How great is Citizen Kane?

It’s difficult to recognize a film as being “the greatest ever made” if I wouldn’t consider it once of my favorites. Films that I might personally consider the greatest would fulfill all good film-making techniques, but they would also be in a genre that I personally enjoy watching again and again. Citizen Kane was not my favorite film we watched this semester, but I can appreciate several reasons why it would be considered one of the greatest.
Citizen Kane was a great satire of Hearst, his wife, his young mistress, and his newspapers. Kane was portrayed as someone who became increasingly more superficial with how his money should be spent and how he treated the friends and colleagues around him, but, most importantly, he was not like that from the beginning. The film successfully developed Kane’s character, representing Kane as a child, as a young ambitious man, and later as a selfish and hardened individual. This was effective because I felt sorry for the kid who was forced to leave his home and sympathized with the adult who regretted that he didn’t know who he might have been if he hadn’t become so wealthy. I also liked Kane as a college drop-out who was excited about starting a new kind of newspaper. He was energetic and those scenes were my favorite. The progression from this person into someone who bought everything he liked (including a pretty wife), but lived an empty and hollow existence (literally, his home echoed because it was too large to fill), was a powerful representation of how wealth and political influence could affect someone’s life, despite how accurate or inaccurate it may have been to the real Hearst.
Welles used editing and cinematography very effectively to make important points, especially about the characters of Kane and Susan. Newspaper headlines were juxtaposed with Kane’s words at the wedding of Kane and Susan, joking that he would build an opera house if Susan’s singing career needed a boost. He did build an opera house, the headline stated, giving a comic effect while indicating Susan’s poor singing and Kane’s seriousness. Camera angles were high and from Kane’s perspective to indicate his authority, such as in the scene when his shadow covers Susan who is sitting on the floor when he orders her to continue her singing career.
The narrative was developed creatively and effectively, using the perspectives of several friends, an ex-wife, and a servant. In these memory sequences, the situations were not necessarily chronological – some memories jumped back to younger years after already viewing scenes when his hair was graying – but overall the order was logical and easy to follow.Many of the scenes were engaging, such as when Kane and Emily grew more and more distant over years of breakfasts, while others were intentionally bleak, such as when Susan describes how lonely it is to live in Xanadu. The film created a strong image of what Hearst’s life could have been – judging his waste of his unending supply of money and his treatment of his wives and longtime friends.
Unlike other films that may fill time with meaningless dialogue or images, everything in this film was intentional and satirized Kane’s attitude or ambitions or lifestyle. Even the brief shot of a couple of monkeys on Kane’s property in the beginning of the film make reference to the private zoo he constructed on his property, a senseless extravagance. It missed several elements that I often look for in a film – romance, comedy (minus a few comedic scenes or conversations), or exciting adventure or action – but I believe if I watched Citizen Kane a few more times and looked carefully at the mise en scene, dialogue and cinematography, I could find significance and purpose in nearly every everything.

how these films all fall under "film noir"

I never used the term “film noir” until this class, but when I read the article describing it and we began watching the Maltese Falcon, I recognized this genre of film. I knew the 40’s style film with a detective, a crime that he would solve by the end, and at least one pretty lady thrown into the plot. However, it wasn’t until I watched more film noir and we discussed and debated the traits of a true “noir” that I recognized the more subtle, but quite important, qualities such as the moral ambiguity of the detective himself (in addition to the suspects), the melancholy mood or attitude, and an ending that remains unresolved in some way. Another aspect of the bleak storyline is often the corruption of police who may thwart the efforts of the detective or even be as dangerous as the criminals. The element of the police is not necessary for a film to fall under this genre, but it was present in all four film noir’s that I viewed.

In the four film noirs I watched, instead of feeling secure when the police arrived on the scene, there was a sense of uneasiness because they were dishonest or dangerous.
In Maltese Falcon, the police basically have no idea who is involved in the two murders or how the search for the Maltese Falcon is related. They are prepared to take detective Spade in for killing his partner, which would be useless because the true murderer would never be caught without Spade’s understanding of the people involved. If the police had their way, Spade would be in prison and the murderer would remain free.

In A Touch of Evil, the police frame Sanchez and arrest him for murder (although Sanchez is guilty, so ironically they framed the murderer). The police chief tries to take down Vargas, who is working as a detective on the case, and the police chief ends up killing his partner.
Initially, the police in Chinatown disregard the case of Mr. Muwlray’s murder as accidental. However, it becomes clear that they are involved somehow in the political corruption of the city. In the final scene, the police refuse to believe (or admit) that Mr. Cross is the murderer, and they end up shooting and killing the woman who is in fact innocent.

Finally, I watched Sin City which is the most recent film noir I have watched (made in 2005) and it is much more violent and complex than the older film noirs. Some of the elements were familiar to me as I compared it to the other films, including the conflict between the main characters and the police. Specifically, in two separate storylines, the police arrest a man for killing or raping the woman who he actually loves. The big ugly guy is framed for Goldie’s death so he works alone to find the murderer, but he ends up being killed by the electric chair for her murder. The police put Hartigan in prison for 8 years for the rape of Nancy, who he saved from the rapist. It is up to Hartigan to make sure that Nancy remains safe because the police will not condemn the rapist because of his political involvement.

