Re: citizen kane
Malcolm Lawrence (malcolm@wolfenet.com)
Sun, 12 Apr 1998 22:50:01 -0700
Emily Moore wrote:
> Unfortunately (I guess like the unappreciative college kid I am) I'd have
> to agree with the people who thought that "rosebud, rosebud" was pretty
> anticlimactic.
But not if you consider what was happening to him physically and
psychologically WHILE the sled was being taken away from him and how he
lived out the rest of his life desperately trying to offset the
repercussions of that moment. Citizen Kane is one of those movies that you
have to see twice just to see it once. And if you get into the real life
parallels with William Randolph Hearst, "Rosebud" was the nickname of his
mistress who was his secretary, and it was his secretary who fought the
absolutely most bloody campaign tooth and nail for decades to get the film
banned and destroyed.
And to Hearst's underlings, Citizen Kane was so unflattering to their boss
that they banned all mention of it from the Hearst papers, radio stations,
and wire services. For good measure, they also banned all mention of every
other movie from the same studio, RKO Radio Pictures.
(For a modern day parallel, imagine CNN refusing to acknowledge the
existence of a film because the protagonist was eerily like Ted Turner, and
then just refusing to admit the existence of Disney for punctuation.)
During one moment in the negotiations leading up to the release of Citizen
Kane, the very existence of the film itself was in doubt. Terrified by the
possibility of an anti-Hollywood campaign by the Hearst press, a group of
industry leaders, lead by MGM's Louis B. Mayer, offered RKO a cash
settlement to simply destroy the film. It would have covered RKO's costs and
added a small profit. But by then Welles had already sneak-previewed the
movie to so many powerful opinion-makers that it was too late to sweep it
under the rug.
Citizen Kane never did get a proper national release, however. It could not
play in the major
theaters in many cities, because they were block-booked by the big studios,
which boycotted it. It
could not be advertised in the influential Hearst papers (the ads referred
only to a mysterious "New
Screen Attraction"). And although the film was instantly hailed by many
critics, John O'Hara in
Newsweek and Bosley Crowther in the New York Times among them, it won only
one Academy
Award—which Welles shared with Herman Mankiewicz, for the screenplay.
Greg Toland's photography broke major ground as well that continues to be
copied by every pretentious kid with a camera. Just watch the camera zoom
between the neon signs and swoop down through the skylight into the club in
the opening scene (AFTER the cinema verite first HALF HOUR of the film.
Pretty avant-garde even by today's standards). Before computers that was
practically impossible to do. It was also the first film where in one scene
you can actually see the ceiling. Before Citizen Kane you'd never see the
ceiling in a room because it was a sound stage and you'd just see an endless
ceiling with light riggings and drapes all around. Even today, how often do
you see a ceiling on film?
Watch it again and notice exactly what life altering events happen between
the words "Merry Christmas" and "and a Happy New Year." More territory is
covered in the space between those two ends of the same phrase than in any
TV mini-series you've ever seen.
I could go on...I mean whole books have been written about the film. And if
you take into consideration that Orson Welles was only 25 years of age when
he made the film, it still boggles the mind.
> so I suppose it takes the wisdom of age...?
Not necessarily. Sometimes all it takes is a little research, and keeping in
mind that, metaphors being what are these days, a sled isn't always just a
sled (but a kiss is still just a kiss. Unless, of course, you're lost in the
rain in Gethsemene and it's Eastertime too.)
Malcs