Kael: A critic to the end

Baltimore Sun film critic Michael Sragow said Tuesday that he is was “still in shock” after hearing word that famed critic Pauline Kael had died at her Massachusetts home on Monday at the age of 82. Sragow, who worked with Kael at the New Yorker, wrote: “I spoke to her over the phone at noon; she died an hour or so later. She seemed to go in and out of the conversation, but at the close of it I mentioned that a veteran director we both admired, [79-year-old] Lamont Johnson (The Last American Hero), had called me recently and sounded as vigorous as ever. With a burst of enthusiasm, she said, ‘Isn’t he amazing?’ It may have been her last critical judgment. To the end, she drew energy from the art she loved, just as her own work replenished it.”