Pauline Kael, Roger Ebert, et al

Pauline Kael trying to be pixieish with her shoes on the furniture.

It's kind of interesting to me how these people die and it's like they never existed. Pauline Kael, Gene Siskel, Roger Ebert. They were so influential, but when they're gone, they're gone. Almost like they never existed. Pauline Kael and Roger Ebert published books, but who wants to read a book of movie reviews that only goes to 1991 in Kael's case or 2013 in Roger Ebert's?

Pauline Kael was a horrible person who damaged cinema itself with her attacks on Orson Welles and David Lean and probably others. Her one attempt at an original work, her book on Citizen Kane, was essentially a fraud.

Ebert? Well, he attacked Ishtar. I think Warren Beatty was mad at him and Gene Siskel for that. Beatty felt that it was of no concern to the public how much money was wasted making a movie, and he may have been right to a degree. Why should that affect whether you like it or not? On the other hand, I liked El Mariachi better knowing how little if cost.

Ebert was an early supporter of Jon Jost's zero-budget films, although that was something David Lean complained about--that critics liked nothing better than to support new talent making movies on a shoestring. That left Lean out. They were much more critical of his movies.

In a book I read on cult movies, the author discussed Russ Meyer's Beyond the Valley of the Dolls, screenplay by Roger Ebert. The author said that he had been watching Russ Meyer movies for years, always thinking that if this poor guy just had some money to work with, he could be a great director. Then came his chance. Beyond the Valley of the Dolls was his one major studio film, and it turned out to be pretty much like all the other crap he'd be churning out all those years.

The sad truth is that if you've watched the low budget first films of fledgling directors, you may have already plumbed the full depths of their talent. It's something we all need to cope with. We're probably not as good as we think.