Citizen Kane : Shot by Shot

[Jeff Bernstein]

Example before this Author takes his meds and moves on

 

Hey, movie people! Did you know that Variety posted, then almost immediately deleted, an article on its website yesterday? Unfortunately one other (dumbass) website caught the womanish disease, so here we go : All the Evidence a Man Needs That Women are Fxcking Things Up in Hollywood.

 

Kane-like yellow-journalism Headline from yesterday's Variety (as reprinted in Buzzfeednews.com) :

 

"Harry Styles Has Sparked A Debate About White Privilege After Saying “This Doesn’t Happen To People Like Me Very Often” While Accepting Album Of The Year At The Grammys." (Who wrote this article? "Ellen Durney . . . based in London".)

 

Obviously every human being with a brain knows precisely what Harry Styles meant.

 

Guess what? So did the women of Variety. They printed the article just to be c****s. This is what they do every single day. They play on the idiocy of the reader. Manipulation? Women? You got to be kidding me.

 

That was the lesson for now. The meds are kicking in. Let's move on with the commentary of Kane.

 

Edited February 9, 2023 by Jeff Bernstein

[Jeff Bernstein]

Newsreel and Xanadu

Xanadu is prominent at the start of the Newsreel (i.e., "Xanadu's Landlord"). What about the rest of the Newsreel?

 

Forty shots of the 128-shot Newsreel—the first minute-and-a-half of the eight-minute production—are devoted to the simple fact that Xanadu exists.

 

How many (apparently) officially sanctioned film clips of Charles Foster Kane are present in the Newsreel? Ten shots.

 

Kane at microphone giving speech, amid crowd in front of the Inquirer building (apparently);

Three shots of Kane with Teddy Roosevelt;

His wedding day at the White House;

Three shots giving speech during race for governor;

Two shots of a newsreel interview in 1935.

 

Theory : Only a small amount of official footage (apparently) remains of Charles Foster Kane in the public domain. The evidence we can go on is the Newsreel's recycling of two situations. Both (a) the speech for governor and (b) Kane with Teddy Roosevelt are used three times each in the Newsreel; and none of these shots are contiguous, but interspersed here and there.

 

How many images of Kane’s person, in film and photo, are edited into the Newsreel, in total? 32.

 

In an obituary about Charles Foster Kane, there are more images of the house than the person.

 

 

 

Edited February 10, 2023 by Jeff Bernstein

[Jeff Bernstein]

Quick Impromptu Commentary on the poem “Kubla Khan” (1797) by Samuel Taylor Coleridge

 

Coleridge : the man who brought you the concept of “willing suspension of disbelief.” Fitting, then, that his words occupy early moments of CK.

 

Fun Fact : In Coleridge : Poetical Works (1912, reprinted OUP 1991),  a note before the Poem (deriving from Coleridge himself) informs us that the poet was interrupted during the composition by “a person on business from Porlock.” Hence, Nabokov’s joke in Lolita : “A. Person, Porlock, England.” (2.23).

 

Kubla Khan

 

In Xanadu did Kubla Khan
A stately pleasure dome decree :

 

Metaphor of Artist in bubble of art.

Where Alph, the sacred river, ran
Through caverns measureless to man
    Down to a sunless sea.

 

The intuition of the Artist fused with the energy of the ages.

So twice five miles of fertile ground
With walls and towers were girdled round:

 

The creativity is well-protected from outside interference (e.g., the artist’s peace, creativity, concentration : the containing Bubble of Art).

And there were gardens bright with sinuous rills,
Where blossomed many an incense-bearing tree;

 

Metaphors of full-bodied journey of imagination and imaginative output.

And here were forests ancient as the hills,
Enfolding sunny spots of greenery.

 

The act of Creation is Peace and Freedom.

 

(e.g., the peace of the narcotized-like Keats in “Ode to a Nightingale” (1819) :

 

Now more than ever seems it rich to die,

         To cease upon the midnight with no pain,

                While thou art pouring forth thy soul abroad

                        In such an ecstasy!)

 

But oh! that deep romantic chasm which slanted
Down the green hill athwart a cedarn cover!
A savage place! as holy and enchanted
As e'er beneath a waning moon was haunted
By woman wailing for her demon lover!

 

savage : An Artist’s faculty for creation streams from Rage. (“Every Artwork is a Fxck You.”) Artist is Outlaw.

