#184 - Raising Kael (w/ Violet Lucca) (Patreon)

For decades, Pauline Kael reigned as the most feared and respected film critic in America, and even today carries a greater literary reputation than any of her peers. The not-very-good documentary WHAT SHE SAID: THE ART OF PAULINE KAEL (2018) tries to make a case for the New Yorker critic as an iconoclastic thinker... but inadvertently reveals her many limitations. We're joined by our old friend Violet Lucca (host of The Harper's Podcast) to discuss her much-imitated prose style, her ideas about art and trash, and the limits of a shoot-from-the-hip critical methodology. PLUS: post-election malaise, and the return of the XFL.

"Trash, Art and the Movies" by Pauline Kael - https://harpers.org/archive/1969/02/trash-art-and-the-movies/

"The Perils of Pauline" by Renata Adler - https://www.nybooks.com/articles/1980/08/14/the-perils-of-pauline/

The Harper's Podcast: "America's Game" - https://harpers.org/2020/09/americas-game-football-the-xfl/