One of the opening lines in the 2021 novel Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, a book adapted from Quentin Tarantino’s 2019 film by the same name, goes like this: “Hollywood, 1969. I wish I lived!!” Among the most influential voices in shaping New Hollywood was Pauline Kael, a critic whose essays for The New Yorker from 1969 to 1991 and who vigorously defended the work of Sam Peckinpah, Robert Altman, Paul Schrader, and Brian De Palma. She argued that these filmmakers challenged studio power and pursued more personal, unconventional projects. Schrader, who was integral to shaping the Taxi Driver script amid personal struggles with drugs and Calvinist doubt, has said Kael felt almost like a second mother to him.
Kael figures prominently in Tarantino’s Cinema Meditations, a book that surveys a tumultuous era and which Tarantino plans to screen in Barcelona on April 9, as a production by the presenter. In Tarantino’s view, Kael recognized his artistic merit and production skill, even in the controversial, fiercely rebellious film Dirty Harry, and he notes her ability to describe Clint Eastwood’s nemesis, the psychopath Scorpio—an inspiration drawn from the zodiac killer—without naming the character or actor. Tarantino also mentions followers of Kael’s critical line who were known as the “Paulettes,” enthusiasts of Jonathan Demme’s cinema long before The Silence of the Lambs brought him fame, and he consistently elevates her within his reading of cinema.
The great mystery of American cinema in recent decades has been clarified. Tarantino announced years earlier that he would retire from directing after completing his tenth feature. Various projects were discussed, from a third chapter of Kill Bill to a film in the Star Trek universe. In the end, Tarantino chose something unexpectedly different: a biopic in the spirit of Kael’s own work. It would mark the first film to center on a dedicated film critic, reframing the idea of a biopic around a critic rather than a traditional filmmaker.
Filmmakers and critics alike may realize that Tarantino’s departure from the director’s chair has opened a path for a film that mirrors his farewell to cinema as a set—the project’s title, Cinema Critic, underscores this shift and the celebratory, investigative approach Tarantino conceived for the project. Rob Garver contributed a documentary in 2018 titled What He Said: The Art of Pauline Kael, which highlights the enduring impact of her advocacy for art. The idea of a critic’s role in shaping culture echoes Oscar Wilde’s famous claim that the critic is an artist—a sentiment Wilde expressed long ago in his essay The Critic as an Artist, a point often cited in discussions of Kael’s influence.
Influence on cinema
Tarantino has said Kael’s influence on him matched that of any filmmaker, and he acknowledges that a select circle around Kael had a significant impact on his own work. Kael’s voice came to define a turbulent era that remapped American cinema in the late 1960s and early 1970s. The period was shaped by the Vietnam War, the civil rights movement, the Black Panthers, the assassinations of Malcolm X, Martin Luther King Jr., and Robert Kennedy, Woodstock and Altamont, the transformation of Muhammad Ali, the emergence of the Nation of Islam, the Manson family, the 1968 Democratic National Convention, and Watergate. All of these events resonated through new, fearless cinema that Kael championed. Among the films she celebrated were Panic in Needle Park, Lenny, and Joe, American Citizen, which pushed boundaries of sex, drug depiction, violence, and rock ’n’ roll.
Pauline Kael, who passed away in 2001 at the age of eighty-two, lived a life that hovered between bohemia in New York and Berkeley, where she organized art gatherings and devoted herself to criticism. She wrote theatrical works, had a daughter with experimental filmmaker James Broughton, questioned the supposed neutrality of critics, published several first-person accounts of her experiences, participated in radio programs, helped program an alternative venue in Berkeley, and served as editor for a women’s magazine. Kael’s writing helped pioneer the inclusion of controversial takes on masterpieces; she was among the first to elevate Bonnie and Clyde in a New Yorker piece that opened doors for later discussion in the magazine’s review section, later expanded by Penelope Gilliatt. Kael’s work generated controversy both for her distinctive style and for the defenses and critiques she offered of various cinematographies. Perhaps no article drew more heat than her discussion of the paternity of the Citizen Kane script, a theory Orson Welles dismissed but that resurfaced in contemporary debates, including in the context of David Fincher’s Mank.