The MoFo Movie Club Discussion: Citizen Kane

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I think that fact that he collects statues plays into the concepts you gents are elaborating on, as well, and the line "Who would pay x amount of dollars for a dame without a head" is also quite significant. Kane only understood the shell of people, the superficial, because his entire life was based on such concepts. For a man that had everything, I doubt he owned anything "real" his entire life.
That's a good point about the statues.



Agreed. Great observation; he collects statues of people in the same way he collects people. Like Mark's observation that he becomes ashes, just like his belongings, as well.

I know I already said something like this in my initial post, but talking about these things just solidifies that earlier impression, that Citizen Kane is such an impressive film, among other reasons, because it demonstrates that you can take a good (though not great) story, and turn it into something tremendous and living with the force of the medium.



Since I came in late, I hope no one minds (least of all PW) if I go back and reply to a few things from the initial post. Apologies in advance for anything which was covered earlier; I read the entire thread, but might have forgotten a thing or two.

Does that make it a great film though? Seems to me that a lot of us are having the very same discussion about a little movie called Avatar right now. Avatar is pretty much all special effects and low on story and yet the majority of us love it. So, does that mean that Avatar could go on to become one of the greatest movies of all time? Maybe. Maybe not.
*shudder*

See, I just watch movies. I either love them, hate them, sort of like them. What have you. I can see that there were some very cool shots done in this film because I've seen a lot of 40's movies so I know what a lot of those films tended to look like but that still doesn't necessarily make for a great film. What really holds back this film for me is the story. I hated Charles Foster Kane. Yeah, hated him. People like this are the reason the world is the way it is today. Am I painting to broad of a generalization? Maybe, maybe not. I have my own ideas about the world and where its heading and films like this tend to make me worry about that. But I digress... I'll try to set my tangents aside.
Aye, but surely we're all supposed to hate him a little bit.

That said, I am sympathetic to anyone who suggests (though I'd probably disagree) that Kane loses something now that its effects are fairly old hat. Any pioneering film has this problem, though; creating something transcendent, and you'll be so often imitated that you'll look like you were derivative of the very things that derived from you. And you can only get so much enjoyment out of trying to empathize with how difficult it must have been to get this shot or that 60-odd years ago.

So, what do you all think? Is this film all about the man Welles? Or was he honestly trying to "say" something about the world in general? What was the point of this film? Did Charles Foster Kane have any redeeming qualities? What were they? I missed them. See, I'm a simple guy for the most part. If he would have left his vast fortune to a puppy shelter or something at the end of the film I might have an entirely different outlook on the guy. Instead you see the staff throwing a bunch of his crap into the furnace which to me lends even more credence to the lack of point to it all. I don't know. I have to admit, the film does make you think about things and (obviously) can send a guy like me off on a tangent. But again, does that mean its a great film?
Not necessarily, no. But surely we can find examples of films you enjoy with characters you just flat-out didn't like. Is the problem that Kane isn't treated like a straight-up villain, even though you responded to him as if he was? Honest question.

And another: what did you think of Kane when he was younger? I was kind of taken with that incarnation of him, though in order to feel this way you'd certainly have to take him as he is at that point, and not as we know he's going to become.

So what do you think? What was the point? Why is this movie so hard to watch? If it isn't. Why is it so easy for you to watch?
Well, I confess that it wasn't really "easy" to watch. I am still of a very different generation than the one that saw Citizen Kane with all the necessary context of the time, so I (sadly) know exactly what it feels like to be bored by an alleged classic. But I honestly wasn't bored with Kane, and it was only difficult to watch because I was acutely aware of just how chock-full of details it was, and was on the lookout for many of them.



I'll get round to this in the next couple of days, I promise.



Agreed. Great observation; he collects statues of people in the same way he collects people. Like Mark's observation that he becomes ashes, just like his belongings, as well.

I know I already said something like this in my initial post, but talking about these things just solidifies that earlier impression, that Citizen Kane is such an impressive film, among other reasons, because it demonstrates that you can take a good (though not great) story, and turn it into something tremendous and living with the force of the medium.
There's also a scene when the reporter is interviewing the elder Joseph Cotton that Cotton's character comes close to explaining Kane when he says something to the effect that Kane had everything but what he really wanted or needed. I can't recall the exact words, but it puts me in mind of that old adage about the man who knows the price of everything but the value of nothing. That was Kane's biggest problem--he didn't value anything or anyone.



A system of cells interlinked
I see where PW is coming from, but I also have to kind of echo what Ruf is always saying in that Kane makes many other films look like also-rans, even if they have polished some of the technical stones to a new level.