 

From Rage : like everything else in life (e.g., (a) the relationship between laughter and tears; (b) a speech utterance as cry).

 

romantic/green : continuing the earlier theme of imagination and imaginative output, but Coleridge is now interweaving this theme in with new themes, in the manner of, say, needlepoint.

 

savage here, btw, doesn’t have to mean, say, “dangerous”. Coleridge would have known the classical Latin silvaticus (“of the woods”, "undomesticated").

 

chasm = the link between past and present : all the energy of the ages passes through the Artist in the act of creation.

And from this chasm, with ceaseless turmoil seething,
As if this earth in fast thick pants were breathing,

 

(Extraordinary how these two lines look forward to transcendent Shelley.)

 

breathing : again, the metaphor of the energy of the ages transacting through poet.

 

A mighty fountain momently was forced :

 

The energy of inspiration.

 

Amid whose swift half-intermitted burst

 

The act of creation : one goddamn word at a time. . . . one goddamn set-up at a time. . . .

Huge fragments vaulted like rebounding hail,
Or chaffy grain beneath the thresher's flail:

 

huge fragments : the artwork coming into being.

 

grain : health-bringing Art.

And ’mid these dancing rocks at once and ever
It flung up momently the sacred river.
Five miles meandering with a mazy motion
Through wood and dale the sacred river ran,
Then reached the caverns measureless to man,
And sank in tumult to a lifeless ocean:
And ’mid this tumult Kubla heard from far
Ancestral voices prophesying war!

 

Creation of the Artwork (and exploration of the Artwork) is a pathway leading both inward and outward to : Revelation.

 

Revelation : leading to Understanding. Reading and examining the Poem is a practical enterprise : It sharpens the mind for Life.

 

Contrast to think about later : the dancing rocks and the stream of the sacred river (e.g., energy) juxtaposed alongside lifeless.

 

Next stanza : like a cut to a new location, an establishing shot in a new film-style (e.g., first use of a super-wide lens) :

 

    The shadow of the dome of pleasure
    Floated midway on the waves;

 

shadow : a creepiness enters the poem, which connects with the concept of war (remember the needlepoint). The Artist is inside the Bubble of Art, protected from the hateful world (waves . . . of lifeless ocean); also waves = the passage/duration of inspiration.

 

If Art = Rage = Death = then perhaps = Shadow = Bad S**t

 

Twist! There is nothing overtly bad in this shadow in the poem? With this Coleridge surprises the reader, as if a filmmaker introduces a gun in Act 1, and it doesn’t go off in Act 3 (e.g., “Chekhov’s gun”).

    Where was heard the mingled measure
    From the fountain and the caves.

 

measure = allusion to rhythm of poem-creation (“measure” in the poetic-technical sense of “metrical or rhythmical sound or movement”).

 

mingled = Hef’s Playboy Mansion, so to speak : the poet and the Artwork are one : the Poet and the Energy of the Ages are One : The Artist and Everything are One in the Act of Creating the Authentic Artwork.

 

Authentic = fountain = the fountain Castalia on Mount Parnassus, home of the Muses.

 

caves : the Poet knows the inner knowledge.

It was a miracle of rare device,
A sunny pleasure-dome with caves of ice!

 

device = maintains the poetic-technical theme (OED, 1.a : “The action of devising, contriving, or planning; the faculty of devising, inventive faculty; invention, ingenuity”).

 

miracle = every Artwork is a miracle. (Truffaut's famous remark : “Making a film is like a stagecoach. When you start, you’re hoping for a pleasant trip. Halfway, you just hope to survive.”)

 

Sunny = the triumphant power of the Artist out-radiates the Darkness (e.g., that shadow). (For as long as Life lasts, it triumphs over Death. Yay.)

    A damsel with a dulcimer
    In a vision once I saw;
    It was an Abyssinian maid,
    And on her dulcimer she played,
    Singing of Mount Abora.

 

Ooh. The Dream Image. For example : the Dream Woman. (E.g., The Naval Officer in EWS.) Desire. Image of Creation. Fertile Melodious Beauty Celebrating Life.

    Could I revive within me
    Her symphony and song,
    To such a deep delight ’twould win me,
That with music loud and long,
I would build that dome in air,
That sunny dome! those caves of ice!

 

Surprise! Another twist. Now the Artist, creating this artwork (under heady intoxication of Artfulness), envisions the creation of another Artwork, a Grander One.

