The Monsters Are the Critics: How the "New Yorker" Kaelled the Art Form of the Twentieth Century

When movie critics talk in this day and age, they always assert two contradictory things: (1) contemporary movies are far too prudish and censored and (2) movies were far better fifty years ago, during the golden age of Hollywood. True, they also believe that the 1970s were a highpoint in their own way, but the 80s seem to be, universally, the least popular decade of movie-making for everyone and the 90s and 2000s, while satisfactory, do not stand out. Of course, as with most other phenomenon, there is a reason for this, an occurrence that brought us from there to here: Pauline Kael.

For those of us who are just joining the program, Pauline Kael was the movie critic (she never used the word "film," thinking it pretentious) for the "New Yorker" magazine from 1967 to 1991. Some people argue that she is the most important critic of her generation and, while it is for worse rather than better, she has had an unquestionable influence on critics like A. O. Scott, Peter Travers and her successors over at the NYer, David Denby and Anthony Lane. Her reviews were even collected and published in book form (James Agee is the only other reviewer to have his reviews republished that I can think of.)

But before I expound on why this has done more harm than good, there are a few things which ought to be set straight. First, Pauline Kael never said or wrote "I can't believe that Nixon defeated McGovern, I don't know a single person who voted for him" even though this quote is often cited as an example of liberal/progressive ignorance. She may have been a number of things, but she was very much in touch with her times, which brings me around nicely to her significance. She was a film critic for the era in which she wrote (or, at least for the first decade of it.) It was an era in which Arthur Penn was making progressive movies like "Bonny and Clyde," "Little Big Man," and "Missouri Breaks"; when Francis Ford Coppola was directing the first two "Godfather" pictures; when Martin Scorsese gained notoriety for movies like "Mean Streets" and "Taxi Driver"; and when Robert Altman was developing his signature improvisational style in movies like "M.A.S.H.," "McCabe and Mrs. Miller," and "Nashville". (If you gagged me, hand-cuffed me to a chair and taped my eyes open, then maybe you would get me to watch a movie from Robert Altman's 70s period, but I refuse to do it willingly.)

Of all of the movies noted above, Pauline Kael was an early champion. For example, she got into a famous literary tussle with the film critic of the "New York Times" (whose name, I believe, was Brosley Crowther) over "Bonny and Clyde," a movie which she loved and he deplored. The result: she became the leading film critic for the "New Yorker" and he decided that it was time for retirement. Crowther represented the old school of film criticism, the type which might have seen something like "Lawrence of Arabia" or "To Kill a Mockingbird" as masterpieces, whereas Kael saw herself as a champion of the new school. These old movies, which were popular with audiences because of their straightforwardness, were not included in her new vision for cinema. (Incidentally, years later, when asked why he had not made a movie in decades "Lawrence of Arabia"'s director, David Lean, said that Pauline Kael was the reason.) She was constantly goading her readers to take on movies which were more challenging, movies which she found to be difficult. Perhaps it is not coincidental that the 1970s saw a significant increase in the market for foreign films.

At this point, it may seem that there is little to be regretted. The 1970s--while producing Altman's films and "Mean Streets"--did also see some flawed up unequaled masterpieces: Scorsese's "Taxi Driver," Coppola's "Godfather, Part I" and "Godfather, Part II," Terrence Malick's "Badlands," Roman Polanski's "Chinatown." But, on the other hand, it completely destroyed the film industry which had preceded it. The era of the epic--"Ben-Hur," "Lawrence of Arabia," "Doctor Zhivago"--was effectively over; film noir also, while occasionally emulated, was little more than a curiosity after 1970; the golden age of the western had come to an end. (The only westerns that were produced during the 70s were the revisionist hack-works of Arthur Penn; seriously, who watches those anymore?)

Because the above-mentioned genres describe, more or less, every popular movie that was produced before 1970 (with some exceptions, like "King Kong"), it was obvious that the studios would have to find some other means of attracting audiences. Improvements in special effects helped new genres, like fantasy, science fiction and action develop, but the 1970s also saw a significant bar-raise in movie violence. Not that I am totally opposed, one of my favorite movies is "Fargo" after all, but I feel no other emotion than offense when I see a movie like "Sin City" and note that the filmmaker believes me to be, like him, a sadistic pervert of sorts who enjoys watching prostitutes being cannibalized. In other words, the 1970s made violence into an artistic trope in cinema, instead of being a necessary evil. (I should note, also, that violence completely destroyed horror/suspense as a genre, because people forgot that spilling barrels and barrels of ketchup is not actually particularly scary.)

Pauline Kael's main contribution to this sorry state of affair was creating the rift between popular movies and cinematic movies. We see the cloud of her influence in every "New Yorker" movie review today, where David Denby and Anthony Lane consistently attack certain movies for one reason: they are financed by major studios and promote others for the converse: they are financed by "independent" studios. The industry which Kael and the filmmakers of the 1970s dismantled was, perhaps, imperfect. It did created movies like "the Sound of Music," after all. But "Lawrence of Arabia," to name just one example, has the sweep of great tragedy, more so than "the Godfather" even. Not that I am suggesting we revert to the 1960s rules and modes of film production. I am merely saying that I would have preferred to see where it would have gone and also, even if they did usher in a new era, I could have lived without Robert Altman and Arthur Penn.