Pauline Kael - Point Quotes

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In show business there's not much point in asking yourself if someone really likes you or if he just thinks you can be useful to him, because there's no difference.

Pauline Kael
If you can't make fun of bad movies on serious subjects, what's the point?

Pauline Kael
It tackles a wonderful subject without preening, and brings it off unassertively — so unassertively that the movie is in danger of being overlooked. (Variety has already dismissed it as something "for a very limited audience.") We're getting to the point where the press assumes that movie audiences won't be willing to bring anything to a picture, and warns them off.

Pauline Kael
The craftsmanship that Hollywood has always used as a selling point not only doesn't have much to do with art — the expressive use of techniques — it probably doesn't have very much to do with actual box-office appeal, either.

Pauline Kael
De Niro's inflamed, brimming eyes are the focal point of the compositions. He's Travis Bickle, an outsider who can't find any point of entry into human society. He drives nights because he can't sleep anyway; surrounded by the night world of the uprooted — whores, pimps, transients — he hates New York with a Biblical fury, and its filth and smut obsess him. This ferociously powerful film is like a raw, tabloid version of Notes from the Underground. Martin Scorsese achieves the quality of trance in some scenes, and the whole movie has a sense of vertigo. The cinematographer, Michael Chapman, gives the street life a seamy, rich pulpiness.

Pauline Kael