Citizen Kane: Classic or Dud?

''(for example, the caricature position that cinema which resembled theatre was by definition superior: hence her famous claim that spielberg was the first director ever not to have an imaginary proscenium arch pasted over his inner director's viewfinder — a claim proved by science on ile to be rub!!)''

can you give me a link to that?

there's also a best of: all of them are published by marion boyars

ptee provided the science, mainly but i forget what the thread was

CK: classic. You can take away all the things cinegeeks drool over (technical feats, non-linear narrative, etc.), and you'd still have Welles's outstanding performance and a powerful story.

I think the hype factor was one reason I found it so disappointing. Unlike the Beatles or Elvis, we're not familiar with CK from childhood on, so I don't think that analogy really holds up.

Who was it pointed out that Harry Lime's dialogue is closer than any other character's in the film to the 'novel' (inverteds due to its function according to Greene)?

I suppose Cuckoo clock speech/income tax speech POO is something for a thread of its own?

P. S. CK = classic.

1) "It had that thing where newspapaers spin round in it."

and 2) The fact that Jerry the Nipper mentioned Willow. Oh, I don't really have anything else to contribute but this. I have never even seen "Citizen Kane." I do hear that wee Kane spends his childhood in Colorado.

It is very far from being my favourite film, and I get exasperated by its absurd standing, but it is a very good movie.

thanks have you still got my home addy that i sent to you (or if you want to wait for the next FAP that's good too).

thanks.

my account has been doing some weird shit (and i'm too lazy to deal with it, magic shall sort it out) lately but hopefully you should get it (as long as picked up my time travel/telapathy email i sent you on sunday).

Citizen Kane is no Condorman

Orson couldn't move with Michael Crawford's natural grace.

CK = a damn good watch every time

[Kael] never mistook trash for art; never thought it elitist (or unimportant) to distinguish the two; never put forth that there was any connection, organic or otherwise, between the widely accepted and the good. Kael believed that every moviegoer could develop an aesthetic--but not that one necessarily would, just as she believed that a talented filmmaker could use lowbrow forms to create art, but not that the ability to master such forms could ever make one an artist. In short, she was a democrat but not a populist.

[...]

Kael also approaches the high/low question in her characteristically textured way: "One of the great things about movies is they can combine the energy of a popular art with the possibilities of a high art," she says. "What's wonderful about someone like Altman is that mixture of pop and high art. He's an artist who uses pop as his vehicle. That's part of the excitement in a movie like 'Nashville' ...Godard's 'Weekend' is another case in point." Here, in a nutshell, is one of Kael's key critical insights, one that underlies so much of what she wrote and admired and wanted other people to see and grasp and debate.

I have a lot to say about Citizen Kane itself, too: I've seen it probably ten times and it means a lot to me. But where to start? For now I'll just say that the scene where Everett Sloane talks about seeing the girl in a white dress is possibly the most beautiful moment in the history of cinema. I'm really surprised by all the people who said they find it cold: certainly Kane himself is a rather cold person but the film itself always seems endlessly fresh, a burst of energy, something genuinely new then and now.

I hated that, even though I like Peanuts.

hmmm, does it really? i admit i've only seen it like 40 times but i can't recall one instance of this! (was it in the newsreel? because that's sort of supposed to be a corny effect)

I don't see how you can see the film 40 times and not remember this bit!

I'm glad I'm not the only one for whom Charles Schulz ruined it. Maybe he assumed everyone had seen it by then, even small children (except Linus).

Ha ha, yes, this happened to me too. DAMN YOU SCHULZ!

CK classic tho.

Peanuts didn't ruin the ending for me, but something else did. Tiny Toon adventures?

Loved Carmela Soprano trying to get her mobbed-up film club interested: "Now, to give us some background, let's see what Leonard Maltin has to say."