 

caves of ice = a strangely ambivalent phrase here? Unless it might mean, for example : “An Artwork is a Fxck You”.

 

caves of ice = the Artist in the Bubble of Art retreats from the imbecilic world.

 

caves of ice! = the Artist is giddy? Carried Away?

And all who heard should see them there,
And all should cry, Beware! Beware!
His flashing eyes, his floating hair!
Weave a circle round him thrice,
And close your eyes with holy dread,
For he on honey-dew hath fed,
And drunk the milk of Paradise.

 

Items to think about later. For example :

 

circle = recalls the shape of the pleasure dome;

 

flashing = recalls bright and dancing.

 

But what may be going on here?

 

Beware the Artist who Brings Truth. Because Truth Hurts.

 

 

 

Edited February 10, 2023 by Jeff Bernstein

[Jeff Bernstein]

4 and 5 : the Apex

dissolves to

Note the considerable number of upward-reaching elements (pinnacles and finials) in these first two live-action shots of the Newsreel.

 

A quick count of tips pointing to Heaven : 10.

 

 

 

Edited February 10, 2023 by Jeff Bernstein

[Jeff Bernstein]

Kubla Khan

OED : “Xanadu : Poetic < Xandu, i.e. Shang-tu, the Mongol city founded by Kublai Khan.”

OED example beneath definition : “1977   Time 25 July 2/1   We have lived in Southern California for twelve years and watched nearly everything encapsulate itself within a plastic bubble; not only giant ‘pop Xanadus’ like Sea World and Universal Studios, but also miniature golf courses, shopping centers and finally the American home.”

 

Who the fxck is Kublai Khan? (Hateful Eight, 24.44)

 

Going solely on the evidence of the poem by Samuel Taylor Coleridge : Kubla Khan is (apparently) the leader of a fabulous place somewhere on earth called Xanadu. He orders the creation of a “pleasure-dome” of wondrous visual and emotional effects. An elaborate fountain shimmering within the dome eventually prognosticates to Kubla—in the manner of a message from “Ancestral voices”—a future of “war”. This futural message of belligerence and chaos, however, doesn’t distract the narrator, who goes on to marvel yet further on the wonders of the pleasure-dome.

 

Then the narrator recounts a vision of an exotic young woman playing a musical instrument and singing (of the past—recalling the “Ancestral voices”) : both voice and music are as a “symphony” and “delight” to the narrator. The narrator is inspired by this vision to wish for a revival of the will/energy/wherewithal/whatever to recapture the inspiring phenomenon of the pleasure-dome, and the wondrous strength that the pleasure-dome brings to the Visionary. Others who witness such strength respond with “holy dread” : (“It was outta respect.” Goodfellas, 10.00).

 

The concept of the vision ("In a vision once I saw"), adds (if you want to put it this way) a complication : at first it seems as if the narrator is giving an eyewitness account of the pleasure-dome. By the end, however, it may very well be that the narrator is only envisioning a far, lost past—a lost Paradise.

 

So : the poem is a vision about hoping for the renascence of vision. The poem “Kubla Khan” ends up as a plea for past energy. In this case, what makes this poem different from a Prayer? A prayer is a prayer for . . .

 

How one uses prayer goes a long way—this is what a majority of the people of the world believe (apparently). Guess what? How one uses Art goes a long way, too—

 

The poem ends with the remembrance of an Artist in full-flight, “drunk” on the “milk of Paradise”. We assume this milk is excellently healthful. The remembrance is (theoretically) bittersweet for the narrator (the narrator uses the word revive, which has a sinister connotation : its very first definition in the OED is “to return to consciousness”—and its next definition is morbidly specific : “to bring back from death”). Bittersweet for the narrator, but possibly inspiring to the Reader.

 

Inspiring? Why? Remember the Sacrifice. The Sacrifice of the Character so that the Spectator Might Live.

 

So : what may we think of, reading "Kubla Khan" by Samuel Taylor Coleridge? Lost Paradise can return to you at any time, and remain with your forever after. It's waiting for you. The Fresh Air of Freedom is Free and Yours to Breathe.

 

But the reader's going to do what the reader's going to do, and, thank god, this author has no stake in the matter.

 

"Kubla Khan" : a poem that contains the power to rouse a person back to health and strength and make the “good old days” happen right now.

