Citizen Kane : Shot by Shot

[Jeff Bernstein]

Coming Soon  :  Kane’s Zoo at Xanadu

What is it about animals that touches the deepest part of the human heart?

 

Example : a thousand people may die horribly in a film without the audience batting an eye, but one dead animal can rouse tears, a fast heartbeat, and who knows what else. (Quoting Michael Herr, Dispatches again : “On a cold day in Hue our jeep turned into a soccer stadium where hundreds of North Vietnamese bodies had been collected, I saw them, but they don’t have the force in my memory that a dog and a duck have who died together in a small terrorist explosion in Saigon.” 1.2)

 

Perhaps : Animals are innocence. They are always being themselves—without need of rationalization. Animals evoke the innocence deep inside us which is covered over by the overlay of Humanness. So when we look at an animal and emote, “Awwww”, it’s also sensitive awe for ourselves.

 

Kane’s gentleness? A man who loves animals can’t be all bad, right?

 

The zoo at Xanadu conveys the gentle side of Kane—but the moronic Newsmen have no idea what they’re conveying, nor do they care : because they’re inhuman media people.

 

Ah, the concept of the Inhuman : we’ll get to that.

[Jeff Bernstein]

The Masterful Editing of CK : Continuous abstract movement to the right

 

(examples shown below)

 

shot 20 : left-to-right wipe

21a : horse facing to the right

21b : left-to-right wipe

22 : branches on left nodding to the right continue the geometry

23a : left-to-right angle of building

23b : left-to-right wipe

24a : beast of burden walking to the right

24b : left-to-right wipe

25a : workman with crate walking left-to-right

25b : left-to-right wipe

26a : freight hauled to the right

26b : left-to-right wipe

27: workman waving left-to-right, guiding freight on its trajectory to the right

28 : Finally : a geometrical reset : a reach upwards. Yet, at the same time—a pan to the right!

[Jeff Bernstein]

Error in posting means : Commercial Break!

 

The Hateful Eight and Greek Tragedy

The protracted mechanics of the interplay required between Major Marquis Warren and John Ruth before the Major is allowed onto the stagecoach, a painstaking interplay which puts the developing story on hold (recalling the foot rub conference in Pulp Fiction), has a close precedent in Oedipus at Colonus by Sophocles (ll. 150–206), in which a long, drawn-out exchange regarding where precisely Oedipus is allowed to sit within a sacred spot is required before the developing story can continue.

 

BONUS

Anton Chigurh’s continual mindfulness for signs of blood on his footwear recalls Aeschylus’ Agamemnon, when Cassandra envisions a “house of many horrors . . . slaughterhouse of men—its floor darkening the foot!” (ἀνδροσφαγεῖον καὶ πεδορραντήριον ,  l. 1092)

 

 

 

Edited February 14, 2023 by Jeff Bernstein

[Jeff Bernstein]

(Newsreel) 24–27

 

Images of Power : a wealthy man snaps his fingers and movement springs into action across the globe. But for what? To furnish a home.

 

Also, as we shall see : 24–27 is a Montage of Various Methods of Conveyance—which suggests the full-spectrum dominance that a Powerful Individual “enjoys” over every inch of our planet.

 

24

Four-legged beast. This location looks like “the back of nowhere”. Also, the modernity of the presentation of CK is in contrast to this ancient method of conveyance. (“Whatever works”—when the Obsessive wants something, “no stone is left unturned”.)

 

25

Train. The crates : I won’t keep repeating the word, ominous in this context, “prolepsis”.

 

26 and 27

Boat.

 

 

 

 

 

Edited February 14, 2023 by Jeff Bernstein

[Jeff Bernstein]

The Magic Circle

 

"In my end is my beginning." : T.S. Eliot, Four Quartets

 

(Newsreel) 28

Coming in two hours :

and why not?

Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981)

 

 

Edited February 14, 2023 by Jeff Bernstein

[Jeff Bernstein]

Let's celebrate Valentine's Day! Have a good one.

 

[Jeff Bernstein]

29–35  Animals at Xanadu

 

29

Anyone who knows anyone raising thoroughbred horses—and let’s be serious, how can these not be?—will have heard just how much money is required for such an enterprise. Millions. And there can be zero payback : if these horses are meant to run, possibly not one may ever win a race. Raising thoroughbred horses is one of the most expensive hobbies for the wealthy : a sinkhole of cash.

