Classics Corner: “Citizen Kane”

28 10 2010

Rosebud.

It’s the secret of “Citizen Kane,” the movie considered by many film scholars and critics as the greatest ever made.  So pardon me for being a little shocked when I got to the conclusion of Orson Welles’ masterpiece and realized I knew the ending thanks to watching AFI’s “100 Years, 100 Quotes” special on CBS.

The search for the meaning of “Rosebud,” however, was still quite enthralling.  Welles’ take on newspaper giant William Randolph Hearst, here under the guise of Charles Foster Kane, is a power chronicle of greed and power are still just as resonant today as they were in 1941.  So relevant, in fact, that many people pointed out the thematic similarities between it and David Fincher’s “The Social Network.”  Curious to see the connection to the chronicle of Facebook I was so highly anticipating, I watched them both on the same day to really have a comparison.

I debated it on the LAMBcast, but I don’t see all that much similar between the two other than the main characters.  Both Kane and Mark Zuckerberg start with humble origins, setting out to revolutionize the way people see the world.  There is success right from the get-go, and there is acclaim.  So both set their sights higher and see no ceiling on their ambitions.  This causes them alienation from friends and loved ones, yet for them this a small price to pay for the success they are having with their ideas.

Perhaps the biggest difference is that Orson Welles completes the story of Charles Foster Kane, a luxury that allegories can provide.  Since Aaron Sorkin made no effort to hide the fact that “The Social Network” was the story of Mark Zuckerberg, however fictionalized, he would lose credibility if he tried to extend beyond what is already known of Facebook’s short history.  He chose to document the site’s origins and the effect that meteoric success had on its founder.

The future of Facebook as is difficult to forecast as the rest of Zuckerberg’s life.  Who knows what kind of life the world’s youngest billionaire will lead?  At 26, he still has a whole life to live, one that would be tough for anyone, let alone Aaron Sorkin, to predict.  When “Citizen Kane” was released in 1941, William Randolph Hearst was 78, and his life work was nearly complete.  While he was still influential (probably more so than Zuckerberg has been in his vehement disapproval of his cinematic treatment), there was a reasonable amount of closure Welles could provide.  Aaron Sorkin left “The Social Network” fairly open-ended, and I found a certain amount of joy in being able to interpret the movie as I wanted.  How I chose to interpret it, however, was very similar to the message that “Citizen Kane” communicated.

It’s a great sign of a movie’s longevity when it can be compared to something as modern as Facebook seven decades after its release, but “Citizen Kane” did more for movies than offer up thematic depth.  The movie was a watershed event in the development of the craft of cinema for decades to come.  It’s easy to look at the movie and notice nothing, but I had heard that the movie was a true revolution, so I looked deeper.  Since I can count the number of movies I have seen from before 1941 on one hand, I went to my good friend the Internet to find out the changes.  According to Tim Dirks, we take a whole lot of Orson Welles’ techniques for granted now.  Notable first in “Citizen Kane” include:

  • Subjective camera work
  • Unconventional lighting
  • Shadows and strange camera-angles
  • Deep-focus shots
  • Few revealing facial close-ups
  • Elaborate camera movements
  • Overlapping dialogue
  • Flashbacks
  • Cast of characters who ages throughout the film
  • Long shots and sequences, lengthy takes

Can you imagine movies without any of these of these things?  What would “The Social Network” be without the overlapping dialogue?  Could Mark Zuckerberg really be like a StairMill to Erica if they paused nicely to hear each other?  Orson Welles did cinema a huge favor with this movie.  While other people have taken these techniques to towering heights, “Citizen Kane” is a necessary watch for anyone who claims to love movies because it is the origin of so much cinematic development.


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Classics Corner: “2001: A Space Odyssey”

12 09 2010

Gut reaction to Stanley Kubirick’s “2001: A Space Odyssey” – WHAT THE HECK WAS THAT?!?

I just had to put that out there.  From my past experiences with Kubrick, which only include “Spartacus,” “The Shining,” and “Full Metal Jacket,” I was definitely expecting a head-scratcher.  But I can honestly say that in my nearly 18 years of watching movies, I don’t think I’ve ever seen a movie so cryptic.  I feel like I’m going to be left baffled for the rest of my life, and somehow I feel like Kubrick is grinning mischievously down at me from the afterlife, sniveling “I’ve got him just where I want him!”

Honestly, how did they discuss this movie in the 1960s?  Without the Internet to bounce ideas and theories off each other, did people just accept the fact that they couldn’t understand it since they didn’t have access to the geniuses who post things on the Web?  I can’t even fathom how dinner conversations might have gone in discussing such an innovative movie.

