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.

Patreon update #14: A Man Escaped (+ Top 15 Twin Peaks music, political podcasts, narrators of Citizen Kane & more) and preview of "Fire Walk With Me in season 3"

Several months ago, my patron and friend Max suggested a classic film about the French Resistance from a director who had experience in the Resistance himself. This month, he suggested another such film and so at the end of my discussion of A Man Escaped (based on the memoir of an escapee and informed by director Robert Bresson's own experience as a prisoner of war in Occupied France), I draw the comparison to Army of Shadows. I also incorporate the philosophy of Jansenism and reflect on Bresson's unique filmmaking style - especially when it comes to performance. Apologies for the strange, somewhat hollow sound of this segment; in retrospect I think the headphones/recorder I usually use wasn't properly plugged in and the phone itself was what was picking up my voice. Hopefully it's still listenable.

Elsewhere I take one last lap around the "random" "Twin Peaks Reflections" track before we move onto the rewatch buildup next week. Taking a cue from Twin Peaks Unwrapped and Scott Ryan of the Red Room Podcast I decided to list my 15 favorite Twin Peaks musical tracks, with samples from each selection accompanied by a few reflections. This should be a lot of fun for any Peaks fan to listen to - what our your own picks? I also offer my monthly round-up of podcast recommendations, with a lot of in-depth political discussions, and detail the variations of the different narrators/flashback sequences in Citizen Kane as part of my "Opening the Archive" segment.

Outside of the podcast, I lowered the biweekly preview reward to $5/month (which includes opening up previous previews) and offered my first one of April, an exploration of how the Fire Walk With Me concepts of "Electricity" and "The Blue Rose" mutate and evolve in the third season of Twin Peaks. And finally, does anyone have suggestions for a good third-tier reward? Right now, it's still in limbo so let me know what you think below.

Reward for the 3rd Tier? (what should it be?) - public post

Fire Walk With Me influences in season 3 (April "See the Future" Preview #1 - 2nd tier reward)

Episode 14: A Man Escaped (+ Top 15 Twin Peaks music, political podcasts, narrators of Citizen Kane & more)

Line-up for Episode 14

INTRO

WEEKLY UPDATE/recent posts: Mad Men viewing diary

WEEKLY UPDATE/Patreon: 2nd Tier Biweekly Preview - "Fire Walk With Me influences in season 3"

WEEKLY UPDATE/works in progress: character series - 30 runners-up including Pianist's true identity (Count Smokula), Twin Peaks Unwrapped pilot discussion, almost done w/ Mad Men season 1, High & Low visual tribute

FILM IN FOCUS: A Man Escaped

TWIN PEAKS REFLECTIONS: Rewatch reminder, Top 15 Twin Peaks music (+ bonus track)

OTHER TOPICS: Podcast recommendations

OPENING THE ARCHIVE: "Long Goodbyes" (November - December 2011), this week's highlight (Citizen Kane)

BECOME A PATRON

The Favorites - Citizen Kane (#11)

The Favorites is a series briefly exploring films I love, to find out what makes them - and me - tick. Citizen Kane (1941/USA/dir. Orson Welles) appeared at #11 on my original list.

What it is • The great man is dead, and he died alone (well, sort of...). But this isn't an ancient legend, and we can't be fooled into believing this titan was universally revered and respected. It's 1941, the age of mass media, an age that Charles Foster Kane (Orson Welles) himself helped create - as we're reminded more than once. And so, within moments of our grandiose introduction to this larger-than-life character, a rapid-fire newsreel exalts, mocks, glosses, and punctures Kane from all angles. He is an awe-inspiring tycoon and a ludicrous public figure; he is a powerful man of the world and an isolated loner in his private castle; he's a communist and a fascist! The rest of the film both follows and subverts this pattern in more subtle fashion. After that info-battering, a throughline is needed, and it arrives in the hunt for the meaning of "Rosebud," Kane's dying words. A roving reporter (William Alland) interviews a series of figures who knew Kane, each from a different perspective depending on their relationship to him, where he was in his own life when they knew him, and the quirks of their own personalities. The film itself reflects this diversity in almost subliminal ways, shaping its style around the voices of these narrators while reflecting the different eras they inhabit. Citizen Kane is one of the all-time great biographies in any medium, one of the few biopics to transcend the problems that afflict that genre. Shaping an entire lifetime into a two-hour feature isn't easy, but Kane turns those challenges into virtues. It works both as an anthology of interrelated short stories and as a sprawling but cohesive novel. Of course, Citizen Kane is frequently praised as the greatest film of all time due to technique more than narrative: its incredible visual invention and ambition (we all know the litany: the trick shots, the visible ceilings, the deep focus, the long takes, the creative montages, etc etc) amplify the plot, themes, and characters, but also transcend them. At twenty-five, straight from his groundbreaking work in radio and theater, Welles was given the most unusual deal of Hollywood's Golden Age, using it to make a film that both extends and radically re-configures the tools of that particular trade. There's a million things I haven't mentioned here (most notably three words: William Randolph Hearst), and I couldn't even scratch the surface of most in a short capsule piece. Fortunately, there's plenty of other writing on Kane, including some by myself that has been linked below. Besides...

