On a side note, here is my report from Swindon Town's sleep-inducing cup tie against Woking on Saturday.
Citizen Kane is indeed a cultural watershed. In filmography terms it is incredible to imagine how certain scenes were filmed. The one that sticks in my mind is when the camera shows an exterior shot of a club where Kane's washed-up-singer of a second wife is headlining. The camera pans up and goes through the sign and drops down through the skylight. In modern terms, a fairly routine establishing shot but how they managed in the thirties with huge cameras and fairly limited movement is breathtaking.
Chris's allusion to the character of Kane being central in the creation of Mr Burns in The Simpsons was very interesting. Having known of that before watching the film, it was easy to pick out certain characteristics that both of them share: The miser sitting in his cavernous mansion with all his money completely isolated from society, the megalomaniacal passion for control. When Kane bought every journalist from The Chronicle to come and work for his paper is reminiscent of the move pulled by Monty Burns when he replaced his workforce's softball team with retired baseball professionals!
As a spectacle I thoroughly enjoyed it. Admittedly I'd have to watch it again and perhaps even a third time in order to fully appreciate the numerous cultural references.
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