Citizen Kane

The Battle over Citizen Kane
$19.95
This Doc is included in the enhanced DVD of the film. I bought both thinking that it wasn't.

On the Waterfront (Special Edition)
$19.94
After a recent walk through the world of Kazan, reading T.Williams' plays, plus his memoirs, plus Kazan's memoirs, and then watching some of the Williams movies, not all by Kazan, and some of Kazan's other films, after non-Williams texts, I had, for unclear reasons, postponed watching the Waterfront until now. (Maybe just because nobody in this house wanted to watch it with me. Despite Brando. Which is surprising, as all other inhabitants here are female, in homo sapiens as well as in house cat species.)

The Kazan experience prior to the Waterfront exposure was mixed. I am not sure I think Kazan was such a great director. His scenes are frequently awkward, his actors often move like zombies, his pathos is most of the time over the board. Sometimes he was lucky: the Streetcar movie is great, because it is a great play and he was lucky with the cast. Brando was at home there. Malden was ridiculous as usual, but it did not do much damage there.
I watched Kazan's fiasco with East of Eden, which, to me, is one of the worst Oscar winners that I ever watched. Unbearably ridiculous. James Dean was unbelievably unbelievable. (The book is useless, but the movie is endlessly worse. I say this as a Steinbeck fan.)

Now I found myself `alone at home' and decided to watch the Waterfront. Let me come up with my version of the truth right away: this is not in line with my idea of great cinema. It is cheap melodrama with a completely over-acting Brando and a ridiculous Malden. Cobb is ok as mobster boss, but those roles are easy. Eve Sainte Marie is actually quite good as pure Irish maiden, she is coming close to saving the film for me, but not quite, after all.

Another complaint: Bernstein's music is totally indequate for the subject! This whole thing is kitsch!

Apart from that, one needs to see the questionable role of the film in the political scenery of the time. After all, Kazan himself had just `talked', so it was in his interest to portrait `talking' in a positive light. The enemy in the film is the trade union, which has been usurped by the Irish mob. I am quite sure, or rather, I will readily believe, that this kind of situation has happened in real life, but I am not willing to accept a stereotypical satanification of the unions as just `social drama'. This is also political propaganda, and it works on the antenna of the audience. Unions equal mob. Not seeing that dimension of the reality of the film would be naive.

Citizen Kane (BFI Film Classics)
$14.95
This book has laid a fundation for understanding the film from a psychoanalytic perspective. The author re-examined the visual style of the film, its narrative structure, the historical context during production and the director's political activities, discovered new facts and finally came to an interpretation in psychoanalytic terms in which all the clues would fall into places. Although some of the arguments were not given in full length and rigidness (there are only 87 pages), this book certainly built a new system of meanings regarding the film that includes many facts discovered in the past several decades.

The Citizen Kane (Gold Edition Box Set)
$99.99
Yes. Count me in as one of "Them." A Kanenite. Orson Welles's initial motion picture effort, CITIZEN KANE, not only is Welles's best film--it's the best film ever made. Because of the story? Well, that's certainly interesting enough in its own right, but it's not the reason this powerful film is the best ever captured on celluloid. Look, any film that spawns books, documentaries, commentaries, and makes countless "Best Films of All Time" lists has got something unique and magical going for it. So what is it? To explore this topic, I highly recommend you get this TWO-DISC SPECIAL EDITION of CITIZEN KANE.

Made in 1941, when Welles was a mere twenty-five, CITIZEN KANE was light years ahead of its time in production, imagery, lighting, sets--unparalleled cinematography. Easily one of the most creative and innovative of all films, CITIZEN KANE is a haunting presentation of moving camera shots (often through what are supposed to be inanimate objects), of rooms with low ceilings made of cloth (for lighting purposes, plus the cloth easily hid the boom mikes), of scene lighting contrasts where one character is in light, the other in total silhouette, of scenes shot entirely by a below-ground-level camera, of surreal close-ups, of a despondent Kane walking across the screen, his reflection captured in hundreds of mirrors. All of the visual tricks and optical illusions serve to enhance and symbolize the story of Charles Foster Kane, a newspaper tycoon so extravagant and outrageous in his efforts to attract acceptance and love he ultimately garners neither--and loses everything, especially a connection to his childhood. ("Rosebud.") That Welles was making a thinly-disguised biography of mogul William Randolph Hearst was lost on no one, especially Hearst, who made so much trouble with RKO Studios the film was quickly shelved, and didn't find an appreciative audience until years later.

While this special edition contains several extras, you must view movie critic Roger Ebert's commentary. Ebert, an unabashed and enthusiastic student and fan of CITIZEN KANE, is a wealth of information about all the scenes and their background history, about all the tricks and gimmicks and optical illusions Welles and cinematographer Gregg Toland (the real star of this movie) dreamed up to make watching this film so mesmerizing. For supporting actors, Welles brought over his Mercury Theater radio performers, who all made their screen debuts here, including Joseph Cotten, Dorothy Comingore (playing a very shrill and petulant second wife), Agnes Moorehead, Ruth Warrick, Everett Sloane, and William Alland (a longtime Welles assistant). On disc two you'll find the documentary "The Battle Over Citizen Kane," a 1996 PBS production; it explores the lives of Hearst, Welles, and the controversy surrounding the production of CITIZEN KANE in meticulous and fascinating detail. The delicious irony here, in the film and in all of the extra features, is that not only is CITIZEN KANE the portrayal of William Randolph Hearst--it is also a thorough examination of the personality of Orson Welles himself. Best movie ever? A resounding yes.
--D. Mikels, Author, The Reckoning