 

29 tells us, as if we needed any more evidence : Charles Foster Kane has money to burn.

 

Cute! This shot continues the abstract continuous movement to-the-right begun in 20 : though the shot is stationary, the four horses look screen-right into the camera lens, as if saying, “what?”

 

Editor Robert Wise is firing on all cylinders here. The Newsreel is a tour-de-force of editing.

 

30

The two giraffes, looking screen-right, raise their heads : an abstract perpendicular movement recalling the same dual geometry of shot 28.

 

Here we have a glimpse of the exotic : animals from far away. Nothing is too rare on Earth, distant in location, or full of hassle to transport—if Charles Foster Kane wants it. The unstated theme of this animal montage : Charles Foster Kane transforms whatever crosses his mind into reality (if he wishes, and to the best of his drive).

 

31

Various types of birds. Marvellous editing continues : The fluttering bird at top right occupies the eye-line, and continues the movement, of the right-facing heads of the giraffes of the previous shot.

 

It’s sad that the birds have to be in a cage—crates/cages/house : enclosures.

 

32

A bit of comedy : Oh boy! Whatever Kane wants, he gets! Theory : Charles Foster Kane was one of the few private citizens on Earth with an octopus in his private possession in 1941.

 

This is also the first shot of the Newsreel in which an element in the frame moves directly toward the lens : directly toward the audience. . . .

 

33

The elephant is being hauled (guess what?) left-to-right.

 

34

The donkeys are being hauled (guess what?) left-to-right. Camera follows left-to-right.

 

Comedy? First the colossal exoticism of the octopus and the elephant : now, donkeys (nothing against donkeys, mind you : they're in Homer). 

 

Note also the sheep : these animals suggest farming.

 

35

The last shot of the animal montage. More birds, (apparently?) exotic birds. This cage (or “pavilion”) is far more elaborate than the bird cage of shot 31 : this is an image of humanity swallowing up Nature (e.g., trees) for its own whims.

 

This shot is futural in a way : a private forest in a dome.

 

 

 

Edited February 15, 2023 by Jeff Bernstein

[Jeff Bernstein]

A Coppola Kane Reference

Bram Stoker's Dracula (1992), director of photography Michael Ballhaus (4:20–4:22)

 

 

 

Edited February 15, 2023 by Jeff Bernstein

[Jeff Bernstein]

36   The Gardens

“In current usage, the term ‘labyrinth’ has come to have three different meanings. It is most frequently used as a metaphor, a reference to a difficult, unclear, confusing situation. This figurative, proverbial sense of the word has been in use since late antiquity and can be traced back to the concept of a maze, a tortuous structure (a building or a garden) that offers the walker many paths. . . . [In] many written accounts from the third century BCE . . . the labyrinth is employed as a literary motif.” Hermann Kern, Through the Labyrinth (Munich, London, New York : Prestel, 2000), 23.

 

Humankind imposing order on nature.

but

Can a person beat their own nature?

 

Or do all the main characters in CK bemoan their fate, conditioned each by their own nature—too late?

 

Humankind imposes its will on the planet Earth, yet is unable to impose its will on itself, hence the destruction of the planet and the new and improved Dark Ages of 2023. Meanwhile, visitors enjoy Kane’s gardens and marvel at the beauty of its neatness and order, not learning—I’m guessing here—the essential lesson that their own thoughts, their own lives, are akin to a handful of random puzzle pieces. . . . The visitors assume the order on the outside is evidence of order on the inside. Wrong. The visitors marvel at the gardens and think, “How clever humankind is!” They have no idea the joke is on them.

 

Takeaway : It’s never too late to get smart, but it’s best to get smart as soon as possible. The smarter you are, the less likely of a sucker you’re likely to be. Meaning you'll be a Rare One. Good News : Art is here to educate you.

 

 

 

 

Edited February 15, 2023 by Jeff Bernstein

[Jeff Bernstein]

37 / 38 / 39 / 40 / 41 / 42 / 43  :  the end of Section One of Newsreel

 

These series of seven shots conclude the Xanadu section of the Newsreel. By the end of shot 43, we’ll be one-and-a-half minutes into the eight-minute Newsreel.

 

Newsreel Narrator overlay : “Like the pharaohs, Xanadu’s landlord leaves many stones to mark his grave. Since the pyramids, Xanadu is the costliest monument a man has built to himself.”