I watched Mission Impossible III last night, which I had a ton of fun watching, but i must say I was reminded of Kane several times. The themes of the films were not similar, but many of the cinematic mechanics were.

WARNING: "Mission Impossible III in relation to Kane" spoilers below
In MI:III, most of the characters are trying to figure out what "the rabbit's foot" is. This Macguffin is presented in almost the same way, with some characters talking about it at the start of the film, and their conversation is of the "Who or what could Rosebud be" variety. The first scene of the film is chronologically at the end of our characters journey in the film, similar to Kane himself, and we are then whisked away by the flashback mechanic to fill in what has happened before the first scene shown.

The film concludes with a conversation about the Macguffin, but the characters don't find out what it was. Unlike Kane, but perhaps taking a page from Meeker's Kiss me Deadly (which inspired the case in Pulp Fiction), the audience is never told what the Macguffin actually was.


I think this is what Ruf means when he talks about Kane breaking the mold, in so many words. This film nailed down many of the cinematic mechanics film makers of today rely on as rudimentary building blocks for their films. The story is important, but not what Welles was revolutionizing when he made Citizen Kane.
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will.15's Avatar
Semper Fooey
There's also a scene when the reporter is interviewing the elder Joseph Cotton that Cotton's character comes close to explaining Kane when he says something to the effect that Kane had everything but what he really wanted or needed. I can't recall the exact words, but it puts me in mind of that old adage about the man who knows the price of everything but the value of nothing. That was Kane's biggest problem--he didn't value anything or anyone.
That's the problem with Citizen Kane. The dialogue is over explanatory and repetitive. Welles may have gotten into that habit because of the documentary format, but he does it in the dramatic scenes as well. It simplifies Kane. Would Hamlet be as great if the other character faced the audience and pointed out Hamlet's character flaws?



Well, the equivalent to that would be Kane himself going on about all his regrets and flaws, so it's not quite the same. Cotton is clearly speaking of events he witnessed and experienced, but he's still expressing an opinion. We still have to consider the source and put it into context with the other things we hear about him.



That's the problem with Citizen Kane. The dialogue is over explanatory and repetitive. Welles may have gotten into that habit because of the documentary format, but he does it in the dramatic scenes as well. It simplifies Kane. Would Hamlet be as great if the other character faced the audience and pointed out Hamlet's character flaws?
Well, see, that's where I differ, maybe because of my own experience as a reporter. We're seeing Kane's story from the reporter's point of view--he goes out and talks to lots of people about Kane. Some remember an incident one way, some another. Some of it is repetitive in that it cocerns the same incident, but all of it is explanatory in that each person interviewed is explaining the Kane he or she knew. The "dramatic scenes" are just acting out what the interviewee is telling the reporter. Like the reporter, the audience is being fed scraps of information that we also have to fashion together to discover which of those versions of Kane is true. Rather than simplifying Kane, it makes him more complex because you see him through so many other people's point of view.



Gotta get PW back in here. I'll watch it again if you do, bud!

Anyway, I prettied up the main Movie Club page in honor of this film, and the discussion therein. Should've done it earlier, but, you know, I'm pretty lazy.



I've been crazy busy lately and of course that means I've been pretty damn tired as a result and haven't been able to really get up the stamina to write up some long posts. This is a great thread though and I hope to be able to get back into it pretty soon. I am actually planning on watching the film again at some point with the wife so maybe some of my thoughts will change a bit.
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No sweat. I think I might, too, even though I've kinda watched it twice counting the Ebert commentary. But this feels like the kind of movie worth saturating oneself with.



I need to go back through all the comments here but in my opinion it's considered the greatest film of all time largely because of how innovative it was. The temporal aspect, (The story unfolds in a circular fashion, doubling back on itself etc) was ground breaking, as was cinematography, (which i wont go into because everyone and their mom has heard about it a million times).

Now my personal experience with the film is mostly negative, I understand why it's considered the best film ever, and I respect that moniker. However, I don't personally enjoy the film as a film; though I do enjoy it as a cinematic exercise. If i sound conflicted thats because I am. I respect this movie to death but I don't like it, hope that makes sense.



It's striking to watch Citizen Kane after watching a few movies made prior to it. Much of what was unique at the time has become commonplace in films made since.

Although I don't have it in my "heavy" rotation, I love this movie. I was moved by the sense of failure and loneliness at the end of his life, his entrapment in a zoo of his own making surrounded by his collection of things that failed to bring happiness (I can really relate when I go to my packed garage). I think most people buy things that they are convinced will make their life happier. In the end, it is relationships that count, all of which have slipped through Kane's grasp. And in the end, Kane is true to himself. His final thought is of another "thing". Rosebud. Not his Mother, Father or the girl that got away. Not to take away from it's significance as a symbol of his lost childhood, but it does reinforce that he is utterly alone.