 

So this is (possibly) one reason why the narrator has no qualms about the prognostication of "war"—the narrator is long past it, though, once, the fight was there. But his loss can be the reader's gain. Put another way : his gabble can be our gain.

 

Addendum : Continuing the metaphors from the earlier post on the poem :

 

The Ancestral voices is the sum total of Artists, whose energy flows through the Authentic Artist in the moment of Creation.

 

How can an Authentic Artist lose, when they have the full power of the history of Art behind them?

 

The narrator of “Kubla Khan” is past it, and the ending is mournful. A recollection of lost strength is often mournful. But we’re not the narrator. We’re now stronger for his sacrifice.

 

 

 

Edited February 10, 2023 by Jeff Bernstein

[Jeff Bernstein]

Who the fxck is Kubla Khan?

Kubla Khan was the dynastic leader of an empire in the East back in the 1200s. Warfare, its technology and application, evidently appealed to him—at the very least he didn’t shy away from it. No one was gonna call Kubla Khan “weak and cowardly” to his face.

 

Wikipedia informs us that Kublai Khan is referenced in the Frankie Goes To Hollywood song "Welcome to the Pleasuredome (song)", on their 1984 album of the same name.

 

Way back when he lived to a ripe old age. Theory : Kubla’s Situation must have been pretty comfortable for his last couple of decades or whatever. At least we can assume : “No matter how bad things got for him, they never got that bad”—we’re told Kubla Khan lived to age 78.

[Jeff Bernstein]

Postscript to the use of Samuel Taylor Coleridge in the Newsreel : Airheaded Media filth, those arrogant mediocrities whose self-superiority is founded on air and protected by their fellow filth and no one else, use the poetry to exhibit the superiority of their culture. Wow, they’re intelligent. The creators of the Newsreel are akin to your womanish bosses in Hollywood who say, “We make pictures important for the culture.”

[Jeff Bernstein]

Cynical Religiosity in the Corporate Newsreel

 

The first 4 minutes of CK include a series of religious evocations. Examples :

Last Shot of Opening Sequence : Both the arched window, recalling a place of worship, and the funereal movie music, contribute to a feeling of "churchly solemnity" at the moment of death and transition into the next world.

In an earlier post I numbered no less then 10 "reaches for the heavens" in the architecture of the first two live-action shots of the Newsreel. These metaphorical visions appear in the very next live-action shots following the reverential shot cited at the beginning of this post. (Theory : these "reaching-for-the-sky" visions in Newsreel shots 4 and 5 are absorbed intuitively by the audience.)

 

(Newsreel) 30

(Newsreel) 34

During these shots, the Newsreel describes Kane's private zoo at Xanadu in the following manner :

 

"two of each, the biggest private zoo since Noah." (4:33)

 

In other words : the Newsreel despises its subject (Kane), and does its best to humiliate him, yet at the same time employs religion to elevate its theme—compares Kane to Noah!—exclusively for manipulative purposes. The Newsreel makes light of religion. While humiliating Kane in a holier-than-thou manner, the Newsreel is itself, strictly speaking, blasphemous ("impiously irreverent").

 

This is your Media : One day, this very same media outlet will promote the virtues, necessity and social importance of religion; the next day, it makes an irreverent reference to a Biblical patriarch (and to the concept of the Flood) in the context of a character the Newsreel despises! The religious allusion in the Newsreel is sheer manipulative Evil.

 

To your Overlords of Tyranny, nothing is sacred. Yet they want you to be a meek lamb of God who turns the other cheek while they exploit you from birth to death.

 

If you make light of any religion in the UK in the year 2023, you may very well get arrested.

 

Yes, your pious author agrees that this is not a particularly egregious example of the theme under review, but it is evidence of it : the interminable hypocrisy of those who issue your paychecks and control your world.

 

 

 

Edited February 11, 2023 by Jeff Bernstein

[Jeff Bernstein]

Your Sick Media : Example to clarify the previous post

 

The highest-profile news story in the UK for the last two weeks : the mysterious disappearance of 45-year-old mother Nicola Bulley while out walking her dog. (An author of crime stories would theorize : a master serial killer as adept as Ted Bundy is now at work in the UK. Even worse, the UK cops can't solve a single crime without CCTV : and CCTV is of no use in this Situation. Theory : unfortunately, the serial killer will continue a reign of terror in 2023.)

