Citizen Kane vs. Jackass: the movie

[FrustratedPoet]

Oh no!!!!

It can never be a good sign when Mr.Fun laughs at your jokes!

[Elok]

No, Hamlet addresses something-several themes, actually- that are relevant to people from all walks of life and not hackneyed and overdone even for the time it was made. E.G. finding the greater truth in a world of lies, dealing with the uncertainty of all knowledge and the moral dilemmas inherent in life without sure definitions...and those are just the ones that really sounded with me. Charles Foster Kane is just a silly ass who, so far as I can recall, gets precisely what he deserves. If you can cite me an instance in which his misfortunes are not ultimately his own doing, please do. It's been a few years since I saw it, and I'm figuring that, having seen it about three times in my life, and coming to the conclusion that it was stupid each time, it would not become worthwhile from a fourth watching. I'l find out in a few weeks anyway since I HAVE to watch it for film class...

[monolith94]

"If you can cite me an instance in which his misfortunes are not ultimately his own doing, please do."

That's the element that makes him a tragic hero - the fatal flaw.

[Elok]

Okay, so he's tragic. He's also a sleazewad, so what makes him a hero?

[molly bloom]

Originally posted by Elok
Okay, so he's tragic. He's also a sleazewad, so what makes him a hero?

Hamlet's a prince who is unable to sh!t or get off the pot- why should we care about an aristo who had everything handed to him on a plate, and is just unable to make up his mind?

Richard III is a sleazewad psychopath who kills one prince then marries that man's widow. And has his own brother's children killed. I mean, how low can you go?

You miss the point- Kane isn't a sleazewad as a child. The film examines what makes a man the man he is- and how does he appear to himself and to other people? He transforms himself after being taken from the secure childhood of the sled and the family home and sent to boarding school into the press tycoon and political fixer- and yet his marriage collapses and he sacrifices everything for love of a mistress.

'Kane' is hardly reducible to a plot synopsis or an inaccurate character demolition- the film is more than just those two things.

The image of 'Rosebud' the sled is a symbol used in much the same way that Shakespeare used repeated thematic imagery in his plays, images of melting and transformation in 'Antony and Cleopatra', blood, night and death in 'Macbeth' and opposites in 'Othello': it doesn't explain the film any more than the vivid imagery explains the plays, but it serves as a hook to draw us in and to lead us through the fractured chronology of 'Kane'.

I could go on about the photography of Gregg Toland, the acting of various cast members, the script, the revolutionary use of fake newsreels, experimental use of dialogue and sound effects, etc, etc. But if you think 'Citizen Kane' the film, depends simply on the alleged character of its chief protagonist, then why bother?

[MrFun]

Originally posted by FrustratedPoet
Oh no!!!!

It can never be a good sign when Mr.Fun laughs at your jokes!

[Sava]

Citizen Kane is stupid...

[FrustratedPoet]

Originally posted by MrFun

Well I guess I was asking for that, wasn't I?

[mindseye]

Umm, the Eloked version of 'Hamlet'-

Eloked version of 'Tale of Two Cities':
A drunken sod who feels bad about his life sacrifices it to save a better guy who just happens to look just like him. Yeah, right. Why did no publisher realize this was completely absurd?

Eloked version of 'Mayor of Castorbridge':
A drunken idiot sells his wife, becomes successful, but then fvcks up again. You need a whole book just to tell us some guy's a loser?

Eloked version of 'Moby ****':
A guy gets on a ship. The captain wants to kill some whale, but gets killed by it. What a waste of time. Why not just write a placard saying "Don't mess with Nature"? And what's with the sperm whale biology lesson? I don't know how stuff like this even gets published.

Eloked version of 'Fall of the House of Usher':
Some guy thinks his sister is dead, and has her put in the family vault. But she's not dead, and she gets out. When he sees her, he has a heart attack and the house collapses. You call this scary? Any of the Friday the 13th movies are much interesting and about a hundred times scarier.

[Ming]

[Japher]

Why not just write a placard saying "Don't mess with Nature"? And what's with the sperm whale biology lesson?

... Yet, I felt the same way about Moby ****... Not a big fan...

[Elok]

Well, snide parody posts aside, I don't believe in men and women as the entire sum of their experiences and nothing more. Nothing "made" him a creep. He was given a choice and he took it. The idea of influences (and genetics in more recent years) as the whole of human nature is a disturbing trend towards the abandonment of personal responsibility.

[molly bloom]

Originally posted by Elok
Well, snide parody posts aside, I don't believe in men and women as the entire sum of their experiences and nothing more. Nothing "made" him a creep. He was given a choice and he took it. The idea of influences (and genetics in more recent years) as the whole of human nature is a disturbing trend towards the abandonment of personal responsibility.

Sorry, but you opened the door with inaccurate character assassinations and trivializing plot summaries.

Kane chooses to risk his media empire, marriage and political career and influence for his love for a woman- not the action of a 'sleazewad'. Wouldn't a 'sleazewad' just f*ck her and chuck her?

If our experiences don't affect us, what's the point in living? You talk as if childhood had nothing to do with moulding the psyche.

[Elok]

The intelligent and responsible thing to do is to take marriage seriously and not just run off to follow every desperate fancy that enters your head. If he marries a woman he wasn't prepared to spend his life with, he is still paying the consequences of his actions, plain and simple.
While our experiences do affect our minds in various positive and negative ways, they are not who we are. Childhood abuse and neglect don't make your decisions for you, and don't justify what you do any more than kleptomania makes it morally acceptable to steal. Kane is a screwup who just keeps screwing up more, and I'm not going to waste pity on him.