) van Michael Cimino: "enraging, because, despite its ambitiousness and scale, it has no more moral intelligence than the Clint Eastwood action pictures. (...) Cimino doesn’t know how to reveal character, develop it, or indicate what’s going on in a human relationship. (...) a small-minded film (...) Cimino’s technique has pushed him further than he has been able to think out. His major characters don’t articulate their feelings; they’re floating in a wordless, almost plotless atmosphere, and their relations aren’t sharp enough for us to feel the full range of the film’s themes. Too many of the motifs are merely symbolic — are dropped in rather than dramatized. At times, we feel that we’re there to be awed rather than to understand." Bekijk de hele film hier.

- Pauline Kael over het visueel verbluffende tragiromantisch kostuumdrama Tess (1979) van Roman Polanski: "The movie is a sustained feat of male breast-beating (...) you’re watching nothing. (...) The picture is tame (...) The story hasn’t been dramatized (...) Everything is subdued, blended. (...) Polanski's 'Tess' is Hardy's 'Tess of the D'Urbervilles' under sedation." Tess behoort tot onze favoriete historische drama's en onze favoriete road movies. Bekijk een filmfragment hier en de hele film hier.

- Pauline Kael over de briljante en visueel verbluffende psychologische horrorthriller The Shining (1980) van Stanley Kubrick: "though we may admire the effects, we’re never drawn in by them (...) When we see a flash of bloody cadavers or observe a torrent of blood pouring from an elevator, we're not frightened, because Kubrick’s absorption in film technology distances us. (...) he keeps the scenes going for so long that any suspense dissipates. (...) by the climax, when we’re running around in the hedge maze on the hotel grounds, the rhythmic sameness has worn us down. It’s like watching a skater do figure eights all night, or at least for two hours and twenty-six minutes. (...) We go to 'The Shining' hoping for nasty scare effects and for an appeal to our giddiest nighttime fears—va­porous figures, shadowy places. What we get doesn’t tease the imagination. Visually, the movie often feels like a cheat (...) Kubrick uses Nicholson in the most obvious way. (...) There’s no surprise in anything he does, no feeling of invention. This is true of everyone in the film (...) since we are not drawn in, we’re not effectively dis­oriented—just fed up. We wait for revelations—the events that will connect the different types of parapsychological phenomena we’ve been observing— and since we don’t get those revelations, the picture seems not to make any sense. So when, at the very end, we’re hit over the head with reincarnation, it has no emotional resonance. It just seems like a dumb finish. (...) we don’t know how to read Kubrick’s signals; it may be that he simply doesn’t know us well enough anymore to manipulate us successfully. Again and again, the movie leads us to expect something—almost promises it—and then disappoints us. (...) We’re starved for pleasure at this movie". The Shining behoort tot onze favoriete horrorfilms, onze favoriete films over seriemoorden en onze favoriete films tout court (ongeacht het genre). Bekijk de trailer hier.

- Pauline Kael over de schitterende en visueel verbluffende psychosociale bokserbiopic Raging Bull (1980) van Martin Scorsese, één van de beste spordrama's en biopics aller tijden: "Jake says, 'You dumb f— k,' and Joey says, 'You dumb f—k,' and they repeat it and repeat it. And I think. What am I doing here watching these two dumb f—ks? (...) there’s nothing under the scenes—no subtext (...) the way the story is told Jake’s life pattern doesn’t make much sense (...) Even the black and white is macho (...) banality (...) loses the lowlife entertainment value of prizefight films (...) aestheticizes pulp". Bekijk een filmfragment hier.

- Pauline Kael over het meeslepende en uiterst populaire archeologische avontuur Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981) van Steven Spielberg, één van de beste en meest iconische avonturenfilms aller tijden: "there’s no exhilaration in this dumb, motor excitement. (...) it isn’t beautifully made (...) klunky music (...) the script doesn’t seem worked out. (...) The actors are mostly just bodies carrying pieces of plot around. They sound as if they were ordered to read their dialogue on the run (...) 'Raiders' is timid moviemaking: the film seems terrified of not giving audiences enough thrills to keep them happy. (...) plot for its own sake, dissociated from character or drama (...) pulp-repulped (...) Spielberg fumbles a lot of his action sequences (...) some of the episodes are simply tired (...) Seeing 'Raiders' is like being put through a Cuisinart—something has been done to us, but not to our benefit.". 

