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Pauline Kael

Pauline Kael Quotes

Film critic

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Famous Pauline Kael Quotes

“Since I have an aversion to movies in which people say grace at the dinner table (not to the practice but to how movies use it to establish the moral strength of a household), the opening night montage of Sunday-night supper in one home after another in Waxahachie, Texas in 1935 - a whole community saying grace made me expect the worst.”

PeopleMadeWholeUseHomeNightCommunityMoralPracticeGraceWorstTablesDinnerOpeningSundayTexasHouseholdAversionSupperDinner TableSunday NightOpening NightMoral Strength
Author:Pauline Kael
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“The movies have been so rank the last couple of years that when I see people lining up to buy tickets I sometimes think that the movies aren't drawing an audience - they're inheriting an audience. People just want to go to a movie. They're stung repeatedly, yet their desire for a good movie - for any movie - is so strong that all over the country they keep lining up.”

PeopleThinkingWantYearsHas BeensCountrySometimesLastsFilmDesireStrongAudienceCoupleHollywoodDrawingTicketsGood MovieLining Up
Book:Raising Kane and Other Essays
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“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?”

PeopleIfsWantBelieveUseHandsSeemsFilmTalkingAudienceViolenceGoes OnBalanceDirectorsPressesDon't BelieveDenyAssumptionMovieCensorshipOffendedImplicationsBrillianceBrutalityThugFreedom Of The PressDazzling
Author:Pauline Kael
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“Watching old movies is like spending an evening with those people next door. They bore us, and we wouldn't go out of our way to see them; we drop in on them because they're so close. If it took some effort to see old movies, we might try to find out which were the good ones, and if people saw only the good ones maybe they would still respect old movies. As it is, people sit and watch movies that audiences walked out on thirty years ago. Like Lot's wife, we are tempted to take another look, attracted not by evil but by something that seems much more shameful -- our own innocence.”

PeopleIfsWayTryingYearsLooksStillsSeemsMightEvilNextEffortWatchesAudienceSawsWifeDoorsTelevisionYears AgoSpendingEveningInnocenceThirtyBoresTemptedShamefulThirty YearsWatch MovieOld Movie
Book:Raising Kane and Other Essays
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