State of the Art: Film Writings 1983–1985 is the eighth collection of movie reviews by the American critic Pauline Kael. In the Author's Note at the beginning of this collection she wrote: "The title of this book is a deliberate break with my sexually tinged titles of the past. It seemed time for a change; this has not been a period for anything like Grand Passions. I hope that State of the Art will sound ominous and sweeping and just slightly clinical. What I try to get at in this collection of reviews from June 1983 to July 1985 is the state of the art of moviemaking. And despite the dubious state of the art[..]there has always been something to recommend."