The only movie screenings Pauline Kael walked out of: “Movies I found hopeless”
Pauline Kael remains one of the most infamous film critics of all time, known for her unflinchingly honest opinions and unfiltered writing style, with a biting tone that could elevate or destroy any piece of work.
She made frequent enemies in the industry, becoming well-known for her opinionated perspective and wielding her pen like a dagger, ready to obliterate anything that even mildly disagreed with her. But despite building a reputation for her harsh words, her writing was eloquent and witty, never failing to entertain. But regardless, I would be slightly terrified at the prospect of being on the receiving end of her criticism, and the filmmakers who inspired her to walk out of their films were probably quaking in their boots after doing so.
Kael was vocal about the directors whose work she doesn’t like, expressing intense hatred towards Oliver Stone and her dislike of classics such as Vertigo, The Red Shoes and 2001: A Space Odyssey. However, in all her years as a professional critic, she only walked out on a couple of films, describing them as “hopeless”.
Federico Fellini is deemed one of the greatest directors of all time, with his seminal work 8½ being cited as an influence by directors like Martin Scorsese and Abbas Kiarostami. However, while the final dancing scene has been burned into many of our eyes and lives on as one of the most beautiful pieces of self-reflection, Kael was not a fan of his later work, even walking out of his 1976 film Casanova.
Casanova, starring Donald Sutherland, tells the story of a libertine who indulges in sexual relationships with multiple people. The experimental film is a tale of excess as told through the sexual exploits of one man, blurring the line between life and fantasy as Casanova attempts to fill his love with meaningless encounters and parties. However, it was not met kindly by many viewers, with people claiming that Fellini had lost his touch and was too disillusioned by his creative freedom. Kael was one of many to agree with this opinion and walked out of the film.
When asked about this later on, Kael said, “I’ve walked out on movies I found hopeless… Fellini’s Casanova drove me out of the movie house, and I said so in my review. Damned if people didn’t say I should go back and see the rest, as if it were a duty to be bored. I mean, you’re still a human being, even if you are a critic”.
Kael is correct in that no matter if it’s your job, sometimes boredom feels unendurable, and I myself walked out of a screening for the first time last year (although I admittedly felt pretty bad about it). The critic also described a work of Harold Pinter’s as being almost insufferable, saying, “Harold Pinter’s Betrayal drove me crazy—people talking in these precise phrases over and over again”.
Even if it is the critic’s job to endure the unendurable and amend that which is irreparable, sometimes it feels nearly impossible to do so, as if the work is so awful that its flaws seem too obvious to repair. Perhaps the greatest feedback you can give a truly terrible film is physically leaving, which certainly leaves a stern message.
