neutron star writes:
> FWIW, I’ve never seen Citizen Kane, but as a modern film buff, what makes me
> hate most old movies is not the lack of color, but the horrible hoity-toity style
> taught by the Hollywood acting schools of the day, and encouraged throughout
> America. It was just completely unnatural, unwatchable, and it made me
> wonder who on Earth ever thought that it was a good idea.
I think that what’s throwing you off here is that people talked differently back then. Listen to one of Franklin Roosevelt’s speeches. That’s not just an affectation that he took on only in making speeches. That whole “upper-class Northeastern” accent doesn’t even exist anymore. Now that we have a long history of recorded speeches, we can see how much accents can change just over a single person’s lifetime. There are now over fifty years of Queen Elizabeth’s Christmas day speeches, and we can now track how much her accent has changed over that period. Yes, partly acting styles have changed over the past 70 years, but also accents have changed over that time.
Shagnasty, I think that there’s no way to know if you’ll like Citizen Kane. If you’re at all interested in the history of film, you should certainly see it. Trying to guess whether you’ll like it based on what you think of other films is pretty hopeless.
Have to hijack for a bit here… first of all, the Zeffirelli version is excellent. We watched it in a high school class once. Of course, this was an all-boys high school, so we spent the entire movie totally mesmerized by Olivia Hussey. She’s gorgeous. Just don’t look up how old she was at the time of filming, or you’ll feel very dirty. Especially since there’s a very brief bit of toplessness. Anyway, thanks for reminding me of one of the more entertaining moments of my hormonally-charged adolescence.[/hijack]
As for Citizen Kane, I love it. My favorite scene will always be the montage of Kane and his wife at the breakfast table as their marriage breaks down, and the genius use of the camera to make the table appear longer and longer as their lives become increasingly separate. It’s really sad to watch, actually, but so well done that you can’t resist.
I think the problem most modern audiences have with the movie is that they’ve seen all the innovations in the movie used so many times that they’ve become cliché. If you had been seeing it in 1941, it would probably strike you as an incredibly original piece of filmmaking. Fortunately, the plot is so damned good that it doesn’t really matter.
Count me in as another person who expected boredom but was pleasantly surprised. Loved it (though I do not care for Casablanca. Hmm, that might make a nice song title). This may be due in large part to my crush on the young Mr. Welles. Pea commercials be damned.
And whoever said you need to see it just for the Simpsons jokes is dead on. This and The Shining have got to be the most-referenced movies ever on that show.
Very true. For instance, listen to this amateur phonograph recording from 1899–1901. This is not a professional speaker making a public speech; this is a man recording a message for his children (or grandchildren) on Christmas. Yet his speaking style is not that different from this 1902 recording of the orator Lee Spencer, performing a famous speech by Robert G. Ingersoll.