Quotes from book
Going Steady

Going Steady

Going Steady: Film Writings 1968–1969 is the third collection of film reviews by the critic Pauline Kael, comprising the years 1968-1969, when she first began her film-reviewing duties at The New Yorker and which covers, " a crucial period of social and aesthetic change at the end of the sixties."The collection for the most part consists of reviews of individual films, but includes one long essay, , entitled "Trash, Art, and the Movies ", perhaps the closest Kael comes to a manifesto defining her personal aesthetics in regards to films. In the essay, Kael dissects, compares, and contrasts the merits of "trash" films that are nevertheless entertaining, as well as "art" films that are uninteresting. In doing so, Kael lambastes "art" films such as Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey, concluding her treatment of that particular film by declaring: "If big film directors are to get credit for doing badly what others have been doing brilliantly for years with no money, just because they've put it on a big screen, then businessmen are greater than poets and theft is art." The essay is divided into ten parts, ranging from discussions of The Thomas Crown Affair to Petulia. Kael's overriding theme is to dismantle the intellectual pretences of those who deride films deemed to be "trash" on the basis of dubious aesthetic concerns, notwithstanding the entertainment appeal a particular "trash" film might possess.


Pauline Kael photo

“Irresponsibility is part of the pleasure of all art; it is the part the schools cannot recognize.”

Going Steady (1969), Trash, Art and the Movies (February 1969)

Pauline Kael photo

“Movies are so rarely great art, that if we cannot appreciate great trash, we have very little reason to be interested in them.”

Going Steady (1969), Trash, Art and the Movies (February 1969)

Pauline Kael photo
Pauline Kael photo
Pauline Kael photo
Pauline Kael photo
Pauline Kael photo
Pauline Kael photo
Pauline Kael photo

“The critical task is necessarily comparative, and younger people do not truly know what is new.”

Going Steady (1969), Trash, Art and the Movies (February 1969)

Pauline Kael photo
Pauline Kael photo
Pauline Kael photo
Pauline Kael photo

“Kicked in the ribs, the press says "art" when "ouch" would be more appropriate.”

Going Steady (1969), Trash, Art and the Movies (February 1969)

Pauline Kael photo
Pauline Kael photo
Pauline Kael photo

Similar authors

Pauline Kael photo
Pauline Kael 72
American film critic 1919–2001
Hayao Miyazaki photo
Hayao Miyazaki 34
Japanese animator, film director, and mangaka
Sylvester Stallone photo
Sylvester Stallone 8
American actor, screenwriter, and film director
Walt Disney photo
Walt Disney 102
American film producer and businessman
Barbra Streisand photo
Barbra Streisand 5
American singer, actress, writer, film producer, and direct…
Al Pacino photo
Al Pacino 2
American film and stage actor and director
Marcel Proust photo
Marcel Proust 41
French novelist, critic, and essayist
Frank Zappa photo
Frank Zappa 129
American musician, songwriter, composer, and record and fil…
Walter Benjamin photo
Walter Benjamin 70
German literary critic, philosopher and social critic (1892…
Ezra Pound photo
Ezra Pound 68
American Imagist poet and critic