 

A "special programme" on the sad subject of Nicola Bulley aired last night on UK television (Channel 5). Who was the journalist investigating the horrible theme? Dan Walker, an ex-presenter of a programme called "Football Focus".

 

Welcome to the UK.

 

(Channel 5 is wholly owned by Viacom International Media Networks.)

 

 

 

Edited February 11, 2023 by Jeff Bernstein

[Jeff Bernstein]

Echo of the Inhuman Newsreel : The 9/11 Memorial and Museum in NYC

 

From the website : "Did you know Members save 20% on their first Museum Store purchase?"

 

Would you like a 9/11 Commemorative Coin issued by the US government? $22.95. How about a Fridge Magnet? Tote Bag? T-shirt?

 

Wait. Fridge Magnet?

[Jeff Bernstein]

Is the following well-written text more or less absurd than selling a 9/11-themed tote bag?

 

How about five fridge magnets? Three buildings and two planes, so kids can play with trajectories of full-speed passenger planes descending from flying altitude with first-time pilots at the controls.

 

The fifth magnet? Building 7, of course, a 47-floor skyscraper hit by no plane, yet collapsed (from the top-center down) at 5:20 p.m. that day. This fact is mentioned one time, in a footnote, in The 9/11 Commission Report.

 

What of all this is the most absurd?

 

And now back to Citizen Kane.

[Jeff Bernstein]

Where was I?

Yours for $15.95.

GOOD NEWS :  “Buy Three Photo Magnets and Receive One Free Using Promo Code Magnet.”

WILD GUESS THEORY : All the merchandise is made in China. (e.g., Being There, 32.23).

[Jeff Bernstein]

Newsreel : early images of Xanadu

 

Note how the jumble of artistic styles that combine as the one architectural entity known as “Xanadu” is an analogue of, say, those puzzles that Kane’s second wife Susan Alexander occupied her time with there. The physical coherence of Xanadu, the fact of its freestandingness, is a thematic illusion, a slight-of-hand : it’s actually a schizophrenia of a building, a jumble of vibes akin to cacophony. This mutiplicity of diverse fundamental elements recalls the character of Charles Foster Kane : he is a jumble of pieces. Who can put the pieces of Charles Foster Kane together and honestly say, “This is what he was"?

 

A person is undifferentiated energy broken up by discontinuous hiatuses called “thoughts”.

 

In that last sentence, for “person” one might substitute the word Structure.

 

A quick glance at Google images can pinpoint the general time-period of the following architectural styles :

 

6

19th century Spanish

 

7

18th century French Rococo

 

8

Middle Ages

 

9

Middle Ages

 

10

schizophrenia : mix of Middle Ages and Rococo?

 

Might we correspond each “style vibe" with an aspect of Charles Foster Kane’s character?

 

6 : stylishly resplendent

7 : exactingly fussy

8 : cold, stark, imperturbable

9 : always ready for war in a world that forces fight

10 : schizophrenia. This building says : “Stay away!” But at its height it says : “Look how exquisitely stylish I am, how cultured, elegant, complex, and spry.” “I can out-learn you. I can out-read you. I can outthink you, and I can out-philosophize you.” (Cape Fear, 15:50) However, when we contemplate this architectural bravado in retrospect, its aggressive and vain posturing has a pathos about it (e.g., a hero on an autopsy table), though, just here in the Newsreel, the shot is (apparently?) inserted to insult Kane by conveying lofty self-aggrandisement.

 

 

 

Edited February 11, 2023 by Jeff Bernstein

[Jeff Bernstein]

Complexity of reception

 

The Newsreel is set within CK in opposition to the rest of the film. So we can approach the Newsreel as the product of characters within the film, and, thus, interpret the Newsreel's decisions in light of the characters involved in its production (e.g., decisions such as levelling humiliating insults at Charles Foster Kane).

 

But the Newsreel is also part of CK. The Newsreel was a product of Welles and His Wondrous Crew. So, we can also approach the Newsreel in a manner demonstrated in the previous post (e.g., identifying aspects of Kane’s character in each shot of Xanadu, a thematic phenomenon unavailable to the Newsmen). We the Spectator can approach the Newsreel in, say, two generally fundamental ways simultaneously.

 

So : the narration of Citizen Kane is already hyper-complex, and we’re less than four minutes in.

