Prose and cons.(an appreciation of Pauline Kael, New Yorker's film critic)

Pauline Kael, the New Yorker's film critic from 1968 until 1991 (save for a brief hiatus in 1978, when she took a short-lived job at a Hollywood studio), died on September 3, 2001. With all of the predictable eulogizing behind us, we asked five critics-Gary Indiana, Annette Michelson, Geoffrey O'Brien, Paul Schrader, and Craig Seligman-to step back and take the long view on Kael's celebrated if contentious career. Contributing editor Greil Marcus leads off by introducing Kael's first published essay-inexplicably excluded from her eleven collections of reviews-which we reprint here…