Quote #14

People who are just getting 'seriously interested' in film always ask a critic, 'Why don't you talk about technique and 'the visuals' more?' The answer is that American movie technique is generally more like technology and it usually isn't very interesting.

More from Pauline Kael

  1. Movies make hash of the schoolmarm's approach of how well the artist fulfilled his intentions. Whatever the original intention of the write…
  2. The craftsmanship that Hollywood has always used as a selling point not only doesn't have much to do with art - the expressive use of techn…
  3. Audiences who have been forced to wade through the thick middle-class padding of more expensively made movies to get to the action enjoy th…
  4. Men are now beginning their careers as directors by working on commercials - which, if one cares to speculate on it, may be almost a one-se…
  5. Alienation is the most common state of the knowledgeable movie audience, and though it has the peculiar rewards of low connoisseurship, a m…
  6. And for the greatest movie artists where there is a unity of technique and subject, one doesn't need to talk about technique much because i…
  7. The past has a terror and fascination and a beauty beyond almost anything else. We are looking at the dead, and they move and grin and wave…
  8. Irresponsibility is part of the pleasure of all art; it is the part the schools cannot recognize.

All Pauline Kael quotes