 

Comedy : The editing structure of the Newsreel is all out of whack : we’ve already seen many an image of both the architecture and grounds of Kane’s pleasure palace, so why more, and here?

 

As mentioned earlier, this (arguably) slapdash editing 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.

 

More comedy : the poor writing of the Newsreel. Note how the Narrator’s two lines are constructed similarly : both lines begin with dependent introductory clauses. Such repetition is horrible writing. Coming soon in the Newsreel : More horrible writing . . . because Welles and Friends are making sadistic fun of the odious, self-loving media.

 

37

This landscaping has an eighteenth-century Capability Brown look to it. Example :

Barry Lyndon (1975), 2:00:55

 

During shot 37, the Narrator intones : “Like the pharoahs . . .” So is it Robert Wise’s genius, Welles’ genius, someone else’s genius, or sheer randomness, that in this shot are two obelisks, a technical innovation of (apparently) the ancient Egyptians?

 

Shot 37 is the only shot of the 40-shot Xanadu sequence that has a foregrounded “proscenium box” (i.e., the railing, suggesting a standing-place), as if the audience is positioned there, looking straight ahead.

 

Pure coincidence? Looks to your humble author as if, while the wind is shimmering in the trees, the water current is moving to-the-right. . . . !

 

38

More.

 

39

Note what resembles a flagpole aspiring to the heavens : but no flag flies there. Might this be metaphor? Charles Foster Kane was isolated in a world of his own. He called himself an American, but had no qualms about polluting America’s precious air and cutting down its precious trees (i.e., Newsreel 53 and 54). Perhaps we might say that Kane had no country but Charles Foster Kane. (His best friend Jedediah Leland might have said that.) Now that Kane is gone, there is no flag to fly.

 

40

More views of Kane’s estate—more repetitive details. The details, however, are eyecatching, fine-handed artistry from skilled stone-carvers. But if we absorb the building as one whole? We see a jumble of visual information : Xanadu is a schizophrenic castle : a collection of puzzle pieces.

 

Willy Wonka might have found Xanadu a nice place to live : there is a childlike whimsicality about the estate—another early clue to Kane’s character.

 

Compare the jumble of Kane’s castle with the unified design of the Emerald City from The Wizard of Oz (1939) :

 

41

Inept repetition? Shot 41 looks very close to 23. Compare :

 

42

The figure with the bow and quiver evokes Cupid : a hidden-in-plain-sight echo of Kane’s two marriages (again)?

 

The figure is a boy . . . ? . . . As in “Rosebud”?

 

The statue is akin to a “shaking of the fist” at the heavens, a riposte at the implacability of nature. We can’t fight the sky; we can’t fight earth and heaven. We only think we can. Before we know it, we’re the star at our own funeral. The visible world wins that round at least.

 

What is this figure doing? He is about to let fly. Wasn’t that a hallmark of Kane's entire adult life—aggression?

 

43

The final view of Xanadu in this section : a huge estate, but there is no one to see. The architectural marvel in this shot is an image of vacancy, of emptiness, of loneliness. The downbeat vibe is appropriate here : we are about to segue into a fade out and imagery of Kane’s funeral, including a view of his coffin for a full fifteen seconds : the shot of longest duration up to now in the Newsreel.

 

“Coffin?” The Third Man (1949), 5:15.

 

The loneliness of the imagery is emphasized by the Narrator : “ . . . to himself.” But there’s no one there. Just emptiness.

 

43 is only the third downward-angled shot of the Xanadu sequence (the other two are 11 and 12, the aerial shots of Xanadu). (downward-angled so to speak, as the reflection in the water has great prominence here.) This is a fitting angle for the segue into the Newsreel’s section of Kane’s funeral : a lowering of the head.

 

Might we define the fade out at 43 as a bleak fade-out?

 

Note the reflection of the trees (nature) in the water. In death, the world turns upside down (to coin a phrase).

 

A reflection in the water is a second-hand view. Isn’t this what we receive of Charles Foster Kane for the entire duration of CK following the Newsreel—second-hand views?

 

Note the solemnity of this shot (coupled with voice-over and fade out). Yes, the media men despise their subject, but they strive to make the Newsreel interesting anyway—cynical manipulation. A making light of death.

 

The Media : Selling Death to Make a Buck. Guess what, Newsmen? You’re dead, too. So who’s laughing now?

 

If Kane is flawed (if everyone in CK is flawed!), then, surprise, we’ve now entered the solemn realm of tragedy.

 

Fade out.