Why I like it •

Mirrors of Kane: Citizen Kane video series, chapter 1: "Meeting Kane" (Introductions)

Earlier in the month, on Orson Welles' 101st birthday, Fandor Keyframe posted "Meeting Kane", the first chapter in my Mirrors of Kane video essay series. (update: Fandor has since made this video private and I have re-located it to my personal channel - see below.) "Meeting Kane" is available on both Vimeo and YouTube (where it has joined a new Mirrors of Kane playlist to keep track of the series). Both are embedded below.

Here is the intro I wrote for Fandor

MIRRORS OF KANE
CHAPTER ONE: MEETING KANE

Today, CITIZEN KANE turns seventy-five. That's five years older than writer/director/star Orson Welles when he passed away, and roughly three years younger than Charles Foster Kane himself when he whispered his final "Rosebud". Like those septuagenarians, the film remains celebrated, but - also like them - it may be misunderstood. The "greatest film of all time" is placed on a lofty pedestal that commands distanced respect and resentment, rather than affection. Even its greatest admirers often emphasize the film's technical achievements and immense influence over any emotional resonance. Most infamously, KANE has been called "a shallow masterpiece" (Pauline Kael) and "a labyrinth without a center" (Jorge Luis Borges) - and much discussion surrounding the movie, however admiring, tends to concur with that judgment.

MIRRORS OF KANE, my first multi-part video series since JOURNEY THROUGH TWIN PEAKS, serves two, related purposes. First, the following chapters will focus in turn on each of the film's five "narrators", the characters who trigger the film's flashback structure. Often dismissed as convenient storytelling devices, these characters actually reveal as much about themselves as Kane. These revelations are both dramatic and stylistic, lending each section of the movie a distinct flavor. Second, using these individuals as touchstones, this series will emphasize the power of the film's relationships, between characters and also between different parts of the film (including CITIZEN KANE's quasi-"ring" composition in which the second half mirrors and reverses the first). Throughout this exploration I will engage with the work of critics with whom I mostly align (Laura Mulvey) and respectfully diverge (Roger Ebert), assembling a chorus of voices as diverse as the film's own.

"Chapter One: Meeting Kane" serves as a concise, playful, and personal introduction to this mission. I pose questions that will be addressed in upcoming chapters, challenge the "cold"/"shallow"/"purely technical" interpretation of the film, and recall my own excited initiation into CITIZEN KANE's world (including its bizarro-world similiarity to Frank Capra's IT'S A WONDERFUL LIFE). This kicks off not only a series of video essays, with new entries to appear regularly over the next few months, but also, hopefully, a conversation. Where does YOUR view of Citizen Kane fall? How did YOU first discover the movie? What have YOU noticed on repeat viewings? With its panoply of conflicting points of view, maverick approach to filmmaking, and skeptical take on elite institutions, CITIZEN KANE remains a democratic masterpiece, a fact worth celebrating off and onscreen. To take part, visit me on YouTube, Vimeo, or my site Lost in the Movies, where I will be linking to new entries throughout May and June.

To be continued...

Update 2021: chapter two was finally published 

Citizen Kane at 75: a new video essay series

Today, for the 75th anniversary of Citizen Kane, I am announcing Mirrors of Kane. This brand new video series is my first since Journey Through Twin Peaks concluded a year and a half ago. The first chapter, which should appear in the next few weeks, will debut on Fandor Keyframe, while the rest will be hosted on my personal YouTube/Vimeo channels. The series will be structured around the five "narrators" of the film, who inspire its flashback structure: Walter Parks Thatcher, Mr. Bernstein, Jedediah Leland, Susan Alexander Kane, and Raymond the butler. It's based on an essay I wrote in 2011 but will also expand the scope of the analysis by, in the final chapter, digging into the structure of the film including its striking efficiency as a "ring composition" (written about by Mike Klimo with regards to the Star Wars saga). It will also incorporate criticism of the film that I do and don't agree with - I'm really looking forward to engaging with this material visually, something I've already begun with the first chapter which is finished and awaiting its premiere on Fandor.