Saw a rep screening this afternoon (paired with Mank, which--weather permitting--I'll see tomorrow). I like J.D.'s post above: "But where to start? For now I'll just say that the scene where Everett Sloane talks about seeing the girl in a white dress is possibly the most beautiful moment in the history of cinema. I'm really surprised by all the people who said they find it cold: certainly Kane himself is a rather cold person but the film itself always seems endlessly fresh, a burst of energy, something genuinely new then and now."

I've never found it less than incredible, start to finish. I've also seen it called pretentious (by a certain cranky baseball writer--not important); even if you hate the film, that particular complaint strikes me as absurd. It's about as pretentious as Rock 'n' Roll High School.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9iMy0969BTw

I don't know if this is even my favourite Welles film, but I was a little taken aback when Vertigo overtook Kane on the Sight and Sound list. I can understand Vertigo being someone/anyone's favourite film, but it seems too introverted to be a consensus pick. I guess most people have no more in common with the character of Kane than they do with the character of Scottie, but the Welles film obviously has more external scope and seems like it has "universal" implications.

I remember one of my film teachers saw Kane in its original theatrical run in 1941!

That's amazing.

I was disappointed with Vertigo's ascension too--subjectively, and also objectively for the reason you mention. This is not directed at anyone who considers it to be the better film, but, as I've mentioned before, I honestly believe that, generally speaking, Vertigo benefitted from the time it was out of circulation, when it's mystique grew and grew. Kane, meanwhile, became entrenched as The Greatest Film Ever that you just had to see. It became homework.

Also Vertigo was able to slot very easily into Lacanian film theory and the idea of the male gaze. Both films are rich in detail for analysis of male exploitation of women.

Good film imo

Just occurred to me that Kane and Vertigo both have Bernard Herrmann soundtracks, although you don't tend to see, say, The 7th Voyage of Sinbad on most best-ever lists so maybe it's not that.

I’m sure I said it way upthread but Kane’s rep for me was sealed as a kid thanks to regular mentions by Charles Schulz’s characters. Which is also how I knew Rosebud was the sled.

Really? Interesting. Had to look that up.

My first encounter with CK: a Saturday morning cartoon in which Vincent Price plays a ghost obsessed with Rosebud.

i agree that vertigo is a movie for people who love to think about movies. in my experience Most People do not like vertigo v much: it is boring and slow and keeps burrowing further into an extremely off-putting performance. i like it a lot but do find it hard not to interpret the shift from kane (a playful muckraking spectacle that wants you kept giddy) as indicative of a broader turn towards the academy in terms of who gets paid for anything to think about movies.

Kael's phrase about Kane "a shallow masterpiece" applies more to Vertigo imo.

I played Kane's opening scene for elementary students for years on Welles' birthday (sometimes switching over to the shootout in Lady from Shanghai). I recall one student begging me (partly jokingly) for days afterwards to tell him (or her--can't remember) what Rosebud meant. "Can't do it--you will see it one day." I wonder if he did.

I realized yesterday that one supposed mystery--which at some point I began to accept myself--is easily explained: how was Kane's last word known if no one else was in the room? Raymond, his attendant (Mr. Sentimental), mentions the snow globe falling to the ground when Kane said Rosebud, the implication being that he was in the room watching over Kane, before the nurse enters, even though we don't see him.

My first encounter with CK: a Saturday morning cartoon in which Vincent Price plays a ghost obsessed with Rosebud.

― Patriotic Goiter (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn),

Wasn’t that, like, The Real Ghostbusters?

it may have been

^___^

James Agee didn't like it? I was checking the initial critical reception in 1941 and came across that. I checked Agee on Film, and it's only mentioned once, in passing; I found one more specific quote online, but can't find his review (if there is one). All of this sparked by someone writing into the aforementioned cranky baseball writer: "Awhile back you made the point that Citizen Kane began to be considered the greatest movie when an influential critic or two said it was." I was kind of hoping to be able to write in and (gently--he's cranky) correct that--I always thought it received almost unanimously ecstatic reviews--but after investigating a bit, the reception indeed seems to have been somewhat mixed.

Right there, staring me in the face, but nowhere to play it.

https://phildellio.tripod.com/rosebud.jpg