 

 

 

 

Edited February 15, 2023 by Jeff Bernstein

[Jeff Bernstein]

More editing grace notes?

 

(a) Shots 36 and 37 are horizontal in outlook.

(b) Shots 38–41 are all angled upward.

(c) Shot 42 : the statue of the archer prominent in the shot is aiming his bow upward.

(d) Shot 43, the final shot of the Xanadu section : the camera position is horizontal again. Order. Peace.

 

 

 

Edited February 15, 2023 by Jeff Bernstein

[Jeff Bernstein]

Commercial Break : the Dolly Zoom

Tense, sad moment : Michael Ballhaus remembering old friend Fassbinder. (37:37)

[Jeff Bernstein]

(Newsreel) 44   Intertitle

Comically horrible writing from the arrogant Newsmen. Just about everything in this sentence is questionable!

 

Barbara Cooper, my English Literature and Film teacher back in high school (Taft High in Woodland Hills, CA), instructed our class that Welles based this bad writing on the incompetence of actual Newsreels (e.g., “The March of Time”).

 

(a) Passive Voice

 

“In Xanadu last week was held 1941’s biggest, strangest funeral.”

 

This sentence is constructed in the passive voice. While not the utter abomination that “academics” would have us believe, and much more common in literature than these morons know, there is, let us be plain, no need for the passive voice in this particular sentence.

 

Rewriting the sentence into the active voice :

 

“Xanadu held 1941’s biggest, strangest funeral last week.”

 

. . . But the passive voice is not the only literary offense of this intertitle.

 

(b) Phrase Structure of Time

 

Usually (call it convention, but not Law), information relating to Time is placed at the end of a sentence. “In Xanadu last week . . .”  is not, strictly speaking, wrong, but it is comically awkward.

 

Again, one might have written :

 

“Xanadu held 1941’s biggest, strangest funeral last week.”

 

(c) Clause Structure

 

Gloop : “funeral” is the subject of the sentence, but it’s the sentence’s last word! Horrible writing in excelsis.

 

Don’t we learn in first grade that simple sentences are constructed : subject-verb? These Media People are functional illiterates : how forward-looking of CK!

 

Why not : “The biggest, strangest funeral of 1941 was held at Xanadu last week.”

 

(d) The “biggest” ambiguity

 

In this context, what is the meaning of “biggest”? The physical size of the occasion (e.g., the number of mourners), newsworthiness, or what?

 

Or : Is “biggest, strangest” nothing more than cynical hype from the Newsmen?

 

Q : Why would the funeral of a man largely forgotten by the public be the “biggest” funeral of any year? The Newsreel Narrator himself says (12:14) : “. . . a nation that had ceased to listen to him . . .”

 

(e) The strangeness of "strangest"

 

What is “strange” about the one Newsreel shot of Kane’s funeral (45)? Nothing! What further information do we receive that explains the use of “strangest” in this context? Nothing.

 

The word “strangest” in the sentence means absolutely nothing.

 

(f) Conclusion

 

This intertitle is absurd rubbish. Yet it's the product of a massive news corporation and meant for general consumption.

 

*

 

For more on Passive Voice, please consult Quirk, et al., A Comprehensive Grammar of the English Language, 3.63–71.

 

On general rules of grammatical hierarchy of the constituents of a sentence, see, for example, 2.3–6.

 

*

 

P.S. One fine teacher can change a life forever.

[Jeff Bernstein]

Gardens of the Living and the Dead

 

Earlier, your emotionally calm author mentioned a resemblance between a location of Xanadu and 18th-century English landscaping. Here is a second example from old England :

 

See Walter Godfrey, Gardens in the Making (London : B.T. Batsford Ltd, 1914), 31.

[Jeff Bernstein]

45  The Funeral of Charles Foster Kane

Does the position of this shot suggest the presence of the intrusive media, to whom nothing is sacred when there’s self-promotion on the line? At the very least the shot has the feel of “looking over someone’s shoulder”. One might imagine the media demanding of Mr. Bernstein (Kane’s life-long faithful assistant) that newspapers have a right to be present at a funeral of a public figure.

 

Narrator : “Here in Xanadu last week, Xanadu’s landlord was laid to rest. A potent figure of our century, America’s Kubla Khan—”

 

Once again, both lines of the Narrator’s dialogue begin with dependent introductory clauses. Also, the word “Xanadu” is repeated twice in one line. This time, however, all the Narrator’s repetition seems to work in the solemn context. Prayer works through repetition. Example : “Holy, Holy, Holy is the Lord of hosts; the whole earth is full of His glory!” (Isa. 6:3).

