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"You furnish the pictures and I'll furnish the war."
Said William Randolph Hurst...
"You provide the prose poems I'll provide the war." - Citizen Kane
I watched Citizen Kane tonight with LeeAnne - damned good movie, all around. Another one to wave in![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
forthright's face when he says bad things about old movies ;p It had a lot of really interesting political and social commentary in there. I don't want to spoil the ending (which is an odd thing to say about a movie going on 70 years old, but hey - I didn't know the end... So I'll put comments under
I liked how rosebud both was and wasn't very important. Like Thompson says in his rant at the end - it was only a small part of his life - something he couldn't have or couldn't keep, but it didn't *really* matter in the end. On the other hand, I think that to Kane and some of the audience at least, the sled is symbolic of all the things he can't keep in the end, and the things he can't control, just like when Thatcher came and took him away from his family, presumably so he could have a better life. I think the references to how much he hates the life he's been given speak to this. He rebels against everyone's expectations of him, but he is still rich enough that he can get away with to much and his lack of practical limits keeps him from learning to really connect to people. Or something.
Anyway, I liked it! Besides plot, the sets were stunning, the acting was strong, and it really did pioneer a lot of techniques that have become classic. It is almost hard to appreciate now, in the way of many things that started something that has since become cliché...
Oh there is one other thing that is nagging at me. The line where Bernstein says that there are a lot of statues in Europe that he hasn't bought yet, and Kane replies "You can't blame me. They've been making statues for some two thousand years, and I've only been collecting for five." I am sure I have seen this paraphrased elsewhere and I wondered if it, like the Hurst line, might have come from somewhere else originally? I guess it has been around for almost 70 years though, so I'm probably crazy and it was a quote from the movie :V
"You provide the prose poems I'll provide the war." - Citizen Kane
I watched Citizen Kane tonight with LeeAnne - damned good movie, all around. Another one to wave in
forthright's face when he says bad things about old movies ;p It had a lot of really interesting political and social commentary in there. I don't want to spoil the ending (which is an odd thing to say about a movie going on 70 years old, but hey - I didn't know the end... So I'll put comments under I liked how rosebud both was and wasn't very important. Like Thompson says in his rant at the end - it was only a small part of his life - something he couldn't have or couldn't keep, but it didn't *really* matter in the end. On the other hand, I think that to Kane and some of the audience at least, the sled is symbolic of all the things he can't keep in the end, and the things he can't control, just like when Thatcher came and took him away from his family, presumably so he could have a better life. I think the references to how much he hates the life he's been given speak to this. He rebels against everyone's expectations of him, but he is still rich enough that he can get away with to much and his lack of practical limits keeps him from learning to really connect to people. Or something.
Anyway, I liked it! Besides plot, the sets were stunning, the acting was strong, and it really did pioneer a lot of techniques that have become classic. It is almost hard to appreciate now, in the way of many things that started something that has since become cliché...
Oh there is one other thing that is nagging at me. The line where Bernstein says that there are a lot of statues in Europe that he hasn't bought yet, and Kane replies "You can't blame me. They've been making statues for some two thousand years, and I've only been collecting for five." I am sure I have seen this paraphrased elsewhere and I wondered if it, like the Hurst line, might have come from somewhere else originally? I guess it has been around for almost 70 years though, so I'm probably crazy and it was a quote from the movie :V
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