As a bonus, very few movies (if any) have a "making and aftermath of" story half as fascinating as Citizen Kane.
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I think the auto destruct mechanism got hit and blew itself up.



Bright light. Bright light. Uh oh.
I just came across an interesting review of Citizen Kane written by Erich von Stroheim in 1941. Here it is.
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Great link, Mark. Some random thoughts:
  1. I love getting the immediate perspective. It reminds us to keep things in context, like hearing about how a fair number of people despised Lincoln in his own time. It's a good reminder of how complicated these things are when we're looking at them too closely, be it politics or film. And, annoyingly, it's a reminder of how highly influenced each of us are by peer pressure, even in its subtler forms.
  2. It's funny how he reveals the meaning of "Rosebud" so carelessly a few paragraphs in.
  3. Some of his points are difficult to argue -- such as the point that many films have been made about heartless, ambitious men. I think you can probably make some pretty defensible generic arguments against most great films. There's a fine line between a "classic tale" and a retread, I suppose.
  4. It's interesting that von Stroheim takes issues with Welles' non-linear form of storytelling. He doesn't merely dislike it -- he seems genuinely annoyed and perplexed by the decision, as if it's inherently a mistake, rather than something that could have worked and didn't.
  5. All that said, he still has to concede that the direction is "superb."
It's also interesting that it seems very much like a negative review at points, but ends in a fairly positive way. von Stroheim seems to think it perfectly fine to have major problems with the film -- enough to actually suggest that the topic is tired and a complete reordering of the narrative is needed! -- and still praise the film as a whole.



Awesome! I've heard Erich von Stroheim wrote a pretty scathing review of the film upon its release, but I didn't think there was any surviving print of it. This is great, mark. Thanks.

I find it interesting that von Stroheim would criticize the movie's story structure, when he himself starred in Sunset Blvd., a film that is both stylistically and contextually so similar to Citizen Kane. He writes of Kane, "I do believe that the story might have been so arranged that Kane's death could have been shown in the old traditional way — at the end." In Sunset Blvd. the main character is dead in the first scene, the story is told more or less framed around this event, the central character is larger than life and observed through other characters, and so on... In criticizing Welles and Mankiewicz, von Stroheim may as well have been criticizing Billy Wilder for something he'd write seven years later.

To be fair, one story revolved around a person who died in the first scene while the other centered on a character who would not meet her end (not death) until the film's conclusion. Still, I think the story structure is one of the best parts of Citizen Kane. It's an ingenious way to learn about a newspaperman by using a reporter gathering information from his contemporaries. Throughout the film, Jerry Thompson, the reporter, is filmed from behind in shadow, listening to the people he interviews. He becomes a member of the audience and we become reporters collecting clues about Kane's life.



Also, in opening the film with Kane's death, we get a better sense of the impact his life had on the world. The events of a man's life take on a completely different and endlessly more interesting perspective when we already know he's dead. Then, the story becomes not so much where will he go with his life, but what did he do with his life. Think of Gene Tierney in Laura. With her, the great mystery was what did she do to make someone kill her? With Kane, it's what touched him so deeply that he thought of Rosebud above everything else in his eventful life? Also, the mystery surrounding Rosebud throughout the film takes on a much more compelling meaning when we know it's the last thing this man said. A newspaper entrepreneur, a powerful politician, a man of many affairs and infidelities, an eccentric billionaire dies, and the thing that's on his mind is this mysterious word none of his friends knew about.

At least von Stroheim liked Gregg Toland's cinematography. If he didn't, then I'd seriously reconsider liking his movies Greed and Queen Kelly.
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It's also interesting that it seems very much like a negative review at points, but ends in a fairly positive way. von Stroheim seems to think it perfectly fine to have major problems with the film -- enough to actually suggest that the topic is tired and a complete reordering of the narrative is needed! -- and still praise the film as a whole.
That's just a testament to how inarguably great this movie is. It's a technical masterpiece, and anyone with a background in film like von Stroheim couldn't ignore this.



will.15's Avatar
Semper Fooey
As an actor Stroheim wasn't very choosy about the parts he played. It appears he wasn't all that fond of Sunset Boulevard, calling it, "That dumb butler part."



that stroheim review was interesting.

it reminded me of something i had meant to post earlier in the thread, jorge luis borges's kane review from 1941.

i think it's generally more postive but it also opens with this line:

Citizen Kane (whose title in Argentina is "The Citizen") has at least two arguments. The first, of an almost banal imbecility, wants to bribe the applause of the very unobservant.