 

potent : a bit of pathos here? Kane left no children behind. Moving on : It would be hasty (arguably) to interpret potent with respect to masculinity, even though it’s appropriate here, because, well, the OED, 1a. : “Of a person or thing : powerful; having great authority or influence; mighty.” Note the word person, not male, in that definition.

 

We discover Kane died at least “last week”—meaning the audience is far behind the character of Kane, and needs to catch up. This is a grand dramatic technique : introducing a main character, the character everyone in the audience is waiting for, as late as possible.

 

We’re watching After the End, at the Beginning! A common storytelling device—these days. The ancient Greek playwrights preferred to begin their plays in medias res. Beginning the story At the End then After the End fits in with the nihilism of Citizen Kane—and the twentieth century, for that matter.

 

Charles Foster Kane had his own private church standing on his grounds? It should be noted that religion has no narrative relevance in Citizen Kane. If Kane wasn’t a regular churchgoer (a good guess?), why, then, would he have a church on his grounds? For the benefit of his employees? Just another building to add to his collection of antiquities? No one can say, but one might remark : “Ah, the whims of the rich.”

 

It should be noted here that there is zero religious imagery visible inside Kane’s childhood home. His mother is not wearing a cross, though she wears jewellery at her neck : her collar is buttoned up with a brooch.

 

The arched window recalls CK shots 11, 12, and 20. The window reminds us of the man : and the next shot shows us his full face for the first time.

 

Not all the people present are wearing black—the traditional color of mourning. This fact, along with the visible attitude of the crowd (some folks look to be “straining to peep”), suggest . . . what? What is going on here? Hard to believe that ordinary Americans somehow barged their way into a fenced-in Xanadu to gawp at the coffin, unless, that is, a number of citizens were allowed in for form’s sake (e.g., for the newsreel camera’s sake)? I count four women in the shot, and about two-dozen men. The only person (apparently?) who could make any decision regarding Kane’s affairs at this point would be Mr. Bernstein. Is this a plausible theory, that Mr. Bernstein populated the funeral with folk to persuade the public that Kane didn’t go out alone? Put another way, did Mr. Bernstein hire “rent-a-weepers” (professional mourners), as many a funeral did in order to fill up the pews in 18th-century America? Who are the pallbearers? The adult Kane had no family (apparently). Is it a plausible assumption that Mr. Bernstein assigned employees of the Kane Empire to fulfil this final personal task for their boss? Can we assume, at least, that these men were probably no friends of Kane? After Kane’s best friend Leland departs from Kane’s life, Kane seems to have no friends ever again. (As Jim Morrison sang : “So alone . . . so alone . . .”) As the Narrator will soon say of the ageing Kane : “Alone in his never-finished, already decaying pleasure palace, aloof, seldom visited, never photographed . . .” (11:55).

 

At one point in the narrative, when Kane refers to the many visitors populating Xanadu’s rooms, he remarks to Susan, “Until yesterday, we've had no less than 50 of your friends at any one time.” (1:39:36).

 

How can an audience not feel at least a little something for a person who was obviously very lonely? And would a lonely person on Earth find desirable the extra indignity of a lonely funeral?

 

Let’s end with comic relief : “America’s Kubla Khan.” Whut?

 

 

 

Edited February 16, 2023 by Jeff Bernstein

[Jeff Bernstein]

The Green Theme

The Neon Demon (2016), 58:28

EWS, 1:28:12

No Country, 1:37:08

Vertigo, 1:57:23

[Jeff Bernstein]

46  The Newspaper Montage  :  Part 1 (of 2)

Charles Foster Kane. The first view of his full face in the film. His smile is in contrast to our first glimpse of the man (“Rosebud”) and the entire set-up of the film so far.

 

Kane is looking at us. Does he look friendly here? Or may his closed-mouth smile be received as a grimace of criticism (in-joke)?

 

Note the eyelights. Note the accomplished make-up from RKO’s genius technicians. (Orson Welles was 25 years old!)

