Citizen Kane, then...

http://img403.imageshack.us/img403/7161/youneedamorticianmx4.jpg

YOU NEED A MORTICIAN! YOU NEED A MORTICIAN!

I love how great Welles looks as an old man, and how he nails how old people move and think -- their habit of sharing curdled witticisms and phony insights -- without condescension. The newsreel section, for example, where a young reporter interviews Kane after he returns from speaking to "the great powers of Europe."

Malpertuis

I read his credit as "Orson Welles (cassava)"

youtube of worst thing welles ever did

You sure about that?

Well that video didn't last for long.

Well, you all know how it goes, crumb crisp coating, IN July, I'll go down on you &c.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K3qg4i22x9M

is bogdanovich's commentary on the 2-disc edition worth hearing?

no iirc

I thought it was pretty silly.

That's staring you in the face when you open up this thread--it's way, way up at the top (Sept. 28, 2001--within three weeks of 9/11). I got into a big back-and-forth on Kane once with a friend; can't remember if he said exactly the same, but he was dismissive in any event. I can see where someone would come away from a first viewing thinking it's slightly overrated--I don't think so, but with so much advance build-up, such a reaction seems more than reasonable--but it's hard for me to understand not thinking it's pretty great anyway. Even if you don't think it's profound (I do), I would still think you'd love the humour, the performances, and/or the whirlwind technique. I saw an interview a few years ago with Graham Yost (the guy who wrote Speed), and he recalled the time in high school when his dad, Elwy Yost (long-time host of a classic-movie show in Toronto), wrote a letter explaining that his son would be absent tomorrow because he wanted him to stay up and watch a midnight airing of Citizen Kane. I generally cringe when people well up on camera, but that time it seemed very spontaneous and genuine.

I still haven't gone back to finish this, and I'm not usually put off by hype about the 'classics'. Just feel no compunction to go through with the rest of it on what I've seen so far (Young dude gets old and crusty at a dinner table montage)

rolling my damn eyes

don't bother Black IP's

yeah am aware of that reaction, but i felt it was important my voice was unstifled by your entrenched luvviness

don't bother Black IP's

Young dude gets old and crusty at a dinner table montage

You can do this with any film:
Vertigo -- Old nervous dude stalks blonde babe around San Francisco
Chinatown -- Detective dude gets bloodied up by short foreign dude
Persona -- Actress babe pulls silent treatment on chatty nurse

Retitle:Dude, Where's My Snowglobe?

Moby-Dick: Nut chases a big fish

[sic]

kinda enjoying this tbh.

am i the only one to have cried at the ending? such a pitiful man in the end..

I just watched this for the first time and it actually lived up to the hype fer me. this fucking film. love that it ends with the same shot it starts with, suggesting you could just play it on repeat. that fucking screeching white bird!! scarier than most horror movies released today. those shots of the opening newsroom! my god.

Yes to all that. Love that bird.

*lowkeytalkaboutthisandthatSCRRRRRRRRRRRRRREEEEEECH!*

you know, it wasn't even a newsroom. it was the theater where they were projecting the newsreel. love how that also suggests that, in the film's chronology, kane is long dated at the time of his death - the world's moved on to talkies, papers don't dominate anymore.

I had to rewind the part with the bird to make sure my imagination wasn't fucking with me, that there wasn't a ghost in the machine.

I love the newsreel/theater scene so much because, by the time I saw it for the first time, I had been used to black and white films in my own admittedly limited experience as being constantly, perfectly staged in terms of dialogue -- everything was all about precision and delivering of lines. So the sudden cut and seeing and hearing a bunch of people all talk back and forth 'naturally,' however written and focused that part of the script was in turn, was a bit of a revelation. Everything actually felt relaxed.

What I love most about the film now is the young Orson Welles, without makeup and jowls, ready for the world.

yes, it does feel like a breath of fresh air after the clipped narration of the newsreel especially! also the smoky light, the deep blacks, the journalist silhouetted by the projector. the cold light in thatchers archives-cum-mausoleum. beautiful, beautiful film.

young Welles is already a little jowly

give ryan reynolds a year

i would lvoe to watch this again sometime soon.

otm

not that it's that hard, to find two hours...

feel like it isn't presented in the best possible state, which is a shame

Ned otm about the newsreel/theater scene contrasting with 'normal' black and white movies. We watched Kane for film class in my first year of uni, and I had a similar reaction. And the great thing about Kane is that while it is a film that books are endlessly written about and people cite as the greatest whatever, part of what I find great about it is that it is such a pleasure to watch on repeated viewings. And Welles is so magnetic as the young CFK.

I remember later on seeing Olivier's "Wuthering Heights" and thinking, 'there's something about the cinematography that is kind of familiar to me'...and then looking it up and realizing that Gregg Toland was the common denominator. Probably a big old 'duh' for everyone else who knows anything about anything, but it was a little epiphany for me at the time, lol.

always nice to see someone get genuinely excited about 'kane' -- it is a very fun, engaging, gorgeous film.

I just saw the for the first time, too, a few months ago. Really as big and watchable as they say it is!

Seeing Kane added another level to visiting Hearst Castle. It's like, "Holy crap he really DID have a fireplace bigger than he was."

"I think we might have a FAP tomorrow, Susan."

Want to watch this again now, but waiting for the Blu Ray out next year. Saw it in the cinema once but it was on old print, so not much better than the DVD version I have.

Kane at 70

http://mubi.com/notebook/posts/3227

what a fun movie.

how wonderful to be this guy:

http://images.piccsy.com/cache/images/70764-05642a-500-689.jpg

paid for it of course

Who knew that Kane paved the way for The Human Centipede?

Yesterday was also Welles' birthday (and Freud, and Willie Mays).

Morbs I'm curious - where do you rank this among Welles pics?

The "ultimate collector's edition" blu-ray was announced today:

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/81zNzRWRpHL._AA1500_.jpg

ho hum lobby cards book WAIT HOLY SHIT MAGNIFICENT AMBERSONS

Aw hell yeah! Finally!

aero, it's kind of impossible for me to think of it as anything but Welles' best both as entertainment and unsullied, unfucked-with tour de force. I see a certain greatness in Lady from Shanghai, Touch of Evil and especially Othello, but only prefer them to CK in fleeting moments.

After reading this, I was hoping that set would include an acclaimed BBC doc on the making of Kane, but apparently not? I hope this, tho, gets taken care of:

WB should certainly “un-restore” the “News-on-the-March” sequence which Welles intentionally wanted to have a dirty and scratched look, as well as all the scenes in the previous digital restoration that removed such “artifacts” as the raindrops on the windows outside of Mr. Bernstein’s office.

http://www.wellesnet.com/?p=1358

srsly, how does somebody who removes raindrops and cleans up News On the March get a job in restoration?