CITIZEN KANE

The screening of Citizen Kane will take place in the newly cool and comfortable HJLT at 3pm tomorrow (Thursday). It will be a full quality DVD in glorious Wagnerian wrap around sound and not a crappy youtube clip! We are showing this film as part of the YEAR TWO HCJ course and it is required that year two attend this, so it can be viewed and then discussed in a group. But year one and year three students, and indeed students on any courses, are very welcome to attend the screening.

Why are we showing this film? Citizen Kane, first of all, is a major cultural artefact of early 20th century western culture, because it is routinely described as a masterpiece of early-ish cinema, and is rarely out of the list of the best American films of the 20th century. In this respect is as important as Germinal was to the realist movement in 19th century European literature (a topic previously discussed in HCJ2) or the essays of Addison to the early 18th century (an HCJ 1 topic). Kane is full of ideas and themes from the HCJ2 course so far this year - not least Freudianism 'rosebud!' but most particularly of course the New York newspaper circulation wars of the 1900s and of course the life and career of the film's protagonist W R Hearst (the thinly disguised model for Citizen Kane itself). Citizen Kane was made in the 1930s and it has amazing prescience in predicting the danger in the new and emerging mass media as a means of mass (standing up for 'the propaganda. In terms of politics Kane is an archetypal demagogue, and his populist posturing on the side of 'the little guy' against the Big Corporation (ie The Jews and his great rival Pulitzer) and at the same time (Union Bully Bosses) - ie the organised trade union very accurately presages the appeal of fascism (we saw in HCJ2 last week the connections between Rothermere and the British Union of Fascists, and with directly Hitler. We are looking at fascism and totalitarianism next in HCJ2 (the next huge theme we are working up to is George Orwell and the philosophy of language (post Logical Positivism). It should also be said that there are all manner of culture references in Citizen Kane including, for examople, Steinbeck and Keynesian economics, Wagnerian opera... the film is an education in its own right if you followed all the thousand and one themes. There are also very significant cineographic breakthroughs, such as the use day-for-night lighting and deep focus (I dont fully understand the technicalities of this, but Media Production and Film Production types seem to regard Kane as the the starting point for all midern film technique and camerawork - so it can be viewed from that point of view as well) Beyond that the film is simply very enjoyable and entertaining even after all these decades. If you have seen it before, don't worry come and view it again because (after the Freud lecture at least) you will see more in it, and get more from it. Like any significant cultural artefact, it rewards being seen many times over. I would assert that you are not culturally literate if you have not seen Citizen Kane - many people in the film making world for example know it almost line by line, and it is 'ripped off' in all sorts of later films (and I am afraid to say subsequent US presidents who may have adapted Kane 'Totalitarian Theatrics' - see the amazing scene of Kane in (something like) an opera house addressing a rally with a spotlight on him against the backdrop of a massive photo of himself. So the annual collective witnessing of Citzen Kane is now inaugurated as a semi-religious annual ritual on HCJ with all students welcome. Not to be missed.

Also here is a link to a learned website (for people who have had the HCJ2 lecture) tracing all the links between WR Heart and Kane. Extremely useful.

Kane it seems (for example) was the model for Montgomery Burns in The Simpsons (appropriately enough since the creator of the series has said that he based Bart Simpson on The Yellow Kid (HCJ will understand this). The Simpsons may be old hat now, but it is still the most valuable TV property in the world and made all the momey that allowed/is allowing Rupert Murdoch (very much the Citizen Kane of today) conquer a large chunk of the American media, and therefore the world's media. So this screening is not just a lecture. It is an event!