Pauline Kael has made her mark as one of the most influential women and the most famous film critic in history. Kael’s extreme passion for film began at a very young age and after she was published for the first time in 1953, she became a low-paid critic for unknown, to most of the public, film magazines. As a long-time New Yorker critic since she was forty-eight, she used writing and her independent, honest, and sassy voice to shed light on films that don’t meet the film criteria norms. Unlike her many “brothers” in the film criticism industry, Kael was able to open her mind to ANY film and find what is appealing about it. She is a person who has seen many movies and cannot wait to share her immediate, gut instinct on how she feels on a film. Kael is a well-considered critic who does not follow a certain guideline and is very open considering the fact that she takes in account everything else that most critics ignore. Kael’s essay “Trash, Art, and the Movies”, is a passive aggressive statement to other critics and an enlightenment to the public to remind everyone …show more content…
that movies are critiqued in a way too serious manner. “Art.” Pauline Kael despised the fact that movies were considered art. Kael writes, “It’s preposterously egocentric to call anything we enjoy art – as if we could not be entertained by it if it were not; it’s just as preposterous to let prestigious, expensive advertising snow us into thinking we’re getting art for our money when we haven’t even had a good time.” By naming what it seemed to be a countless list of movies and explaining each one, Kael was able to prove her credibility and let readers know that she knows what she is talking about. Kael wanted people to realize that movies are not art, but in fact entertainment for pleasure. Movies were criticized on a scale of good or bad. Kael wanted to let the people know that it’s absolutely great to enjoy a movie that critics say people won’t. The film critic criteria, Kael believes, should include pleasure that is rooted by emotion. “Trashy” movies to her were meant to be enjoyed by the normal public and not taken too seriously. However, when stating her stance, she doesn’t come off as pretentious. She wants a movie to excite, to surprise, to amaze, but not to beg for attention from the audience. Kael writes, “The movie doesn’t have to be great; it can be stupid and empty and you can still have the joy of a good performance, or the joy in just a good line.
An actor’s scowl, a small subversive gesture, a dirty remark that someone tosses off with a mock-innocent face, and the world makes a little bit of sense.” Kael believes that there are so many movies that don’t live up to critics’ standards of what a good movie is, but is still a good movie. Movies are meant to stimulate imagination and generate emotion, not thought. As long as a movie makes you feel some type of emotion, than it is in fact worth a person’s time. Kael didn’t write “Trash, Art, and the Movies” to evoke emotions in the reader, but the reader does in fact feel passion. She discusses movies based off her emotions after seeing a movie. She doesn’t put that much thought into it except how it made her feel and what appealed to
her. Kael writes, “Movies make hash of the schoolmarm’s approach of how well the artist fulfilled his intentions. Whatever the original intention of the writers and director, it is usually supplanted, as the production gets under way, by the intention to make money—and the industry judges the film by how well it fulfills that intention.” We are relatively clueless to movies, until we watch more and more and decide for ourselves the preferences and tastes that we have. Kael points out that one has to point it out themselves the banality or complexity lies in a film. Many films are over shadowed by its technique. Some movies use it to fill in the void of a lack of moments that will stir emotion in a viewer.
The only real way to truly understand a story is to understand all aspects of a story and their meanings. The same goes for movies, as they are all just stories being acted out. In Thomas Foster's book, “How to Read Literature Like a Professor”, Foster explains in detail the numerous ingredients of a story. He discusses almost everything that can be found in any given piece of literature. The devices discussed in Foster's book can be found in most movies as well, including in Quentin Tarantino’s cult classic, “Pulp Fiction”. This movie is a complicated tale that follows numerous characters involved in intertwining stories. Tarantino utilizes many devices to make “Pulp Fiction” into an excellent film. In this essay, I will demonstrate how several literary devices described in Foster's book are put to use in Tarantino’s film, “Pulp Fiction”, including quests, archetypes, food, and violence.
2. According to Sobchack, contemporary screen violence greatly differs than portrayals of violence in years past. Today, violent scenes are careless and lack significance because we as audiences have become calloused and desensitized to any acts of violence. She states that there is “no grace or benediction attached to violence. Indeed, its very intensity seems diminished” (Sobchack 432). Senseless violence, gruesome acts, and profound amounts of gore are prevalent in movies today, and because even this is not enough, it must be accompanied by loud blasts and noise, constantly moving scenes to keep audiences stimulated and large quantities of violence for viewers to enjoy what they are watching. Decades ago, it was the story that was engaging to audiences and filmmaking was an art.
Lehman, Peter and Luhr, William. Thinking About Movies: Watching, Questioning, Enjoying. 2nd ed. Oxford: Blackwell, 2003.
Nichols, John. ""Counbtering Censorship: Edgar Dale and the Film appreciation movement (critical essay)."." Cinema Jouranl. Fall 2006.
Many people who grew up in 1960s and 70s with watching the Japanese animated television series by Tatsuo Yoshida would be very familiar with Speed Racer by Andy and Larry Wachowski in 2008 (American Film Institute Catalog, 2008). As a big hit in the summer of 2008, Speed Racer was considered as a box office bomb because it failed to break even at the box office and received generally negative reviews from film critics such as A.O. Scott and Jim Emerson. The Wachowski brothers were criticized in the conventional sense of cinema; however, it did succeed in its technological innovation and digital novelty (Emerson, 2008). As the rise of subculture in the American popular culture, Speed Racer did appear to satisfy and entertain the certain group of people who enthusiastic about the film including fans of Wachowski and gamers. Therefore, this refers to the reading of a film. Different approaches to read a film will result in different perceptions and conclusions. The French New Wave director Francois Truffaut argued that the authorship should be presented in the works of the best filmmakers. Nonetheless, this essay will focus on why the semiotic approach to read a film offers a better way to understand the American popular culture than the auteur theory even the semiotic theory may contain bias sometimes.
