Circles and Squares
Via Matos via Rock Critics Daily via Tom Sutpen: audio of Pauline Kael's original attack on the auteur theory, from an address at San Fernando Valley State College in 1963.
Direct link here (warning: 55 minutes).
I don't have the published text of "Circles and Squares" on hand, but this seems to have even more insults than that version, mostly at the expense of Jonas Mekas (who arguably turned out to be one of those technically limited great filmmakers, though neither Kael nor Sarris would agree). But dig her enunciation! She's relaxed her tone of voice a lot by the time of this 1980 chat with Godard (sadly JLG is near-inaudible on this, but it sounds like he pwns her -- he directs the conversation brilliantly, dodging her questions).
(Short answers: "Circles and Squares" not her best work even though she's mostly right, auteur theory useful if only because it turned thousands of list-loving young people into cinephiles, Sarris a great critic but not until after 1963.)
Direct link here (warning: 55 minutes).
I don't have the published text of "Circles and Squares" on hand, but this seems to have even more insults than that version, mostly at the expense of Jonas Mekas (who arguably turned out to be one of those technically limited great filmmakers, though neither Kael nor Sarris would agree). But dig her enunciation! She's relaxed her tone of voice a lot by the time of this 1980 chat with Godard (sadly JLG is near-inaudible on this, but it sounds like he pwns her -- he directs the conversation brilliantly, dodging her questions).
(Short answers: "Circles and Squares" not her best work even though she's mostly right, auteur theory useful if only because it turned thousands of list-loving young people into cinephiles, Sarris a great critic but not until after 1963.)
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