Citizen Kane

Citizen Kane is an American classic movie.  It was written and directed by Orson Wells in 1941.  He actually portrayed the leading character.  It was his first feature film. 

The main character, Charles Foster Kane, was a wealthy media proprietor living alone in an estate for the last years of his life.  The movie opens up with Mr. Kane lying on his death bed.  He was holding a snow globe and utters the word “Rosebud”.  The snow globe slips out of his dying hand and rolls onto the floor and shatters into pieces.  His death then becomes a media sensation. Jerry Thompson, a newsreel reporter, tries to find out about Charles Foster Kane’s private life and in particular, discover the meaning behind his last dying word, “Rosebud”.  The reporter starts interviewing Charles’ family, wives, business associates and friends and the story unfolds into a series of flashbacks.  The technique of using flashbacks had been used in earlier films but no film was so immersed in this technique as in this movie.

The flashbacks reveal that Charles’ childhood was spent in poverty.  His parents ran a boarding house. However, in lieu of payment one month, a tenant gives his mother some stock which turns out to give them ownership to one of the world’s largest gold mines.  Finding herself suddenly wealthy, she sends her young son, Charles, away to be raised by her banker.   This separation from his parents and home leaves Charles insecure and resentful.  He felt abandoned and unloved.  As a result, he grows up to be an arrogant man.

At the age of twenty-five, he starts working in the newspaper business and ends up running the New York Inquirer.   He becomes very powerful and manipulative.

During this time, Charles’ attitude alienates him from everyone who cares about him and he eventually loses his business, family and friends.  He is alone from the outside world.  He dies at his home all by himself. 

The question throughout the film continues to be who or what is “Rosebud”.  Director Welles does a great job of keeping the audience curious and intrigued.  The flashback scenes of Charles’ life were informative but still did not give away the answer to the question on the audience’s mind.

Finally, at the end of the movie, it is revealed to the viewers that “Rosebud” was the name of Charles’ sled that he treasured from his very early childhood days.  It is ironic that “Rosebud” actually symbolizes that the only time the main character was truly happy was during his early childhood years when he had nothing. All the riches and power Charles Kane had obtained and worked for during his adult life did not compare with the happiness he had back then.  The ending puts a great twist on a movie about a power-hungry individual who really did not need any of those things to be happy in life.

The Battleship Potemkin

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The 1925 silent film, The Battleship Potemkin, directed by Sergei Eisenstein, is one of the earliest and most influential propaganda films ever made. When released, The Battleship Potemkin was a controversial movie, portraying the 1905 massacre by the soldiers on a Russian battleship. Today, this film is considered a classic movie.

 In the film, Director Eisenstein uses his theories on editing in an attempt to fool with the audience’s emotions and cause for viewers to feel sympathy towards the soldiers who rebel against their leaders. He had a lot of success with the film overseas, although the reviews were originally mixed in the United States. However, over time, audiences have grown fonder of the film. The way the director portrayed the evilness of the regime and the pain behind the victims made it one of the first of its kind in propaganda filming. 

The most influential and popular scene of the movie comes when the evil soldiers are shown marching down the Odessa Steps. It is here that the gruesome massacre of innocent civilians takes place in what can be considered a controversial scene.  Director Eisenstein created the scene in his mind and it was not based on any reality.  As in today’s movies, most of the film is based on actual events with some fiction written in to keep the audience interested.  In this scene, many victims are shown being shot and executed including an elder woman, a school girl and a young boy with his mother. As if these slayings wouldn’t affect an audience enough, Director Eisenstein ends the scene showing a mother being shot to death as her baby’s carriage quickly begins rolling down the steps. The baby is shown crying as the carriage begins picking up speed with the massacre being shown in the background. In this gory montage, the director shows the carelessness of authority and makes the audience feel terrible for the victims as not even an innocent baby would be saved. At the time that this film was made, these scenes were some of the most controversial in the movie.  This is one of the first films made using this technique.

This film makes me think about all the gruesome war style movies today that intrigue audiences so much around the world. Examples are movies such as Pearl Harbor, The Patriot and Saving Private Ryan. Obviously these films are much more advanced in technology and contain great storytelling behind the gory war depictions. However, Director Eisenstein depicting the innocent people being shot dead and the mother yelling out to her child with a bloody and beaten face were the first war scenes an audience ever viewed. When I think of it in that perspective, it is pretty amazing all the editing and make up that went into trying to make the audience feel the devastation behind the actual 1905 massacre. This editing, once again one of the first films to use this technique, contributes to the classic movie classification of The Battleship Potemkin.