Stanley, Robert H. The Movie Idiom: Film as a Popular Art Form. Illinois: Waveland Press, Inc. 2011. Print
Film and literature are two media forms that are so closely related, that we often forget there is a distinction between them. We often just view the movie as an extension of the book because most movies are based on novels or short stories. Because we are accustomed to this sequence of production, first the novel, then the motion picture, we often find ourselves making value judgments about a movie, based upon our feelings on the novel. It is this overlapping of the creative processes that prevents us from seeing movies as distinct and separate art forms from the novels they are based on.
Neill, Alex. “Empathy and (Film) Fiction.” Philosophy of film and motion pictures : an anthology. Ed. Noel Carrol and Jinhee Choi. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing, 2006. 247-259. Print.
Think about your favorite movie. When watching that movie, was there anything about the style of the movie that makes it your favorite? Have you ever thought about why that movie is just so darn good? The answer is because of the the Auteur. An Auteur is the artists behind the movie. They have and individual style and control over all elements of production, which make their movies exclusively unique. If you could put a finger on who the director of a movie is without even seeing the whole film, then the person that made the movie is most likely an auteur director. They have a unique stamp on each of their movies. This essay will be covering Martin Scorsese, you will soon find out that he is one of the best auteur directors in the film industry. This paper will include, but is not limited to two of his movies, Good Fellas, and The Wolf of Wall Street. We will also cover the details on what makes Martin Scorsese's movies unique, such as the common themes, recurring motifs, and filming practices found in their work. Then on
In his essay, “It’s Just a Movie: A Teaching Essay for Introductory Media Classes”, Greg M. Smith argues that analyzing a film does not ruin, but enhances a movie-viewing experience; he supports his argument with supporting evidence. He addresses the careful planning required for movies. Messages are not meant to be telegrams. Audiences read into movies to understand basic plotlines. Viewers should examine works rather than society’s explanations. Each piece contributes to Smith’s argument, movies are worth scrutinizing.
Film scholar and gender theorist Linda Williams begins her article “Film Bodies: Genre, Gender and Excess,” with an anecdote about a dispute between herself and her son, regarding what is considered “gross,” (727) in films. It is this anecdote that invites her readers to understand the motivations and implications of films that fall under the category of “body” genre, namely, horror films, melodramas, (henceforth referred to as “weepies”) and pornography. Williams explains that, in regards to excess, the constant attempts at “determining where to draw the line,” (727) has inspired her and other theorists alike to question the inspirations, motivations, and implications of these “body genre” films. After her own research and consideration, Williams explains that she believes there is “value in thinking about the form, function, and system of seemingly gratuitous excesses in these three genres,” (728) and she will attempt to prove that these films are excessive on purpose, in order to inspire a collective physical effect on the audience that cannot be experienced when watching other genres.
The film Pulp Fiction was an immediate box office success when it was released in 1994 and it was also well received by the critics, and celebrated for the way it appeared to capture exactly a certain pre-millennial angst and dislocation in Western capitalist societies. The term post-modernist, often used to refer to art and architecture, was applied to this film. The pulp fiction refers to popular novels which are bought in large numbers by less well educated people and enjoyed for their entertainment value. The implication is that the film concerns topics of interest to this low culture, but as this essay will show, in fact, the title is ironic and the film is a very intellectual presentation of issues at the heart of contemporary western culture and philosophy.
Genres are helpful in the general public as they give spectrum to different people and their different tastes. It also accommodates for any mood one may be in if they wanted to watch a film. It characterizes the films and sorts them into place for the viewer’s pleasure, “At all levels of the filmmaking and film-viewing processes, then, genres help assure that most members of society share at least some general notions about the many films that compete for our attention.” (Bordwell & Thompson, 2004: 110)
The postmodern cinema emerged in the 80s and 90s as a powerfully creative force in Hollywood film-making, helping to form the historic convergence of technology, media culture and consumerism. Departing from the modernist cultural tradition grounded in the faith in historical progress, the norms of industrial society and the Enlightenment, the postmodern film is defined by its disjointed narratives, images of chaos, random violence, a dark view of the human state, death of the hero and the emphasis on technique over content. The postmodernist film accomplishes that by acquiring forms and styles from the traditional methods and mixing them together or decorating them. Thus, the postmodern film challenges the “modern” and the modernist cinema along with its inclinations. It also attempts to transform the mainstream conventions of characterization, narrative and suppresses the audience suspension of disbelief. The postmodern cinema often rejects modernist conventions by manipulating and maneuvering with conventions such as space, time and story-telling. Furthermore, it rejects the traditional “grand-narratives” and totalizing forms such as war, history, love and utopian visions of reality. Instead, it is heavily aimed to create constructed fictions and subjective idealisms.
Barsam, R. M., Monahan, D., & Gocsik, K. M. (2012). Looking at movies: an introduction to film (4th ed.). New York: W.W. Norton & Co..