 

This is the first elaborate shot of the Newsreel in terms of both camera movement and prop activity :

(a) The camera moves out from the face

(b) five more newspapers are displayed (one pulled away after another)

(c) camera moves in to display two more newspapers (one pulled away to reveal the other)

(d) camera moves in closer, to display two more newspapers (one pulled away to reveal the other)

 

Q: Is this a gloriously elaborate shot? May we call it an ingenious shot? (Along with the camera movement and prop activity, there is at least one cut, and, may we say, a clever use of shadows.)

 

Q: Does the moving in of the camera in (c) and (d) generate a type of, shall we say, “grave tension”?

 

The montage of headlines is an efficient distribution of information : the audience learns of Kane’s world fame—without a line of dialogue required. This storytelling efficiency recalls the elegantly simple identification of the location at the outset of Hitchcock’s The Birds (1963), 2:03–2:05 :

 

 

 

 

Edited February 17, 2023 by Jeff Bernstein

[Jeff Bernstein]

46  The Newspaper Montage  : Part 2

 

New York Daily Inquirer

Kane’s own newspaper offers favorable coverage of the man. We learn : “End Comes For Editor At His Xanadu Estate After Illness of Months.” If this is true (Leland : “I never believed anything I saw in the Inquirer.” 51:22), then Kane never stopped receiving his comeuppance up until the very last end (Gettys : “You’re going to need more than one lesson. . . . And you'll get more than one lesson.” 1:09:14).

 

(“comeuppance” : one of Welles’ last words of The Magnificent Ambersons (1942)—before the disastrous tacked-on ending.)

 

The newspaper prop is excellently well-constructed : the front page is exactingly realistic, though the audience will have no time to read the small headlines. In fact, all ten newspaper props in this shot are similarly exactingly constructed : a tour-de-force of imagination and technical style.

 

Q : Why did Welles and Crew fabricate exactingly-made newspapers when the audience had time only to absorb the main headline(s) and photographs? Obviously Welles understood that everything in the film frame is taken in by the Unconscious.

 

“Finds Place in U.S. Hall of Fame” : What hall of fame? More Inquirer hooey . . . even at the end.

 

“Entire Nation Mourns” . . . though the Newsreel Narrator will soon say : “a nation that had ceased to listen to him, ceased to trust him” (12:11). More Inquirer hooey . . . even at the end.

 

“Kane Called World’s Best Philanthropist.” Now that I can believe (Hateful Eight, 8:43). In our world, when a wealthy person establishes a charitable foundation, it’s a tax dodge. (I learned this writing my Howard Hughes biography.)

 

“Outstanding American” : this I can also believe—an outstanding example of an American. What word is found in the word “American”? Me.

 

The Daily Chronicle

Dark Comedy : A competing newspaper publishes an unflattering photograph and negative publicity of the dead man. However, the newspaper is identified as “EXTRA”—meaning, even though The Daily Chronicle hated the man, the newspaper still jumped on the bandwagon quickly : to sell newspapers.

 

“Death of Publisher Finds Few Who Will Mourn for Him” : a sad statement, though the Chronicle probably wrote that with cruel glee. And how can they know this? Is this fact, or editorializing?

 

“Always Thought Only of Self” : more editorializing. This is what I term “the holier-than-thou contradiction” : in criticizing the ugliness of someone else, the critic does it similarly ugly.

 

Revenge : in life, Charles Foster Kane poached a number of the Chronicle’s staff for his own newspaper empire (40:05–40:44). How petty, how pathetic, for the Chronicle to get its revenge—on a dead man!

 

Chicago Globe

“City Council Approves Site for New Library Building”. What’s that word “library” mean?

 

Notice the word “Nazis”? This will be one of the very first references to Nazis in Hollywood cinema. During WWII, one topic that Hollywood ignored was the Holocaust. I’ve heard the phrase “concentration camp” in only two or three Hollywood films at most from the era : but the only titles I can recall is Hitchcock’s Lifeboat (1944), 1:01:07; and the post-WW2 Billy Wilder film A Foreign Affair (1948), 43:05. Theory : All Hollywood films from 1939–45 referencing the Nazi atrocities may be counted with one’s ten fingers. Barton Fink alludes to this deafening silence when the studio head says : “I can understand a little red tape in peacetime, but now it's all-out warfare against the Japs.” (1:47:53)

 

Why raise the subject of the Nazi Holocaust in this post? Because Welles’ The Stranger (1946) shows actual imagery from the death camps (59:39–1:00:50) :

Too much truth for the Jews running Hollywood during WW2.

Remember : a theme of Citizen Kane : The Social Responsibility of the Media . . . or the lack of it.

