Watch this enjoyable documentary on the life and film criticism of Pauline Kael. Through interviews with her friends and family and countless movie clips, Kael's life is told in chronological order as her opinions on movies are interspersed throughout. From her early life growing up on silent cinema and the films of the 1930s to her death in 2001, Kael enjoyed a lifelong love affair with the movies. This documentary covers her rise as a critic from San Francisco to her eventual arrival at The New Yorker in 1968, where she wrote reviews for 24 years.
You'll get some of her most famous takes on movies from The Sound of Music (1965) (which got her fired from McCall's magazine) to the American New Wave movies like Bonnie and Clyde (1967), The Godfather (1972), and Mean Streets (1973). Through interviews in the documentary and excerpts read from her writings, she championed filmmakers like Jean-Luc Godard, Robert Altman, Bernardo Bertolucci, Brian De Palma, and many other film directors. At times her writing clashed with popular tastes, and she received much criticism herself, which is covered throughout the documentary. Ultimately, she loved to get people thinking and talking about movies which is apparent throughout her life and writing.