5001 Nights at the Movies
1982 book by Pauline Kael
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5001 Nights at the Movies: A Guide from A to Z, first published in 1982,[1] is a book compiling passages of film critic Pauline Kael's reviews from the silent era to the early 1980s.[2] They were originally written for The New Yorker's 'Goings On About Town' section.[3]
Book cover, first edition | |
| Author | Pauline Kael |
|---|---|
| Language | English |
| Publisher | Holt, Rinehart & Winston |
| Publication date | 1982 |
| ISBN | 978-0030426063 |
Summary
In her regular New Yorker column Kael wrote long, detailed critiques of the latest films. 5001 Nights is made up of abbreviated reviews of those longer articles, and single-paragraph critiques of dozens of other movies from throughout the 20th century.[4] Her reviews often contain a phrase that captures a film's essence.[5]
Excerpts
- In a Lonely Place: "an atmospheric but disappointingly hollow murder melodrama"
- Rebel Without a Cause: "had more emotional resonance for the teenagers of the time than many much better movies"
- Written on the Wind: "his [Douglas Sirk's] talent for whipping up sour, stylized soap operas in posh settings"
- The Tarnished Angels: "the kind of bad movie that you know is bad—and yet you're held by the mixture of polished style and quasi-melodramatics achieved by the director, Douglas Sirk"
- Gun Crazy: "In its B-movie way, it has a fascinating crumminess"
- New York, New York: "an honest failure...the improvisational Cassavetes-like psychodrama seems hollow and makes it uneasy"
- Raging Bull: "He [Martin Scorsese] loses the lowlife entertainment value of prizefight films; he aestheticizes pulp and kills it"
- Au hasard Balthazar: "Considered a masterpiece by some, but others may find it painstakingly tedious and offensively holy"
- Red Desert: "Boredom in Ravenna, and it seeps into the viewer's bones"
- The Wrong Man: "an unusually drab Hitchcock film"[6]
Expanded edition
Henry Holt and Company published an expanded edition in 1991 with 800 additional Kael reviews of films released after the book's original 1982 date.[4]