 

Moreover : all this recalls the structure of "Kubla Khan" by Samuel Taylor Coleridge. "Read. Read what?" (Lost Highway, 6:50).

 

 

 

Edited February 11, 2023 by Jeff Bernstein

[Jeff Bernstein]

11

36

 

Edited February 11, 2023 by Jeff Bernstein

[Jeff Bernstein]

11 and 12

What is a dwelling? A dwelling in which one dwells reinforces continuity of Self. A dwelling is a physical analogue (e.g., useful cinematic symbol) of the “mind-forg’d manacles” of Thinking (William Blake, “London”) that maintains one as a “one” for the duration of a lifetime.

 

A dwelling is “an extension of the personality” as the saying goes, but—plot twist!—a personality becomes an extension of their dwelling. If one isn’t careful (and who is?), the dwelling becomes the prison that reinforces the straitjacketed mind of the inhabitant. The dwelling becomes an elemental force that resists the appearance of Change in the mind of the inhabitant.

 

That is what a dwelling can be : your enemy.

[Jeff Bernstein]

11 and 12 : What Audiences Do Not Notice the First Time or Ever

Shots 11 and 12 (3:40–3:44) are joined by a dissolve and overlaid by the Narrator's voice :

“Today, almost as legendary, is Florida's Xanadu, the world's largest private pleasure ground.” (3:40)

We are (apparently?) meant to believe these two shots are of the same building. Obviously, when you slow the film to stills, the solution to the magic trick is revealed.

Similarly (from many examples), in these two scenes from EWS :

(1:04:44)

(1:46:26)

the counter has changed position over the night, but who notices? Time marches on.

 

 

[Jeff Bernstein]

13  Inside View of the Lifestyle of the Rich and Famous

A sneaky peek at the beautiful people : Behind the scenes (apparently) at Xanadu. Racy relations. We see what may be amours; but also a bunch of children enjoying the pool, with responsible minders to keep the safety; a maid and a butler maintaining the Situation; a brisky-moving passerby (the flighty comings and goings of people with places to go and people to see; life never stops for the wealthy). At the very least we're seeing carefree idleness by an iconic Swimming Pool : earth-intrusive emblem of filthy-rich Hollywood. The archways suggest the elegance of RKO's Fred and Ginger; the pillars, the easy grace of those without money worries.

 

This is a gang of the wealthy, whose tag is poise. A tennis raquet is visible (lower screen-center). A wheeled trolley has brought in a beverage distributed in cups. At least one of the women may be working on her tan. A sofa occupies screen-right. Ah, high society at comfortable rest—High society at its most comfortable. The woman prominent at left—in a dress (a haute couture dress?) and black strappy shoes (perennially in style)—is smoking at leisure. Consider the children : born to wealth. "Some people have all the luck." So it seems—from the outside.

 

Note the double wall of security : architectural wall / screen of trees.

 

The manmade pillars evoke the slender tree trunks. Humankind pillages nature's natural elegance. More generally, a canny architect designed this location.

 

From the outside, this looks like Dreamland.

[Jeff Bernstein]

14 to 19   The construction of Xanadu

 

In Newsreel shots 16–19, arguably not much new information is conveyed in each successive shot, each of which is meant to convey : “A building is being constructed.” The number of shots employed to convey this one theme suggests a bit of comedy. Theory : the Newsreel producers are editing in every last scrap of Kane-related material available in the public domain to bulk up to standard length the running time of their product.

 

Cynical : though the Newsreel despises its subject Charles Foster Kane, it "sexes up" his white-elephant Xanadu with so-called impressive facts to keep the audience spellbound for the duration of the running time :

 

Narrator : “Here on the deserts of the Gulf Coast, a private mountain was commissioned and successfully built. One hundred thousand trees, twenty thousand tons of marble, are the ingredients of Xanadu's mountain.” (3:50)

 

Note the use of the word successfully : the Newsreel has no care to insult Kane just here. These shots, and the narrator's words, seem a celebration of the wasteful architectural feat : all this is sheer Media hypocrisy. The Media may love or hate its subject, but it'll love it or hate it by turns if it has to, in order to promote itself. Nothing is sacred to the Media but itself.

 

Comedy : The Media's sole task is self-promotion, but it'll tear down anyone it chooses who embarks on the very same course.

