Pauline Kael

1 month ago | link.newyorker.com | Pauline Kael |Nathan Heller |Hanif Abdurraqib |Dhruv Khullar

The movie critic’s informal manifesto reflects both her brilliance and her blind spots during a revolutionary period in Hollywood. View in browser | New Takes on the classics. To celebrate its centenary, The New Yorker has invited contributors to revisit notable works from the archive. You’re on the free list. Subscribe to enjoy unlimited access to a century of reporting, commentary, criticism, and fiction.

Aug 12, 2024 | newyorker.com | Pauline Kael

Barbra Streisand arrives on the screen, in “Funny Girl,” when the movies are in desperate need of her. The timing is perfect.

Apr 15, 2023 | scrapsfromtheloft.com | Pauline Kael

by Pauline Kael The musicians in swing bands wore tails (monkey suits, they were called) or bright-colored uniforms or spangled zoot suits; their leaders flashed their teeth and, if they were black, jiggled and jived. Black or white, they made us feel that entertaining us and keeping us dancing was the highest call­ing they aspired to—even if they’d played the same arrange­ments over and over—and that our happiness was their happiness.

Jan 18, 2023 | newyorker.com | Pauline Kael

Cary Grant is the male love object. Men want to be as lucky and enviable as he is—they want to be like him. And women imagine landing him. Like Robert Redford, he’s sexiest in pictures in which the woman is the aggressor and all the film’s erotic energy is concentrated on him, as it was in “Notorious”: Ingrid Bergman practically ravished him while he was trying to conduct a phone conversation.