Hate Life, Will Travel

I’ve been reading Pauline Kael’s “For Keeps” which is over a thousand pages of her movie criticism. I don’t agree with Kael a lot, but her work always makes me think. I love her book on Citizen Kane, which is included here. Last night, I was reading through and caught this sentence, on how Mankiewicz, who wrote the film, used the script to take apart not just Hearst but also Orson Welles:

One can sometimes hurt one’s enemies, but that’s nothing compared to what one can do to one’s friends.