- Pauline Kael over de briljante, visueel verbluffende en uiterst invloedrijke tech-noir cyberpunk sciencefictionklassieker Blade Runner (1982) van Ridley Scott: "we're always aware of the sets as sets (...) what we see doesn't mean anything to us. (...) Ridley Scott isn’t great on mise en scène (...) we’re not caught up in the pulpy suspense plot (...) this film seems indifferent, blasé (...) The dialogue isn’t well handled, either. Scott doesn’t seem to have a grasp of how to use words as part of the way a movie moves. 'Blade Runner' is a suspenseless thriller (...) At some point, Scott and the others must have decided that the story was unimportant (...) 'Blade Runner' doesn’t engage you directly; it forces passivity on you. (...) it's just something unpleasant or ugly. (...) Rutger Hauer brings the wrong kind of intensity to the role (...) the whole movie gives you a feeling of not getting anywhere. (...) inertia made glamorous. (...) the movie doesn’t pull the plot strands together (...) musty (...) this movie loses track of the few expectations it sets up, and the formlessness adds to a viewer’s demoralization—the film itself seems part of the atmosphere of decay 'Blade Runner' has nothing to give the audience (...) It hasn’t been thought out in human terms. If anybody comes around with a test to detect humanoids, maybe Ridley Scott and his associates should hide. With all the smoke in this movie, you feel as if everyone connected with it needs to have his flue cleaned." Blade Runner behoort tot onze favoriete sciencefictionfilms. Lees onze eigen recensie van Blade Runner hier en bekijk de trailer hier.

- Pauline Kael over de uitstekende zwarte komedie The King of Comedy (1982) van Martin Scorsese: "isn't an ordinary kind of bad movie. It's so -deliberately- quiet and empty that it doesn't provide even the dumb, mind-rotting diversion that can half amuse audiences at ordinary bad movies. (...) The plot is small-scale - material for a sketch, dragged out.  (...) Rupert is as boring to us as he is to Langford. (...) De Niro's performance -from the Nobody's-Home school of acting- is of a piece with Scorsese's whole conception of the film. (...) this movie reduces everybody to crud. (...)  the possibility that our feelings might be engaged -that we might think we were at an ordinary movie- has to be stepped on. (...) Scorsese must have decided to give us the creeps. The shots are held so long that we look for more in them than is there. (...) a chore to watch (...) characters who are pitifully incapable of sustaining our interest, and that leaves a vacancy. (...) the film turns indecisive and fumbling toward the end (...) no fire (...) glaring emptiness (...)  a training film for pests, and worse." The King of Comedy behoort tot onze favoriete komedies. Bekijk de hele film hier.

- Pauline Kael over de poëtische en dramatische familiekroniek Fanny och Alexander (1982) van Ingmar Bergman, waarmee Bergman zijn indrukwekkende filmcarrière meesterlijk afsloot: "the conventionality of the thinking in the film is rather shocking. It's as if Bergman's neuroses had been tormenting him for so long that he cut them off and went sprinting back to Victorian health and domesticity." Bekijk de hele film hier.

- Pauline Kael over de schitterende historische gangsterkroniek Once Upon a Time in America (1984) van Sergio Leone, één van de beste gangsterfilms aller tijden: "Leone doesn’t bother to develop the characters (...) Leone’s vision of Jewish gangsters is a joke." Bekijk een filmfragment hier en de hele film hier.

- Pauline Keal over de iconische coming-of-age-scholierenkomedie The Breakfast Club (1985) van John Hughes: "schematic plot (...) the scenes involving the snotty, callous dean ring false right from the start, and though Paul Gleason seems miscast, maybe anybody playing this villain would seem miscast. Judd Nelson's role as the catalyst-rebel—the working-class kid who's good with his hands (he loves shop), and is also a hipster, and fearless—is a dud, too. And Nelson doesn't seem to have a speck of spontaneity. After his early scenes, he becomes too self-pitying (...) all that this encounter-session movie actually does is strip a group of high-school kids down to their most banal longings to be accepted and liked." The Breakfast Club behoort tot onze favoriete komedies. Bekijk een filmfragment hier. 

- Pauline Kael over de briljante biopic en gangsterkroniek GoodFellas (1990) van Martin Scorsese: "Is it a great movie? I don’t think so. (...) What’s missing? Well, there are no great voices. The script, by Pileggi and Scorsese, isn’t really dramatized (...) Scorsese doesn’t weight the incidents dramatically; he leaves the themes, and even the story, lying there inert. (...) The picture has scope rather than depth. (...) the three major hoods, played by Liotta, De Niro, and Pesci (...) don’t have a strong enough presence. (...) these sociopaths are conceived shallowly, the way they used to be in B pictures. (It wasn’t just the low budgets that were evoked by the term 'B picture'; it was also the unmemorable characters.) (...) these actors seem too old for their parts (...) this picture doesn’t have the juice and richness that come with major performances. It has no arc, and doesn’t climax; it just comes to a stop." GoodFelllas is niet alleen onze favoriete gangsterfilm, maar behoort ook tot onze favoriete films tout court (ongeacht het genre). Bekijk de trailer hier en een filmfragment hier.

- Pauline Kael over de commerciële draak Dirty Dancing (1987) van Emile Ardolino: "you come out of the theatre giggling happily."


Joeri Naanai