Pauline Kael - Brian Kellow [40]
One evening in the spring of 1961, the Cinema Guild had the most celebrated visitor in its history. Jean Renoir had been invited by Berkeley’s Council of Regents to occupy a chair, an appointment that had turned out to be a mostly pleasant experience for the veteran director. Renoir was cheerful and outgoing; he had a good rapport with the Berkeley students and was heartened by their enthusiasm for film. Almost immediately it was clear to him that the Cinema Guild was part of the reason for the high level of expertise among the young local movie buffs, and when Pauline programmed his 1951 film The River, he attended the screening and the after-party at Oregon Street. The evening had its bumpy moments: Renoir nearly became apoplectic when one of the guests asked him if he edited his own films; he angrily responded, “Does a poet edit his own poetry?”
Throughout the night, however, Pauline was in a state of bliss. “She was overwhelmed in his presence,” remembered Donald Gutierrez, “so that she didn’t bother to introduce me.” David Young Allen recalled that Pauline was in a state of high anxiety preparing for Renoir’s visit. “She got Gina and me out of the house,” Allen said. “She didn’t want interference. She came down with lipstick on and sort of a nice chartreuse sweater. She took the trouble to look nice.” Renoir was quite heavy at the time, and when he sat down on one of the good-quality chairs that Pauline had picked up in an antiques shop, he went right through it. But she was too ecstatic in the great man’s presence to care in the least.
In the end Pauline’s success with the Cinema Guild turned out to be too much for Landberg. After his sojourn in Los Angeles, which he followed up with a trip to Mexico, he returned to Berkeley in late 1961. When he discovered how Pauline had essentially taken over the Cinema Guild by signing the program notes, he was furious, accusing her of stealing all of the theater’s publicity. The two of them quarreled bitterly over the issue of the copyright on the notes, and Landberg announced that she was to cease and desist in all matters of programming; he was going to regain control of his own theater. He accused several of the Guild staff members of treason, causing them to resign on the spot. In 1962 Pauline ended her association with the Cinema Guild. Eventually Landberg had a dispute with the landlord, who now wanted him to pay rent plus a percentage. He refused and wound up letting the Cinema Guild fold. He had acquired another theater, the Cinema, on Shattuck Avenue, and eventually he astounded local audiences by playing the Japanese epic Chushingura there for forty-three consecutive weeks. But his Cinema Guild audiences felt abandoned: A great institution had come to an end.
CHAPTER SIX
Once again Pauline was left without a steady source of income. As her fame had grown locally, she had appeared more and more frequently on KPFA. She continued to lobby hard for payment—cofounder Lewis Hill and the station manager, Trevor Thomas, calmly listened to her demands and refused. She was writing critical pieces for The Partisan Review and Film Quarterly, but her work yielded minimal income. She petitioned The San Francisco Chronicle for a reviewing job, but nothing came of it. She fretted over money, wondering how she was going to provide for Gina and if she would ever be able to build a proper, functioning life for herself.
It wasn’t only KPFA’s refusal to put her on salary that made Pauline feel antagonistic toward its management. It was what she considered their middle-of-the-road editorial voice. She felt that the station had something in common with Sight and Sound and other film journals: While they prided themselves on their liberal point of view, and their editorial content, which was superior to the commercial norm, they were in fact stodgy, predictable, and drearily well-intentioned. She constantly criticized the station—sometimes on the air—for its self-congratulatory attitude and lack of