 

Minneapolis Record Herald

The word “Nazi” appears again.

 

Evidently a newspaper favorable to Charles Foster Kane. Evidence : "Sponsor of Democracy".

 

Detroit Star

Evidently a newspaper favorable to Charles Foster Kane. Evidence : the flattering photograph; “Leader of News World”; “Was Master of Destiny”.

 

Note the exacting coordinated realism of these newspapers : the Chicago Tribune, the Minneapolis Record Herald, and the Detroit Star all report Nazi bombing raids on England.

 

El Paso Journal

The word “Nazi” appears yet again.

 

On Kane : “Loss of Friends, Wives and Prestige Believed to Have Hastened End of Editor Who Built Great News Empire.”

 

Le Matin

Apparently Charles Foster Kane was respected internationally : i.e., “grand Editeur”.

 

El Correspendencia

Respected internationally : “Destinguido Editor”.

 

Russian

Yandex Translate reveals this Russian headline prints nothing unfavorable to the man.

 

Even the small text of the article is realistic! Visible in small-print Russian is : “Charles Foster Kane . . .”

 

Chinese

Google Translate offered the following :

 

“New York”

“The world’s largest news worker”

“mourning of tens of thousands of people”

“The world’s largest publisher”

“dead”

 

 

 

Edited February 17, 2023 by Jeff Bernstein

[Jeff Bernstein]

The Chinese language in 1930s Hollywood

 

To put it mildly, the Chinese language was not visible very much in Hollywood A-list cinema of the 1930s.

 

There’s The Bitter Tea of General Yen (1933) with Barbara Stanwyck :

(13:24)

 

but in a movie entitled China Seas (1935), starring Clark Gable and Jean Harlow, the following shots include virtually the sum total of the Chinese language visible in the film :

(3:01)

(45:21)

(46:53)

(1:22:33)

 

And, of course, the opening of Shanghai Express (1932) with Marlene Dietrich :

 

 

 

Edited February 17, 2023 by Jeff Bernstein

[Jeff Bernstein]

To lighten the mood.

"Surprise, Themily Rose Caroline Wilson! You're a multimillionaire from Oxford yet you received American taxpayer cash from Donald Trump to take four leisurely years to translate Homer's Iliad, when your humble author did it infinitely better in eight months in 2022? Wait, you're talentless, yet were recreated in the USA by a conspiracy of women? So now you're an American for tax reasons and I'm now a British citizen, and Bertelsmann has blacklisted ME, because I'm giving my Iliad away for FREE? And this month you're giving a speech to the American servicemen and servicewomen at West Point? What? I hope you enjoy the time you have left, cuz Marlene is coming with a Basic Instinct in mind. Your young daughter is pretty tasty, and, well, a big target. Your hideous sister, meanwhile, "Bee Wilson" (aw, how cute!), another talentless creation of your "talent" agency (coincidence?), lives not far from me. Bee's yet another scam from the conspiracy of women running publishing in the UK. Sis's husband finally got smart and jumped ship last year. So Bee's lost her peerage status. Shame. Well, enjoy your Cancel Culture while you can, before you say, Ah, how miserable!"

 

Btw, happy birthday. The menopause must be tough. Maybe that's the reason you've destroyed too many men's careers to count . . .

 

Oh, how I love movie dialogue!

 

https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v42/n19/emily-wilson/ah-how-miserable

Dishonored (1931), dir. Josef von Sternberg; cinematography Lee Garmes.

 

 

 

 

 

Edited February 17, 2023 by Jeff Bernstein

[Jeff Bernstein]

47

This sentence is convoluted : both the subject of the sentence (“Kane”) and the verb of the sentence (“was”) are placed in the middle of the sentence. We are not sure what the sentence is about until over fifty percent into it. We might define this sentence as unduly complicated.

 

Some issues :

(a) Why the comma after “headlines”? While not strictly speaking incorrect, it’s still unnecessary here. We might even say entirely unnecessary.

(b) The sentence begins with two verbless clauses in a row before arriving at the subject.

 

Though the sentence would run better if rewritten, still and all it seems obvious that the text as written was meant to follow the dramatic intonations of the Narrator. Clarity is sacrificed for drama.

 

This sentence is rubbish as news : what evidence is there that “forty-four million U.S. news buyers” thought Kane “more newsworthy than the names in his own headlines”?

 

This sentence is manipulative hype. It leads the reader along in the manner of an amusement park ride—infotainment.

