"After one of those terrible lovers' quarrels that leave one in a state of incomprehensible despair. I came out of the theater, tears streaming, and overheard the petulant voice of a college girl complaining to her boyfriend, "Well I don't see what was so special about that movie." I walked up the street, crying blindly, no longer certain whether my tears were for the tragedy on the screen, the hopelessness I felt for myself, or the alienation I felt from those who could not experience the radiance of Shoeshine. For if people cannot feel Shoeshine, what can they feel?... Later I learned that the man with whom I had quarreled had gone the same night and had also emerged in tears. Yet our tears for each other, and for Shoeshine did not bring us together. Life, as Shoeshine demonstrates, is too complex for facile endings."
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Jews from the United StatesWomen authors from the United StatesFilm critics from the United StatesJournalists from CaliforniaWomen musicians
Original Language: English
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Review for Shoeshine (1946) as quoted in Sontag & Kael: Opposites Attract Me (2004) by Craig Seligman.
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Pauline_Kael
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Pauline Kael
Pauline Kael (June 19, 1919 – September 3, 2001) was an American film critic best remembered for the reviews she wrote for The New Yorker. Collections of her reviews were later published in book form.
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