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[V-Adore]

I really need to see Citizen Kane again. Everybody tells me that it, much like sex, is much better the second time around.

[AlohaDawg]

Everyone is right, at least about Citizen Kane. The sex thing, maybe not as universal.

If you get a chance to watch the original filmed version of Lolita, do. It's kind of painful to watch someone descend into his demons but very well done.

[Gimpson]

I saw Casablanca for the first time last year, and I can't believe I waited so long to see it.  There is absolutely nothing bad about that movie. 

[AlohaDawg]

African Queen is awesome too; just basically two actors on a boat exchanging dialogue for much of it....excellent job by both and an interesting story.

Also, there's a good and funny book by Katherine Hepburn about the filming of that movie.

[Nabubrush]

I really need to see Citizen Kane again. Everybody tells me that it, much like sex, is much better the second time around.

Man, I ought to try sex again.

[wombat]

Ditto:  Just completed the much delayed part two of the Jough Dempsey Film Noir Festival, which consisted of The Third Man.  It was something that one ought to have seen, and unlike many of those things, the actual seeing of it was quite tolerable. 

But as for Citizen Kane, I have seen it more than once and I still don't get it.

[V-Adore]

But as for Citizen Kane, I have seen it more than once and I still don't get it.

This may just be my opinion, but I think that "getting it" is sort of overrated for Kane. The Rosebud thing is touted as this big thing, but it's not really the heart of the film; really, it can be appreciated as just a reasonably straightforward tragedy, the story of a man who had every opportunity in the world and squandered all of them in the pursuit of something he didn't know how to keep. It really isn't about Rosebud.

It is, however, about pterodactyls. About this let us not be confused.

[Nabubrush]

It's also about the White Stripes, or rather, the White Stripes are about it.

[wombat]

But what I don't get is what's so great about it.  It's supposed to be one of the greatest movies ever made.  But it doesn't even seem terribly interesting.  It's a total mystery to me.

[jough]

Maybe it doesn't have enough car chases or explosions or other shiny things to keep your attention.  People seem to like movies that are very loud and where bright things happen on screen a lot these days.  Citizen Kane doesn't have much of that.

I love Citizen Kane - it was revolutionary at the time, and is still better than 99% of movies made after it.  I love how we're looking at the life of this larger-than-life man, but we're never seeing anything as it actually happened (except when the reporter is interviewing people that knew Kane, I suppose - and even then it's his POV) - the entire movie is told from various points of view.

Technically of course it's a major achievement.  It's like the movie equivalent of landing a man on the moon.  There are so many firsts in Citizen Kane, and so many shots were new that it redefined filmmaking more than it enthralled audiences at the time it was released.  That just about every film post-Kane borrows from it in some way means that you've seen Citizen Kane many many times before - little pieces of it in just about every other film you've ever seen.

I can understand how it may not seem so fresh and exciting after 60+ years of homage.

Rosebud is of course a Macguffin.  Sure, we find out who Rosebud is (no spoilers here for the cultural ostriches out there who don't know) but is that really the central part of the story?  It sure does explain a lot about Kane, and what he was striving for his entire life.

I've seen Citizen Kane at least a hundred times, at one point going through it in slo-mo with a film group so we could discuss it frame-by-frame if need be. It took us three four-hour nights to finish the film, and then we spent the following week discussing it.

However, if I had to list the most enjoyable "great" film I'd have to go with Casablanca.  There is nothing that isn't in Casablanca.  Guns, sex, music, dames, intrigue, heartbreak, love, death - it's an encyclopaedia.  And it moves really fast so modern (American) audiences who have grown accustomed to bright flashes of light and loud noises can somewhat enjoy it too.


P.S. to Wombat: I am sorry that you did not enjoy the Film Noir film festival.  If you've followed my list you've probably seen some of the best the genre has to offer.  These films were made in the epoch of the Cold War, as the world was changing, new alliances were being formed, and everyone was suspicious of their neighbours' motives.  I think Film Noir translates fairly well to our Patriot Act smoke-the-terrorists-out-of-their-holes era, but again, they're slower-moving movies with less action in them, made for an audience who was expected to pay attention.

EDIT: I know the above sounded like I was calling you "simple" or "slow" if you didn't like some of these "great" films - that isn't the case at all - I was just pointing out how different they are from most of the crap being shoved out lately, and how bad movies train people to watch more bad movies.  It's pandemic.

[wombat]

We have not seen enough of the Festival to pass judgment on the entire genre.  I liked The Third Man better than something with car chases and shiny things.   I was not bored after 20 minutes.  I only got restless for about 5 minutes towards the end.  For a movie that was almost two hours, for me, that is a five star review.

But, OK, now you ARE going to say I am slow and stupid but...  Often these old movies seem very simplistic to me.  Even in The Third Man - things are telegraphed rather obviously before they happen.  You see a strange Austrian child watching the hero have a argument with a guy, and since there are no other children anywhere in the movie, it is obvious that later the guy will turn up dead and they will accuse the hero because the child has no other possible function than as a witness to the fight.  The lady says that her cat only liked Harry, and you know right away that Harry isn't really dead and the cat will be how we find this out, because there are no other cats anywhere in town and it was totally surprising to see that she had a cat in the first place.

I know, foreshadowing, your sign of quality literature.  Minimalism. Whatever. Or you could say, not so much bigger geniuses than moviemakers nowadays.  I dunno.

[wombat]

Oh heck and as long as I've already stepped in it...   Telling me that a movie was a technical achievement is like telling me that my car was a technical achievement.  It only matters to specialists and as someone who can barely sit still through a whole movie, I am clearly not a specialist.  I don't care how you did it, I only care about the finished product.  I think that it would be more accurate to say that Citizen Kane was an important event in the history of film, rather than telling people it is a great movie, which raises a different sort of expectation.

But what do I know.  I'm gonna go read some comics, now.

[jough]

Well, it's a great film that is also a technical achievement - but you can't really invent cinematic language without it being on screen.  So there's no distinguishing its technical merits from its artistic.  It's not like I'm saying that they used some fancy new camera or something - I'm talking about cinematic syntax - how shots are framed, edited, camera movement, lens choices - pretty much ALL of its achievements are on the screen.

And it's funny that you think older movies are more simplistic, because all I can think of when I watch classics is how sophisticated they are in comparison with many movies (at least all ten of last year's top 10 grossing films) made today.

Film Noir of course is a genre, and as such has a more limited vocabulary than a number of other films - they're formula pictures, and the incredible thing is how there are a great number of films that follow the same formula yet they're all different. 

Most genre films are like that, of course.  I could probably show you shots from "El Dorado" and "Rio Bravo" re-cut into a single film and you would never know that they weren't both from the same film.

[wombat]

And it's funny that you think older movies are more simplistic, because all I can think of when I watch classics is how sophisticated they are in comparison with many movies (at least all ten of last year's top 10 grossing films) made today.

Well, see, I wouldn't know - I doubt I've seen any of those ten movies to make the comparison.  I think the only movie I saw last year was Wallace and Gromit.

[dejavroom]

Is it possible to know you will like a movie in the first frame? In the absolutely first second of the first frame? It is. That was "Capote" to me; as soon as I saw those wheat stalks swaying in the wind I braced myself and thought: "I'm gonna really enjoy this one", and I was right, I loved it, loved it, loved it. It should have won Best Picture if the Oscars weren't dumb.