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TRASHING_KAEL
January 11, 2013
Wed Jan 2 17:07:32 2013
The temptation was strong to name
Concerning Pauline Kael's this "eating kael", but maybe
"Trash, Art and the Movies" "trashing kael" is trashy enough.
originally published in
Harper's, February 1969. [link]
Geoffrey O'Brien as quoted by Jim Emerson
in "Trash and Art: Critics on/of
Pauline Kael", February 19, 2007:
[link]
"She goes in circles ... churning up
perplexities about pleasure and
puritanism, bourgeois complacency and KAEL_TECHNIQUE
radical transgression, without ever
coming to a comfortable resting point."
One thing that perplexes me: she can't seem to
make up her mind about whether movies are "art":
In section II, of "Trash, Art
and the Movies" Pauline Kael has
clearly adopted a strange Thus the stuff that she likes
taxonomy where the high art and must be anti-art, the product
the high culture are the only of barbarians.
art and the only culture:
Yet another
"There is so much talk now about anti-intellectual
the art of the film that we may intellectual?
be in danger of forgetting that
most of the movies we enjoy are Or perhaps, a rebel
not works of art." that can't shake the
perspective she's
rebelling against...
But she's not consistent about this
throughout the essay. In section I: Or perhaps least
charitably: she's
"Movies-- a tawdry corrupt art a slave to these
for a tawdry corrupt world-- epigrams, juggling
fit the way we feel." definitions at will
to achieve a pithy
There's a saner definition of "art" remark.
in play there: movies may not be
high art (or as she puts it
elsewhere in the essay "what is
called art"), but they're *some*
form of art.
Though one might quibble
about the phrase "tawdry
and corrupt". And about
the way that we feel. Kael often speaks as though
there's only one way.
"We learn to dread
Hollywood 'realism'
and all that it implies."
By the time she gets to section "VI",
things seem more coherent:
"Movie art is not the opposite of
what we have always enjoyed in However, she backslides
movies, it is not to be found in a again, almost immediately:
return to that official high
culture ..." "Keeping in mind that simple,
good distinction that all art
is entertainment but not all
entertainment is art ... "
Similarly, in section III, art
has become something desireable
that's missing from TV commercials: On the subject of television, Kael
suddenly sounds like a traditional
"Technique is hardly worth snob sneering at the tastes of the
talking about unless it's masses.
used for something worth
doing: that's why most of the But if you laughed at "The Dick van
theorizing about the new art Dyke Show", wasn't that an "honest"
of television commercials is response?
such nonsense. The effects
are impersonal-- dexterous, HONEST_KAEL
sometimes clever, but empty
of art."
There's a potential contradiction
here uttered almost in one breath:
She wants to insist both that
artistry and/or technique don't
matter very much... These two positions *could* be
reconciled: one might believe
And almost simultaneously she that the nature of the medium
complains that television is a determines much (ala McCluhan),
weak medium that's lowering and hence that any conscious
everyone's standards. attempt at artistry is
irrelevent, and inevitably just
"Movies are now often made in terms fighting the characteristics of
of what television viewers have the medium.
learned to settle for. ... the
influence of TV is to make movies Finding that-- or some
visually less imaginative and equivalent-- in Kael's
complex. Television is a very noisy text would take some
medium and viewers listen, while heavy squinting.
getting used to a poor quality of
visual reproduction ... "
Her claim is that television uses flashy
quick cutting to conceal how bad it is,
It also wasn't but if anything, that sounds to me like an
really true that intelligent strategy: given indifferent
television relied image quality, you use what ever you have
solely on this at hand to punch up the experience.
kind of flash: Working with the medium and not against it.
television
commercials, yes, Black and white movies invented "noir"--
but the typical leaning on a contrast between light and
sitcom was dialog shadow. The original Hollywood glamour
heavy, often just relied a lot on glittering gowns, with a
two ten minute sparkle that did not depend on color.
segments in two
static settings.
"Because of the photographic
nature of the medium and the
cheap admission prices, And yet with TV,
movies took their impetus apparently the
not from the desiccated videographic nature
"In American imitation European high of the medium and
movies what is culture, but from the peep the even cheaper
most often show, the Wild West show, admision prices did
mistaken for the music hall, the comic not allow it to find
artistic quality strip-- from what was coarse any undessicated
is box-office and common." sources of it's own.
success ..."
Kael can't make up her mind whether
we're supposed to trust the popular
taste or our own judgement
This is so obvious
a problem it's hard Really, one suspects it's about
to see how Kael-- trusting Kael's judgement, and
or anyone else-- when she agrees with the common
could've missed it. man, the common man is a genius,
otherwise...
" ... it might be a good idea
to keep in mind also that if a
movie is said to be a work of
art and you don’t enjoy it, the
fault may be in you, but it’s
probably in the movie."
That's certainly one possibility.
But there's another, very real
possibility, that your present At the very least,
capabilities, your present making some effort
depth of understanding may not to understand what
be the last word. someone else liked
about something that
(If someone were to tell us you didn't may help
that we are *incapable* of you understand
learning anything new, we something about them.
would feel insulted...)
THE_HUMAN_KAEL
PLEASED_TO_MEET_YOU
A point I've made about music:
since it's assumed to be rooted
in emotion, everyone should just
naturally be able to access it,
or there's something wrong with it.
Isn't this *entertainment*?
Then why should I need to
learn anything, that's more
like *work*.
In section VI, Kael remarks:
"Trash doesn’t belong to the academic tradition,
and that's part of the fun of trash-- that you know
(or should know) that you don’t have to take it
seriously, that it was never meant to be anymore
than frivolous and trifling and entertaining."
And because you don't *have*
to take it seriously does And what *do* you
that mean that you *should take seriously? If the stuff that you
not* take it seriously? like is assumed to be
unworthy of a second
thought, what does that
say about you?
" ... the primary reason for
seeing films like 'Notorious' or
'Morocco'-- which is that they The primary reason for
were not intended solemnly, that seeing 'Morrocco' is that
they were playful and inventive it's a powerful piece of And Marlene
and faintly (often deliberately) romantic art. Dietrich
absurd."
"And what’s good in them,
what relates them to art,
is that playfulness and
absence of solemnity." The ending of "Morocco" does
not lack in solemnity...
"There is talk now about von Sternberg’s
technique-- his use of light and décor and
detail-- and he is, of course, a kitsch
master in these areas, a master of studied
artfulness and pretty excess." How *condescending*
this all is!
"We are now told in
respectable museum If you're, say, emotionally
publications that in effected by a film like
1932 a movie like "Morocco", you're hereby
'Shanghai Express' 'was informed that your reaction
completely misunderstood is invalid. It's merely
as a mindless adventure' kitsch, a work of amusing
when indeed it was "pretty excess".
completely *understood*
as a mindless
adventure." And this is all
from someone who
And if you thought you claims to be
were seeing something, standing up for
else, *anything* else, popular reactions
Kael has just informed vs. the snobs of
you that you're mindless. high culture.
"We’re not only educated
people of taste, we’re also
common people with common
feelings. And our common
feelings are not all *bad*."
"... some students take this technique
as proof that his films are works of
art, once again, I think, falsifying
what they really respond to -- "
" ... pretty trash."
And are they
the only ones?
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