 

14

Save the Environment? This shot of the pristine Florida coast is (apparently?) about to be cut into and built over by a wealthy magnate with an aversion to the “n” word. The theme of the rich and powerful massacring the beauty of our planet is also noted in shots 53 (polluting the sky with factory waste) and 54 (cutting down trees). Q : Is this deserted coastline made more or less beautiful with the raising of Xanadu?

 

15

Consider for a moment this shot interpolated into, say, a Cecil B. DeMille production about an ambitious architect. In that context this shot might be received as epic in tone and celebratory of human know-how and hand-work.

 

Note also how the wealthy snap their fingers, and far, far away from their presence the world is ruined.

 

*

 

Shots 16–19 are all angled upward. The geometry of the upward reach corresponds visually with Charles Foster Kane's ambition during his lifetime; also possibly continuing the motif of the "reach toward heaven" of shots 4 and 5. Theory : in this cinematic way the audience absorbs intuitively the mighty larger-than-life stature of the character of Kane : his power, his grand and overbearing personality. Kane's vibe is introduced in the manner of a Wagnerian motif associated with a character who is as yet offstage.

 

The building-in-construction is blocking out a considerable amount of blue sky in shots 16–19. These shots evoke humankind's hubris : not only do we reach for the sky, we attempt to supplant it with our silly constructions.

 

16

Consider the workmen : employed to destroy their own environment! Comedy : For these workmen to “make a living” and “feed their families”, they have to kill the earth for their kids to do so! The planet Earth is a farcical place in the multiverse.

 

17

Delicacy and grace under pressure.

 

18

Note the workmen : their hats. These days, in similar situations, we often see saggy trousers and butt-exposure. We're watching good old-fashioned craftmanship by workmen taking pride in their work.

 

19

Shots 16–19 are a celebration of courage, know-how and craftsmanship : perhaps a celebration of the crew of Citizen Kane?

 

 

 

Edited February 12, 2023 by Jeff Bernstein

[Jeff Bernstein]

Baby Face (1933), 11:50

No Man of Her Own (1932), 20:26

Theodora Goes Wild (1936), 1:23

Barton Fink (1991), 1:25:20

The Bourne Ultimatum (2007), 1:08:06

[Jeff Bernstein]

Commercial break : Not interested in a Super Bowl Fly-By?

 

Edited February 12, 2023 by Jeff Bernstein

[Jeff Bernstein]

20 

This statue apparently commemorates victory in battle : an heroic personage emblematic of the Power of the complex society that produced this finely-sculpted artwork. A man, once heroic enough to inspire this Artwork that has outlasted the pressures of Time, is now, except for the Artwork, totally forgotten : nameless, his specific heroism conjectural, the battle or battles he fought in totally unknown to us who contemplate this monument. Time effaces all things down to nothing. As Jack might say : “Win, lose, what’s the difference?” From the standpoint of the Spectator now alive in Time, the dead—whether victorious or failure when they lived—are “all equal now.” (Barry Lyndon) If everything this man fought for is now utterly forgotten (or even if it isn’t), what’s the point—of anything? (So what do we do, we the living, faced with such thoughts? One applies self-motivations according to personal code. Top Tip : Just ensure your thoughts are your own before you make decisions.) But in all this effacement there is good news. Remember the Sacrifice. This man and everything he fought for may be lost forever, yet he is still in one very real sense alive—this Artwork transacts energy : the animal energy of the horse, the sharpness of the hand-eye coordination of the rational warrior; and so on and so forth into abstraction. This Artwork incites. Both man and horse are long dead, yet still have the power to motivate the living. This is Art.

 

Still, for all of this heroic posturing with prose, the guy is dead. The horse is dead. The cause they fought for is now meaningless. So there’s that. Meaning : before the Spectator even thinks word one about this shot, a sense of pathos is already in play. The pathos of lost time. Of battles won and lost from long ago. In other words : lost life. A Memento Mori. (Emotional relatives to this feeling are nostalgia, sentimentality, wistfulness.) Et in Arcadia ego.

 

Things are irrecoverable, whether it be a moment from a person’s life or the life of an entire society from a thousand years ago.

 

Anyway, this Artwork has great utility : Art rouses the fight in those still fighting to live.

