The mother in question is Pauline Kael. The us is anyone in the media (a lot of people in academe, too) who write about culture with any aspirations to seriousness. Not just movies, but books, art, television, theater, music (of all sorts). Her influence has been across the board. And seriousness, not solemnity. Pauline's bravura demonstration that those two words are often anything but congruent is her greatest and most lasting achievement. Influence is so much more than merely a style imitated or opinions echoed. Even more, it's a matter of attitude, stance, approach.
The mother of us all
Greil Marcus has described as well as anyone what it was Pauline did. "You don't have to just stick to a movie. You can just use everything you've got. It was really thrilling to come across writing that was so voracious and so ambitious, that had so much life in it and such a complete absence of pretense. I guess she was the first critic I ever read that made me feel like I was engaged in a conversation with her." Yes, exacatly, conversation: What critic has ever had a voice that was so audible?
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