 

Nanook of the North



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Nanook of the North is a 1922 silent documentary film directed by Robert J. Flaherty.  In this classic film, the story is told of Inuit Eskimo, Nanook, and his family, as they struggle to survive in the harsh conditions of Canada’s Hudson Bay Region.  This documentary was the first of its kind and describes the daily activities of hunting, fishing and the building of shelter to a group of people who have not been touched by industrial technology.

In this film, the director uses title cards.  This card is like a “pop-up” box which explains to the audience what event will be happening next in the film.  It also provides any important factual information that the director deems necessary to help the viewer understand the film better.  I have to say that I liked this way of watching a silent movie.  It kept me well informed.

After the introduction of Nanook, his wife and children, the film starts out with Nanook trying to find food for his family. The weather is freezing and the food supply has become very scarce. He comes across a group of walruses sleeping on the shoreline. After a battle with one of the walruses and its mate, he is finally able to harpoon one.  Nanook is happy.  Animals from the land and sea not only provide food for the Eskimo but also are used in the making of their clothing and fuel.

Director Flannery’s camera also captures Nanook on a seal hunt. This was definitely not an easy task and the audience continues to see the harsh terms the Eskimo endures in order to survive the elements of the Arctic.  

One of the film’s most interesting scenes to me was the making of their dwelling, the igloo.  Nanook and some of the other Eskimos start by using large pieces of snow and stacking them in a circle. Then large pieces of ice are carved with a knife and inserted into the cut out holes in the igloo walls to make windows.   Bear and deer skins are used to cover the floors and provide warmth to their home.

Unfortunately, there are some who say that Nanook of the North is not a true documentary.  Some of the scenes may lack authenticity.  Director Flannery may have staged some of Nanook’s activities especially in the hunt for the walrus and seal.

However, in the Director’s defense, I feel that it was difficult for Flannery to be completely accurate with the elements he had to work with (this being the use of one camera, no lights, and of course, the horrendous weather conditions).  Even if some of the scenes were not completely accurate, I believe that he accurately portrayed the difficulties and obstacles that the Inuit Eskimos endures.  The film also shows the audience how much Flannery respected and had a deep admiration for Nanook, his family and the Inuit Eskimos.  He truly showed the lifestyle and ideas of a completely different culture to the American audience.

In my opinion, what makes Nanook of the North a classic movie is because people from any era or age group would be fascinated to actually be able to view another way of life taking place so far from their own.     

   

The Great Train Robbery

 



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The Great Train Robbery is a 14-scene, one reel classic, western movie filmed in 1903.  It was the first silent movie that presented an action narrative story.  It depicts a group of outlaws who take over a train and rob the passengers on board of all their valuables.  The opening scene begins with the clerk at the train station being assaulted and tied up by two bandits.  The two bandits then meet up with two more bandits where they wait for the train to stop to ambush it.  The audience is left with anticipation as they wait to see what happens next.  When the train stops, two of the bandits meet up with a crew member, shoot him and use dynamite to open a box of valuables.  In the meantime, the other two bandits work to get rid of the train engineers.  One is beaten profusely and thrown overboard (a dummy was used to protect the actor from injuries) while the other is held at gunpoint.  He is instructed to disconnect the train cars from the locomotive.  The outlaws then release all of the passengers from their train coaches and make them surrender all of their valuables.  One man tries to run to escape but he is shot in the back and left to die.  All the passengers look on in disbelief and shock.  The bandits then take off and escape in the locomotive.  They stop a few miles down the train track and head into the woods where their horses are waiting for them.

The film then cuts back to the unconscious clerk in the train station.  A young girl comes into the room and sees him and tries to wake him up.  Her attempts are futile until she gets a small glass of water and throws it into his face.  He immediately wakes up and the two quickly leave the station to get help.

A group of men and women partying at a bar are informed by the wakened clerk of the train robbery.  They immediately form a posse and head into the woods on horses in pursuit of the bandits.  They come across the robbers and a battle begins.  Guns shots are exchanged and one by one the bandits are killed.

The movie concludes with an unusual scene.  The viewers assume that the film is over when one of the outlaws appears on screen and points his gun directly to the camera and fires several shots.  This gave the audience an element of surprise.

The Great Train Robbery has a lot of elements that people enjoy while watching a film such as action, violence and suspense.   Due to the fact that it is a silent movie, the director used several new editing techniques (traveling to different location settings, cross cutting and camera movement, just to name a few) to help tell the story and make it visually exciting.  The popularity of this film shows that the director achieved that goal making it one of the best classic short films of all times.