ILX Film Club, The (1924-2019)

Anyway, bit late but probably less to say about this one.

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c0/Citizen_Kane_poster%2C_1941_%28Style_B%2C_unrestored%29.jpg

Citizen Kane, Orson Welles, 1941

Morbsies #19
Sight & Sound Critics #3
Sight & Sound Directors #2

pretty good iirc

Never heard of it

Obligatory

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5PyAO91qArI

Never heard of it

Also obligatory

https://tedhicksfilmetc.files.wordpress.com/2014/11/rosebud-was-his-sled2-peanuts.jpg

I think with Citizen Kane it does help to watch a ton of Hollywood movies from the years preceding it - and not just the acclaimed masterpieces - to see how wild what he was doing on a formal level was.

"Make Way for Tomorrow, Leo McCarey, 1937"

Screening of this at the BFI on the 24th, as part of the Ozu season.

― xyzzzz__, Tuesday, 5 September 2023 bookmarkflaglink

Good to see older people being front and centre of a film.

I found this script with edits fascinating. Welles removed Kane's lines that tried to justify his behavior. Reminds me of Joyce cutting the narrative voice out of the Dubliners stories.
https://www.wellesnet.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/Citizen-Kane-3rd-Revised-Final-Script-With-Overlay.pdf

!!

Smoother and more natural: Welles added hundreds of small edits and additions that created more natural speaking and focused communication between characters. These changes also often resulted in opportunities for overlapping dialogue, a device that increases the realism of conversations; overlapping dialogue would become a trademark of Welles’ direction.

Some additions are more realistic as the result of Welles making them longer and more detailed. For example, in the scene of Susan Alexander rehearsing in a pathetic singing lesson with Signore Matiste – a scene in which it becomes painfully obvious that she cannot sing – every version of the draft scripts showed the scene begin with Susan singing for a few seconds, Matiste stopping her, and Kane then interrupting.

During production, Welles made this scene much more realistic – and emotionally draining for Susan – by writing expanded instructions for Matiste to Susan, showing him desperately and unsuccessfully trying to coax a decent performance from her while Kane watches at the back of the room; only then does Kane intrude.
watches at the back of the room; only then does Kane intrude

Finished watching this again last night, think around the 10th time I've seen it and was expecting to have nothing new to say about it (as was the case in the 9th viewing) but actually there was loads I picked up on this time and it made me wonder how much I'd really seen before. So much in the way of little details which you'll miss if you look away for a moment - like when Susan says "you know what mothers are" and he nods and you know he's thinking about how he never really knew his mother.

I was impressed by how much of the cinematography was straight out of German expressionism - deep focus with close-ups and action in the background, the way the camera is always positioned so low, the stark lighting - that shot with the bird and the scream is straight from a surrealist film. The first section (the newsreel about his life) in particular is so packed with detail, especially if you've seen the film before. Never really paid attention to the shot of him on the balcony with Hitler before.

In terms of general themes, think I've always taken Citizen Kane to be about the corrupting influence of power and money (so is Citizen Kane ultimately an anti-capitalist film? etc.) but increasingly thinking this is just a convenient lie Kane falls back on towards his death, in fact Kane never has any principles to corrupt, even from the start of his time at the newspaper he is completely full of shit, lying and setting himself up as man of the people while he obviously doesn't care about anyone but himself. The statement of principles clearly never means anything at all, it's just an advertising gimmick. It's not that he gets more corrupt, he just slowly realises he can't use his money and charm to get everything he wants. The film is also a portrait of an abusive relationship, his emotional manipulation and barely supressed violence towards Susan are genuinely disturbing.

So yeah, glad I watched this again. And on to the one I should be watching this week.

Such a fun movie.

Kane is Gatsby, Reagan -- the archetypal Man from Nowhere who recreates himself into a brilliant charismatic nullity.

This In Our Time discussion on Citizen Kane is well worth listening to - https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m001g37l

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b3/CasablancaPoster-Gold.jpg

Casablanca, Michael Curtiz, 1942

Morbsies #102
Sight & Sound Critics #63

Another biggie, and not even worth looking for a youtube link.

Maybe the film with the most iconic lines that just keep coming and coming?
Brilliant film.

incredible

If you break it down, is it even the best role for each of the actors? I think of at least a half-dozen other Bogart movies first before “oh yeah…”

I can’t think of any other movie where the alchemy of movies itself is legit magical.

Big recommendation to go see it in a non-digital theater. Legit awestruck at how efficient it is at being the greatest movie ever.

I watched it in colour, and with a happier ending.

Pretty damn daring to release a film like this during the actual war.

Dunno about that, the US was already involved - plenty of examples of Hollywood productions attacking Hitler before the US joined tho (Chaplin the most obvious).