Citizen Kane at 75 (trailer)

And of course, I've also created the above trailer, which is available on YouTube and Vimeo. If you like it, please share - your word of mouth will be the main way people discover this series and join the conversation. Most importantly, I want to highlight the human pulse of Citizen Kane, a film that is too often celebrated as a purely technical achievement. As such, it can seem intimidating and/or alienating to many viewers, something to admire from a distance rather than invest themselves in emotionally. As a narrative analysis, these videos will pay attention to the subtle ways character, camera, and cutting intertwine to tell a series of "short stories" about Kane (and also about the storytellers themselves) which coalesce to form a rich, intricate tapestry.

Update: I originally planned to continue the series through the spring and early summer and included a schedule/directory here to link all of them. However, after Chapter 1 the project was postponed so the directory will reappear when the other videos are ready.

Update 2021: Chapter 2 was finally published although other the rest will wait until 2022 (update 2025: or, apparently, well beyond that)...

Vimeo embed:

Citizen Kane

This is an entry in "The Big Ones," a series covering 32 classic films for the first time on The Dancing Image. There are spoilers.

I was ten when I watched Citizen Kane for the first time. It was a snowy evening, early December I think, and my friend had a videotape of a famous film I'd heard of but not yet seen. I knew its reputation but was not very attuned to or interested in deep focus, montage, or mise en scene. I experienced these elements, of course, but more or less subliminally, while my focus was on the story. Right away this forties film reminded me of It's a Wonderful Life, without the happy ending: Man's view, rather than God's, of an unhappy life set against the backdrop of 20th-century American history. I was drawn in by the mystery represented by Rosebud (whose revelation my friend's father spoiled at the last moment, wandering into the room as the camera scanned the endless round-up of Kane's belongings, and musing, rather unbelievably, "I can't believe Rosebud was his sled!"). The mystery, of course, cannot be solved by any one object nor, as it turns out, by any one person.

Citizen Kane has suffered, albeit in a more benign and limited form, much like its main character. The film has become so successful, so overbearing in its influence and acclaim that the object of all this attention can get lost in the haze of hype. That's why I'm glad I saw Kane when, and how, I did. To this day whenever the film is discussed, I always find myself steering the conversation towards the story. Unconsciously, I pull away from analyses of its legacy or impact, and especially from cataloging its various achievements and attributes, like those men roaming Kane's mansion at film's end, listing all the possessions one by one instead of stepping back to look at the big picture. One of the most compelling pieces I've read on this favorite film was written by a blogger who hated it; in his effort to explain and examine his distaste, he astutely and penetratingly analyzed the film bit by bit, but with an eye toward the whole effect.

Storm Clouds Gather 1940 - 1942 • "32 Days of Movies" Day 6

The sixth chapter in "32 Days of Movies", an audiovisual tour through 366 films.
(2015 update: included Vimeo embed after the jump)

View "Chapter 6: Storm Clouds Gather"

Storm Clouds Gather

In a quiet European cafe, a couple bicker and, by bickering, flirt. It is charming, wistful...and more than a little poignant: argument as gradual romance rather than violent dispute. In another establishment, in another European country, this same couple (or so it seems) find themselves surrounded by a bloodthirsty crowd, hands raised high in stiff salute, singing lustily about their glorious leader. Upon reflection, that cafe scene becomes even more poignant, tragic even. War has come to Europe, and by extension, to Hollywood.

Three by Truffaut

In my introduction to "Reading the Movies," I noted the titles I was reading at the moment. Among the Kael, Sarris, and sundry I declined to mention The Films of My Life by François Truffaut, which I've been reading off and on since April. I already transcribed the marvellous introduction; as for the rest of the book, I'm cool on some of Truffaut's criticism. At times he becomes too absorbed by plot descriptions (which, possibly due to translation, become cumbersome and hard to follow), at others his epigrams seem too obscure (I know, I know, I'm one to talk...). But unlike Truffaut's films, which I can only enjoy from a distance like Moses viewing the promised land, there are passages in his writing which leap from the page and hit me where it hurts - in a good way. Following are three wonderful essays which I've reproduced here for your enjoyment. So making their online debut (to my knowledge):

"Citizen Kane: The Fragile Giant" - Fantastic tribute to one of the greatest movies of all time, not from a perspective of technical admiration but of zealous, totally enraptured enthusiasm (and with a focus on the characters and story, which is also how I first knew and loved Kane - and in some ways, still do).

"Muriel" - Slightly bewildered appreciation of the Resnais film, with a great Hitchcock anecdote. Hitch's punchline, Truffaut's closing paragraph, and the film in question are all somewhat mystifying though I like the first two more than the third.

"Roberto Rossellini Prefers Real Life" - Tip of the hat to a very unique filmmaker, a man Truffaut worked for (much of the essay is devoted to personal reminisces). Years later, he still seems to be astonished by Rossellini's distractible intensity; Truffaut's tone is simultaneously admiring and disbelieving.