So what’s the word on Pauline Kael?
I just reread her review of, essay on, The Godfather (1.)It’s impressively showy. Her prose is vibrant. There’s breadth to the review. It’s spacious. She knows a lot. It’s popping with her vibrant, verging on the “know it all” sensibility.
And yet, any yet, with all that said, I read preening.
The Godfather becomes a subordinate, marshalled in the service of her strutting showy stuff, showing off.
I can learn more about the movie, its story, the acting, the themes, the goods, the bads, the filmmaking itself by reading less spectacular reviews, ones that put the movie ahead of the reviewer celebrating herself.
She doesn’t even begin to grapple with the movie’s romanticization of the Don, its sentimentality about the thugs’ life.
When I actually penetrate all her discursiveness, some insights can be gleamed to be sure, but also too there is plenty to think is off target about the movie.
I understand she’s held sacred by many but I have to wonder if that sacredness is but a lot of many getting fooled by the sizzle hot off the Kael griddle.
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