After seeing Maltese Falcon, I expected some classic elements, such as an office and secretary for the detective and a tell-all at the end (with everyone seated in the living room to hear the explanation of the murder), to be included in every film noir. Most of the film noirs excluded those and more important traits remained.

Of these four film noirs, and others described by people in the class, the ending was never what I expected or what would have been satisfying. Like in other films, the characterization allows me to understand and even relate to the characters, but in film noir they do not reach a happy resolution in the end – a main character or his lover ends up dead, or the lovers are separated, or the guilty escape without punishment. Also, I want to trust the protagonist in these films, but I’m often questioning his decisions or actions because despite his intentions, he is not all good himself (such as killing 10 people in response to a single murder).

These feelings can be replicated in films without necessarily rainy city streets to replicate the mood (although it can be helpful) – I think film noir requires characters with certain motivations, usually in response to a crime, who are complex rather than just good or just bad, and a plot that moves towards a resolution but never quite wraps up loose ends. Film noir can keep me considering the conflict and the characters long after it ends, and in several ways it often provides some kind of comparison to real life.

hints of film noir in Sin City

Sin City began with a single act of violence- a man killed a woman with one shot from a silenced gun – but by the time I reached the final scene, I was covering my eyes and screaming when I realized Hartigan was ripping off the man’s (or alien’s?) genitals and smashing through the man’s skull with his fist. I can remember only a few scenes of the film in which all of the characters survived – usually multiple characters were killed during any altercation, so I was constantly anticipating the moment when a knife would stab someone in the throat or body parts would be blown off by guns. I mostly disliked the film and I was relieved when it finally ended.

When I broke the film down into some notes, I could see the relationship between this film and a classic film noir in some of the themes of police corruption and the unclear motives or sense of morality of several main characters.

When I stepped back from the graphic violence, I could also recognize some interesting parallels in the structure of the film involving an individual searching for a murderer or rapist because other authority figures had the wrong man or intentionally avoided the situation. One of the first characters on a hunt for a killer was the big ugly guy in love with a woman called Goldie. She was killed before he awoke in the morning and, even though she was already gone, he was determined to find her murderer. In the end, he was accused for her death and killed by the electric chair. A second man also found himself responsible for attaining justice for his love interest, a prostitute named Gail and the benefit of the other hookers in that section of the city. He and his lover both survived. The final storyline that matched this theme followed the retired police officer Hartigan who was put in prison for the rape of the young girl he saved from the serial rapist. He and Nancy fell in love when they were reunited, and only he could stop the alien-man from trying to attack her again. Nancy survives but he kills himself in the end.

These three narratives used an idea similar to film noir in which a man knows the truth about a crime and uses his own means to take care of the situation – working against or simply without the police.

Overall, it was difficult to even notice these broader ideas because the amount of violence and sexuality was overkill and the sense of chronology was confusing. Every female character was completely sexual, most were dressed like strippers and some were completely naked. Essentially, I was tired of seeing breasts and butt-cheeks. The chronology of the film confused me and prevented me from understanding the connection between certain events and characters. When the film returned to the story of the retired officer, suddenly we were back in time and characters who were already killed were sitting at the bar in a strip club. This made me question the timing of other events in the midst of the film because nothing was necessarily chronological. Events could occur without reference to time or even the purpose. Maybe I would have enjoyed the movie more if I understood it, but I doubt it.

Chinatown

Chinatown started out fairly simply – a detective is given an assignment to discover if Mrs. Muwlray’s husband is having an affair. He follows Mr. Muwlray and sees her with a woman several times, takes photos, and the affair is publicized because he is an important businessman. Things become complicated when Mr. Gides, the detective, realizes that the woman who came to his office was not the real Mrs. Muwlray, and more complex when Mr. Muwlray is found drowned.
This is a classic case of film noir- the police mainly disregard the death, labeling it accidental, but Mr. Gides refuses to stop investigating it as murder. Traditionally, the police were too quick to judge, and the detective continued alone on a search for the murderer and the secrets of everyone involved.
What threw me off a bit was the character of (the real) Mrs. Muwlray and her relationship with the detective as they spent increasingly more time together. She seemed like a classic example of “femme fatal”- the two slept together, yet we still don’t understand her secretive behavior. I anticipated the scene when he would prove her guilty and the film would resolve. Frustratingly, it deviated here, and he learned that she was hiding something unrelated to the murder of her husband. This left her off the hook for murder, but it left me vaguely confused about some previous parts of the movie.
The ending also disturbed me by challenging the traditional narrative that I normally expect, especially in film noir with a distinct protagonist and a conflict he is working to resolve. Just when I was prepared to see everything resolve in a final scene, a sudden change in action took place and all control over the situation was lost. I thought there must be at least some additional dialogue or action in response, but it ended. I was left with unanswered questions and without the satisfaction of seeing the guilty taken away by police before the credits rolled. The movie was engaging, but its startling variations to the expected detective storyline left me disappointed, feeling like the previous two hours were useless.

