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Pauline Kael Quotes

Film critic

Pauline Kael was an influential American film critic, born on June 19, 1919, and passed away on September 3, 2001. She was a prominent figure in the film criticism world, known for her unique perspective and profound insights into cinema.

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All Art Ifs Movie People Artist Television Want Knows Believe Film May Actors Feels Saws Seems Stills Thinking Way Audience Country

Famous Pauline Kael Quotes

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

Ifs Senses Movie

Book:For Keeps

Source: For Keeps

“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?”

“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.”

Real Facts Faces Used Order Pleasure Accepting Violence Horror Directors Ugly Sensual Movie Sensual Pleasure

Book:For Keeps

Source: For Keeps

“tasteful and colossal are - in movies, at least - basically antipathetic.”

Movie Colossal

Author:Pauline Kael

“When I see those ads with the quote 'You'll have to see this picture twice,' I know it's the kind of picture I don't want to see once.”

Knows Want Kind Movie Ads

Book:For Keeps

Source: For Keeps

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

Persons Art Easy Expression Movie Sullen

Book:For Keeps

Source: For Keeps

“Movies have been doing so much of the same thing - in slightly different ways - for so long that few of the possibilities of this great hybrid art have yet been explored.”

Way Long Has Beens Art Different Possibility Different Ways Movie Hybrid

Book:Going Steady: Film Writings, 1968-1969

Source: Going Steady: Film Writings, 1968-1969

“When a picture can't make it on its own, the producers pull in a 'controversial' message - the way a couple whose marriage is falling apart decide to have a baby.”

Way Fall Baby Couple Messages Producers Movie Falling Apart Controversial

Author:Pauline Kael

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

Economy Produce Finals Speed Movie Desperation Nervousness

Book:Raising Kane and Other Essays

Source: Raising Kane and Other Essays

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

Looks Made Actors Honest Movie Baldness

Book:Hooked

Source: Hooked

“Citizen Kane is perhaps the one American talking picture that seems as fresh now as the day it opened. It may seem even fresher.”

May Seems Actors Talking Air Citizens Movie Judaism Citizen Kane

Book:The Citizen Kane book

Source: The Citizen Kane book

“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”

Actors Saws Kissing Statements Appeals Movie Italian Bangs Posters

Author:Pauline Kael

“Good movies make you care, make you believe in possibilities again.”

Believe Care Possibility Movie Good Movie Films And Movies

Author:Pauline Kael

“We may be reaching the end of the era in which individual movies meant something to people. In the new era, movies may just mean a barrage of images.”

People May Mean Ends Individual Eras Movie Reaching New Era Reaching The End

Author:Pauline Kael

About the Author

Born: June 19, 1919
Died: September 3, 2001
Known for: Film critic
Quotes: 94

Books & Sources

For KeepsRelated source material

i lost it at the moviesRelated source material

Raising Kane and Other EssaysRelated source material

HookedRelated source material

5001 Nights at the MoviesRelated source material

Movie love: complete reviews 1988-1991Related source material

Afterglow: A Last Conversation with Pauline KaelRelated source material

Going Steady: Film Writings, 1968-1969Related source material

Conversations with Pauline KaelRelated source material

For Keeps: 30 Years at the MoviesRelated source material

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