As you can see from the poster, the movie is advertised as the ultimate trip.  It truly is … the ultimate ACID trip.  I strongly advise anyone who might be under the influence of certain influences to stay away from this movie, not because of the content, but because the style might cause you to have some kind of seizure, stroke, or spasm. But what makes this movie a classic?  I can tell just from my first viewing that it has had an enormous influence on filmmaking in the 42 years since its release.  I felt a particularly urgent desire to watch “2001” now because Christopher Nolan named it as an influence of “Inception.”  Here are the specifics according to The New York Times:

The influence of the director of ”2001: A Space Odyssey” is readily apparent in a ”dream-gravity” sequence during ”Inception” that tracks Joseph Gordon-Levitt through an environment of rotating rooms followed by a period of total weightlessness. ”Kubrick to me always had a wonderful sense of calm and specificity in everything he did,” Mr. Nolan said. ”Every detail had a specific meaning and purpose. That’s something I always try to aim for in my filmmaking. It’s not a specific thing. It’s an approach of saying: ‘Why is this thing here? What are we doing with this detail, this element?'”

I can definitely feel a sense of overarching purpose in both the works of Nolan and Kubrick. The former, however, is much more forward while the latter is more subtle, really requiring us to trust in his directorial abilities.  In 2010, a time where Kubrick has been given God-like status among filmmakers, it’s very easy to do that.  But in 1968, I can imagine I might have been a little more skeptical.

The movie is packed with all sorts of themes, imagism, motifs, and symbols, many of which I have absolutely no idea how to interpret.  And I’m not even going to try (to quote “A Serious Man” despite the fact that I despise it, “accept the mystery”).  On the surface, the most accessible thematic element is that of artificial intelligence.  We build computers to be smart, even machines like the HAL-9000 that can supposedly make no errors, but when will come the time that they become smarter than us?  This idea has definitely been echoed quite a bit ever since, often times in a more paranoid tone (see “The Matrix”).

There’s also the ground-breaking special effects, which wow me even in 2010.  Crowd reaction must have been like “Avatar” on steroids.  The fact that someone can watch visual effects over four decades old and not be able to laugh at them is practically unfathomable, yet here is “2001” with spectacles that are barely even dusty.  And beyond the graphics, the movie also boasts some very appealing cinematography and skilled make-up artistry.

And of course, no discussion of “2001” can be complete without discussing the music.  I swear that “Requiem” was used in “Inglourious Basterds” when the Nazis killed Shoshana’s family, but I can’t confirm it anywhere (and thus risk looking like a fool if I am refuted).  But the eccentric, or as some would say, innovative, sequences where the only thing we is hear is instrumental music are definitely incredibly influential.  Not to mention the incredibly eclectic nature of the film’s music, which often times feeling entirely out of place, that I say for sure manifests itself in today’s movies.  Look no further than Quentin Tarantino for that.

I’m not ready to crown Kubrick’s “2001: A Space Odyssey” one of my favorite movies of all time, although I know many would include in their pantheon of fantastic films.  However, I am thankful that this movie was made because it got the ball rolling for the future masters of science-fiction and fantasy to further expand the possibilities for the genre.  I think it’s a topic to debate whether this still reigns supreme or if any of the movies it has inspired have eclipsed it.

*NOTE: I wrote this entire review without consulting any source that would attempt to explain the mystery that is the movie to me.  That has to count for something.


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Classics Corner: “12 Angry Men”

31 07 2010

Is it possible to watch a movie about 12 men whose names and backgrounds we don’t know and be completely riveted?  In 2010, we’d be inclined to say no.  But back in 1957, Sidney Lumet showed that it was possible with his film “12 Angry Men,” and because it is so unconventionally simple, it has become a classic.

Twelve white male jurors are left to decide the fate of a Puerto Rican teenager accused of killing his father with a switchblade.  In a hot, stuffy jury room in the heat of summer, the men are interested reaching a verdict quickly and getting out.  All but one, Juror #8, as we know him, thinks the boy his guilty.  The evidence isn’t totally incriminating, and this juror, played with integrity by Henry Fonda, objects to voting guilty simply because the suspect fits the bill.

And over the course of 90 minutes, which is practically real time, he begins to plant the seed of doubt in the minds of the other jurors.  They go step by step through the evidence, showing all the different ways that it could have been misconstrued.  One by one, they begin to see things in a different light, although it takes longer for some to challenge their assumptions of guilt and innocence.

I chose “12 Angry Men” to be the first entry into my monthly “Classics Corner” series because of how inspiring it really is.  We all like to believe that we are good people, and that when we are thrust into a murky moral situation, we would do the right thing.  In short, we all want to think that we can be juror #8.  But in reality, the odds of finding someone like him out there is more than one in twelve nowadays.  As movies like “Crash” have shown us in recent years, we aren’t as upright as we think we are, and prevailing racial and social assumptions still run rampant in our consciousness.  But like Superman without cape, Juror #8 is a true American hero, representing all the values that we hope we have.


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