It is a depressing fact that Americans tend to confuse morality and art (to the detriment of both) and that, among the educated, morality tends to mean social consciousness. Pauline Kael More Quotes by Pauline Kael More Quotes From Pauline Kael Movies are so rarely great art that if we cannot appreciate great trash we have very little reason to be interested in them. Pauline Kael appreciate littles art The first prerogative of an artist in any medium is to make a fool of himself. Pauline Kael fool artist firsts Where there is a will, there is a way. If there is a chance in a million that you can do something, anything, to keep what you want from ending, do it. Pry the door open or, if need be, wedge your foot in that door and keep it open. Pauline Kael feet doors needs If there is any test that can be applied to movies, it's that the good ones never make you feel virtuous. Pauline Kael virtuous tests feels Protagonists are always loners, almost by definition. Pauline Kael loner definitions hero When a picture can't make it on its own, the producers pull in a 'controversial' message - the way a couple whose marriage is falling apart decide to have a baby. Pauline Kael movie couple baby The problem with a popular art form is that those who want something more are in a hopeless minority compared with the millions who are always seeing it for the first time, or for the reassurance and gratification of seeing the conventions fulfilled again. Pauline Kael minorities want-something art Good movies make you care, make you believe in possibilities again. If somewhere in the Hollywood-entertainment world someone has managed to break through with something that speaks to you, then it isn’t all corruption. 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. Pauline Kael stupid believe dirty Economy, speed, nervousness, and desperation produce the final wasteful, semi-incoherent movies we see. Pauline Kael desperation movie finals The words "Kiss Kiss Bang Bang" which I saw on an Italian movie poster, are perhaps the briefest statement imaginable of the basic appeal of movies Pauline Kael movie kissing italian There is something spurious about the very term 'a movie made for TV,' because what you make for TV is a TV program. Pauline Kael program tvs television Movies are our cheap and easy expression, the sullen art of displaced persons. Pauline Kael movie expression art Moviemaking is so male-dominated now that they think they’re being pro-feminine when they have women punching each other out. Pauline Kael punching males thinking Trash has given us an appetite for art. Pauline Kael trash appetite art What this generation was bred to at television's knees was not wisdom, but cynicism. Pauline Kael this-generation generations political The critical task is necessarily comparative, and younger people do not truly know what is new Pauline Kael critical tasks people Good movies make you care, make you believe in possibilities again. Pauline Kael movie care believe The romance of movies is not just in those stories and those people on the screen but in the adolescent dream of meeting others who feel as you do about what you’ve seen. Pauline Kael romance dream people If you're afraid of movies that excite your senses, you're afraid of movies. Pauline Kael senses movie ifs Allowing for exceptions, there is still one basic difference between the traditional arts and the mass-media arts: in the traditional arts, the artist grows; in a mass medium, the artist decays profitably. Pauline Kael differences media art