[Jeff Bernstein]

21

This sculpture looks medieval. This man is wearing a crown : he is royal. He is a royal gentleman from the Age of Chivalry : hence this sculpture may possibly evoke in the Spectator’s mind echoes of Kane’s first wife (or women). A royal with a crown, hence this sculpture evokes politics : the failed bid for governor. Marvel at the richly caparisoned horse, and ponder the complexity of the society that produced all that technology. A fighting horse : beware the sharp headpiece. Note the textures of the gentleman’s garments : a fine artist’s hand rendered all that delicacy.

 

Prolepsis : The crates.

 

More words. (Btw, we're trespassing.)

 

Note the pressure of enclosure : this is a shot of a cramped space. Is there a carelessness in setting up a valuable statue both (a) so close to a hard wall and (b) beside crates that might fall and cause damage? This carelessness evokes a sense of the embarrassment of riches within Xanadu. (e.g., one deliveryman to another : "There's so much of it, just put the thing anywhere, mate.")

 

 

 

Edited February 12, 2023 by Jeff Bernstein

[Jeff Bernstein]

22 and 23

 

The Newsreel establishes the simple fact of the physical existence of Xanadu by using eighteen sequential shots of the building prefatory to the appearance of these two shots. The first sixteen shots (4–19) were, as it were, general establishing shots of Xanadu; while shots 20 and 21 were CUs of details, as if we the Spectator might be moving in closer.

 

22 and 23 pull us back out, presenting two more shots of the exterior of the castle. These (arguably) extraneous views might be comedy : evidence of : (a) inept Newsreel editors; (b) lack of vision in storytelling; (c) recycling of material to bulk up running time; (d) opportunistic squeezing in of every last particle of footage, regardless of Editing Logic.

 

22

Here, the “reach for the heavens” motif is well-sustained by two instances. 22 also recalls the upward-tilted angles of 16–19 (“the geometry of the upward reach”). What about the romanticism of a turret with a window? The tower room evokes medieval-set fairy tales and love stories, such as, say, “The Eve of St. Agnes” (Keats, 1819) and “Rumpelstiltskin” (Brothers Grimm). But then a tower room also evokes gothic novels and Jane Eyre (1847) : the scenario of the imprisoned woman seeking escape (e.g., Susan Alexander).

 

23

Reason vs. Nature (recalling Newsreel 14) : a visualisation of Opposition, Encroachment, Fusion, whatever else.

 

The remarkable detail of the exterior of the building—a triumph of technical artistry—of Dream and Reason—is a strange mélange of styles.

 

The Newsreel is revealing the scattershot quality of Xanadu, and the full-spectrum extravagance of its Landlord.

 

 

 

Edited February 13, 2023 by Jeff Bernstein

[Jeff Bernstein]

Time and Gods

 

a. Time

 

“Time passes.” “Time marches on.” At a funeral, for example, people may contemplate their own mortality (e.g., Joyce, Ulysses, 6 : “They are not going to get me this innings.”). Or a public death out of the blue such as JFK or Lady Diana may motivate similar “mortal thoughts”, conscious or unconscious, in the minds of the stunned population. But what about watching a film from the past in which every last participant is now gone from our live visible world?

 

Imagery of actuality is burned into celluloid—the Irrecoverable. We the audience, who are ourselves irrecoverable (when the time, alas, comes), watch, in CK (for example), the already irrecoverable—those of the long goodbye—but how often do we see an audience disturbed and distracted unduly for all this as it experiences the film? Does an audience usually contemplate Time itself and deteriorate into existential anxiety when watching a film from years ago? The stars of Citizen Kane are gone from our living world; but are we reminded of this fact, as at a funeral? No, audiences watching movies don’t usually experience speechless terror at the fact of Time. Why, good reader, do you think this is?

 

Putting it mildly : It's pretty easy for the mind to block out Essentials, isn't it?

 

Maybe along the way your always-calculating author may present his theories of the Mind, pieced together over decades, while balanced on the shoulders of giants. (Note the pronoun “his” : call me an “old timer”.)

 

b. Gods

 

Common Hollywood wisdom over the years has defined its stars as “Gods of the Silver Screen”. No. We the audience are the gods. We know the past, present, and future of CK : we know, for example, who’s alive and who’s not. We know what is going to happen, and what is not going to happen. We the audience look into the life of the story from out of its limiting time period : like gods. We the audience know more than the participants in the film. Not the Hollywood Stars but the Audiences are the Gods.

 

 

 

Edited February 13, 2023 by Jeff Bernstein