Lost in the Movies: Citizen Kane at 80 (video): Returning to Mirrors of Kane series w/ "Thatcher" chapter

Citizen Kane at 80 (video): Returning to Mirrors of Kane series w/ "Thatcher" chapter



Five years ago, I kicked off a brand new video series to honor Citizen Kane's seventy-fifth anniversary. However, the first video hit during a lull on my site and a busy time in my offline life and I let the project die...or rather, go to sleep. I'm not fully resurrecting it yet - that will wait until I'm much further along on my new "Path back to Journey Through Twin Peaks" schedule - but I wanted to do something for the film's eightieth anniversary this month (how time flies!) so here we are. It helps that the chapter next in line turned out to be much simpler than the first, an introduction which incorporated many different approaches and pieces of media. Chapter 2 focuses on the film's first "narrator," Walter P. Thatcher, Kane's guardian and constant foil. Thatcher's sequence is unique in several ways, encompassing Kane's entire life rather than a single period, conveyed through a written memoir rather than a direct interview with the reporter character, and keeping Kane at more of a distance than the later flashbacks. The challenges here are different from that expansive intro, as I illustrate or visually expand upon various concepts using limited footage from the relatively brief Thatcher material. I also dip into the documentary The Battle Over Citizen Kane in order to discuss the differences between William Randolph Hearst and Charles Foster Kane (and the similarities between Kane and Orson Welles).

The chapter is also available on Vimeo:


And if you want to watch the whole series thus far, including the trailer, check out my YouTube playlist.

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