"Touch of Evil": an edgier, more complex example of film noir

“A Touch of Evil” began with a long, continuous shot – showing the night life of a town along the Mexican-American border, and honing in especially on a man and a woman driving in a car and a young couple walking along the street. The shot suddenly broke off in response to a loud blast, and cut to a shot of the car exploding. The young couple, Mike Vargas and his wife Susie, runs over to the scene by the car. This moment sparks the ensuing story of danger and dishonesty because Vargas, a Mexican cop, becomes involved along with the American cops in the search for the killer of the man and woman in the car.

Reminding me of the previous film noir style movie we watched, “The Maltese Falcon,” the first bit of action in the movie was a murder. This was the most significant similarity they shared, however, because I found “A Touch of Evil” to be much edgier and more complex. It touched on issues of police corruption, abuse of suspects, racism, gangs, and while there were still a few laughable, fake punches, there were also some very violent scenes.

This film noir was darker than the other, and I could only trust two characters for sure – Vargas and Susie. The others were unpredictable, and I remained unsure of how far certain characters would go, as far as undermining the law versus maintaining some respect for the people involved. There was great contrast between Vargas and the American police captain, as the two opposed each other until the very end. Vargas valued honesty and tangible truth, and he was devoted to his wife (besides neglecting her at a motel in the middle of nowhere). The police captain valued his personal career and pinning down a suspect, and he lashed out in violence in remembrance of his wife who was killed. I appreciated the depth of many of the characters and the interesting themes resulting from a plot with an interracial couple in a setting alternating between Mexico and the U.S. I wouldn’t mind watching this one again to catch all of the subtleties.

The Maltese Falcon

This detective film started off rather quickly­­- we were barely introduced to the detective and his partner before detective Spade’s (Humphrey Bogart) partner Miles was shot. Another man was shot directly following this murder, and into a tangle of characters and uncertain motives we’re thrown. I’m glad it began this way- I knew it was going involve some sort of mystery so there’s no use wasting time. Spade was sent on a job to follow a man at the request of a young woman who came to the detective office. While on the job that evening, he was shot and killed. Soon after police were investigating this death, the man who Spade was following was also killed.
Police question Spade concerning the death of his partner, whose wife he was having an affair with, and Spade wonders what the beautiful young woman’s motive was for having Spade follow this man.
The plot was complicated enough to keep me guessing until the end- when I was still unsure exactly how certain characters were involved and how dangerous they were. Keeping it more lively was some humor inserted here and there. Whether it was completely intentional or not, I’m not sure. The film is from 1941 so the shots that made me laugh may just be dated attempts at being serious or dramatic. However, when Peter Lorre’s character Cairo was the recipient of the woman’s fake kicks and punches, it was a good laugh and prevented the scene from becoming tedious. The ending was terribly corny, but I was satisfied – I was grateful that Spade made the right choice instead of falling for the girl’s tears. This would be a good rainy-day mystery but not one that I would take too seriously.

Monsoon Wedding and Daughters of Dust don't conform to Hollywood conventions

Monsoon Wedding and Daughters of the Dust were different from nearly every American movie I’ve experienced- both of these films differed little in standard movie length, yet they managed to accomplish more than the typical single-plot, single-protagonist Hollywood movie.
Monsoon Wedding had numerous narrative points of view. The audience experienced situations from the point of view of the bride, her father, her cousin, her brother, the event planner and other characters, seeing moments from perspectives that no other characters could experience. The multiple narrative points of view allowed for many plots to be underway simultaneously, making for a more complex and meaningful film than most I have seen.
Daughters of the Dust also had no single protagonist for me to relate to, recording the experiences of numerous family members at once. This film was less effective than Monsoon Wedding because its complexity made for a confusing narrative and I felt unattached to any characters instead of feeling as though I was sharing all of their experiences. However, I imagine that the meaning that was meant to come across in this film could not be limited to the narrative point of view of a single character. Unlike the traditional Hollywood film with a clear establishment of a conflict and progress towards a simple resolution, Daughters of the Dust created an experience where the characters’ progression towards a final decision was unclear. There were scenes of conversation that seemed to contribute little to the ultimate problem they were facing. Perhaps it better reflected life in its jumble of characters and dialogue than a typical Hollywood film with a main character following a clear-cut beginning, middle and end.
Both of these films are more similar to classical European narratives than they are to classic Hollywood narratives. According to Hollywood, a narrative should maintain a clear and understandable perspective for the viewer and include a clear conflict and resolution. Both films have numerous perspectives, and Daughters of Dust is especially difficult to follow. According to The Film Experience, “The European model tends to situate the story in large and varied social contexts that dilute the singularity of a central protagonist and is usually less action-oriented than its U.S. counterpart” (263-264). Monsoon Wedding works through many conflicts, and Daughters of Dust has several underlying issues that the characters must deal with. These particular films worked with a similar technique, but Monsoon Wedding was most successful in creating something enjoyable that I would watch again. After watching this film, I would like to see more directors deviate from the classic Hollywood narrative style and achieve more depth in the allotted two-hours.