It’s been way too long since I’ve seen (and meh’d) this one. I owe it a rewatch

I was about to post basically the same thing. I don't know about y'all but I saw so many parodies and references to this before I ever got around to seeing the film that my exp was entirely postmodern—all those iconic lines were just quotations I'd already heard repeatedly. Very difficult to actually enjoy it under those circumstances, wish I'd managed to see it as a kid first.

Maybe the film with the most iconic lines that just keep coming and coming?

I watched it once with a friend who'd never seen it and all through the movie he kept going, "Oh, that's where that line comes from."

I love Casablanca unreservedly. I understand its weaknesses, hokiness, implausibilities, overheated melodrama etc etc, but it's still just so great. I agree that it might not be any of the actors' best roles — except maybe Claude Raines — but the whole is much greater than the sum. So many great little moments — "Liebchen, what watch?" "Yvonne, I love you — but he pays me" "Vultures, vultures everywhere"

It's a hoot.

Rains, sorry.

If I were a woman, and I were not around, I should be in love with Rick.

Claude Rains is really good in a David Lean film none of y’all seem to have seen called The Passionate Friends.

i've never found that the sense of "already seen thru endless references" has spoiled Casablanca for me, but i do ask myself if it's notably better than other well-crafted ensemble pieces of its era and i kinda think no it isn't exceptional

luckily i don't keep league tables lol

I never watch it willingly but won't change the channel when it's on. Michael Curtiz sure knew how to use light and, as Orson Welles pointed out, direct crowds. He didn't know how to use Ingrid Bergman, who is both ideally cast and gives her worst performance to date.

I was about to post basically the same thing. I don't know about y'all but I saw so many parodies and references to this before I ever got around to seeing the film that my exp was entirely postmodern—all those iconic lines were just quotations I'd already heard repeatedly. Very difficult to actually enjoy it under those circumstances, wish I'd managed to see it as a kid first.

Didn't have this at all with Casablanca, but did have it with those Star Wars movies. Watched the original trilogy around age 12 and my takeaway was "cool, now I know what all those references are from" and nothing else.

but i do ask myself if it's notably better than other well-crafted ensemble pieces of its era and i kinda think no it isn't exceptional

post your POX ensemble pieces of that era so we can quibble

these are .... kinda forced criticisms as far as they are criticisms imo

"ive nothing bad to say about this but gimme five mins"

The thing moves too.

It's a small detail and not that uncommon in Hollywood at the time, but: nice to see an American film with lots of foreign languages being spoken correctly by native speakers of those languages.

post your POX ensemble pieces of that era so we can quibble

For one, Only Angels Have Wings makes utter mincemeat of Casablanca on basically every front

(tbh it's unfair to compare any movie to Angels)

I love it too, despite Jean Arthur

*ducks*

Aw, I like her in it a lot. But OK, the female lead is the one admitted advantage Casablanca has then

Casablanca totally wins in the star power stakes I'm sorry - Thomas Mitchell, Richard Barthelmess and Noah Beery Jr are fine, but stacked up against Claude Rains, Sidney Greenstreet and Peter Lorre?

I've written on ILX that Jean Arthur and I are not simpatico, The Talk of the Town and The More the Merrier excepted.

these are .... kinda forced criticisms as far as they are criticisms imo

"ive nothing bad to say about this but gimme five mins"

― close encounters of the third knid (darraghmac), Thursday, September 28, 2023 1:56 PM (thirty-seven minutes ago)

sure I wondered if I needed to post tbh, but was curious if anyone had had the same experience / genuinely lament that the film was essentially drained of energy for me before getting to see it. Daniel's SW response was interesting, as this really is the only film I can think of where I've had this experience, partially down to how thorough the parodies sometimes were. Like as a counter-example, when I saw Taxi Driver I'd def heard the mirror bit dozens of times before, but none of the rest of it was familiar. Casablanca I'd heard quotes, misquotes, plot points, etc. I honestly think it's a bit strange! totally subjective too of course, just an odd quirk of my personal childhood media consumption choices

tbf the oft quoted/parodied bits of Taxi Driver are really only a couple of scenes or so. I wonder how many films there are that have been as thoroughly swallowed by popcult references as Casablanca and SW - Wizard Of Oz maybe? I liked that when I saw it but perhaps not as much as I could've.

it would be funny if Scorsese's Taxi Driver monologue got parodied in Tiny Toons or whatever

I wonder how many films there are that have been as thoroughly swallowed by popcult references

yeah this was what I was trying to get at. this is *the* exemplar of this phenomenon for me, having somehow missed it until my 20s

what truly killed it for me was seeing THAHN before it, on the big screen too. plus, y'know, the cheesy script. plus seeing it on a plane lol

xp maybe tbf maybe

there's definitely examples where id personally feel similarly but im not sure to the point where it obscures the movie (then how would one know i suppose)

Oh, and "As Time Goes By" is truly one of those Golden Age Hollywood songs that still kills it every single time