 

Citizens require proper role models of all kinds to live properly. Here, Tyranny gives the audience a bad education. Why? Theory : Ineptitude and zero social responsibility.

 

 

 

Edited February 18, 2023 by Jeff Bernstein

[Jeff Bernstein]

48  :  Black Actors in 1930s Hollywood

Black faces were not overflowing the cinema screens in the Hollywood films of the 1930s. When there were black faces on screen, in the colossal majority of cases the black men and the black women were servants of various kinds (or other bit-parts of minuscule running time). In how many hundreds of Hollywood films are we speaking of here? Or is it thousands? Or even many thousands? One example from this colossal number : the train attendants in Nothing Sacred (1937).  

 

One forward-looking example : Barbara Stanwyck has a black female friend (Theresa Harris) in Baby Face (1933), but she vanishes after 18:38—until she returns at 37:51, as Barbara’s maid! Then comes a massive surprise for 1930s Hollywood : the amazingly rare sight of a black actor (here, Theresa) dressed in the manner of a white actor  :

(41:54)

 

Black faces were so infrequent in Hollywood films of the 1930s (except for the bit-parts of fleeting screen time) that cinemas catering to black audiences had to advertise the bit-part actors on their marquees. Example : “Theresa Harris in Baby Face”.

 

CK is only at running time 5:43 and here we have three black faces—and none are servants! Welles even allows one of the black actors to perform something other than serve a white person—the black actor rollerskates across the screen.

 

All that said, the black actors visible on screen are (evidently?) meant to suggest the rundown nature of the city location of the old Inquirer building. Yet Welles could have communicated this without the black actors on screen.

 

In Citizen Kane, Orson Welles seems unable not to violate time-honored Hollywood practices in most every shot of the film.

 

Various studios distributed a number of short films with black faces, however, such as Paramount’s series of blues-related shorts, such as “A Bundle of Blues” (1933), “Cab Calloway’s Hi-De-Ho” (1934), and “Symphony in Black : A Rhapsody of Negro Life” (1935).

 

MGM’s Marx Brothers’ full-length film A Day at the Races (1937) is historic in this sense because a large number of black actors (men, women and children) are given an elaborate musical sequence with the extraordinary running time of 1:23:50–1:31:30.

 

 

 

 

Edited February 18, 2023 by Jeff Bernstein

[Jeff Bernstein]

48  Narrative Efficiency

 

Remember how Hitchcock elegantly identifies the film’s location at the beginning of The Birds?

 

Welles identifies the Inquirer building in the precise same way—more than a decade earlier.

However, the Newsreel Narrator aids identification (in the Newsreel’s usual garbled prose that almost makes no sense) : “Its humble beginnings, in this ramshackle building, a dying daily.”

 

The Narrator’s “sentence” has no verb. And, no surprise, the subject of the sentence arrives only at the end.

 

 

 

Edited February 18, 2023 by Jeff Bernstein

[Jeff Bernstein]

49 

Narrator : “Kane’s empire, in its glory, held dominion over 37 newspapers, two syndicates, a radio network, an empire upon an empire.” (5:51–6:00).

 

A nice touch of this animation is the use of expanding concentric circles—suggesting the radiation of radio waves—to convey the scope of Kane’s dominion.

 

Since Welles apparently cannot do anything without going further, as it were : each dot representing a location of Kane’s outposts changes from black to white when its radiation begins to expand.

 

Another nice touch here is the overlapping of the concentric circles to convey the colossally broad dominion of Kane’s empire.

 

Note how Kane’s empire in this animation is balanced across the country : Seattle, Washington; Los Angeles, California; Denver, Colorado; Dallas, Texas; Omaha, Nebraska; St. Louis, Missouri; Chicago, Illinois; New York City; Atlanta, Georgia.

 

Two examples of animation in live-action films

Vertigo, 1:24:28

NBK, 21:40

 

 

 

Edited February 18, 2023 by Jeff Bernstein

[Jeff Bernstein]

Commercial Break  :  Movie Music / Diegetic Music

 

In the first two films, the movie music of the opening credits transforms into diegetic music, which is then switched off by the main character of the film.

What Price Hollywood? (1932), 2:37

EWS (1999), 1:46

 

In this third example, the transformation travels the other way, transforming from diegetic music to movie music.

Phantom Thread (2017), 15:37

 

 

 

Edited February 19, 2023 by Jeff Bernstein