film criticism

Film Response #2 – Citizen Kane

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For our second response paper, we were asked to view Orson Welles’ Citizen Kane (1941) and analyze a scene and/or cinematic technique. Here’s what I submitted. I do really like the film, but there are some glaring plot holes that disturb me to my non-critical core.

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Within its non-linearal structure, one significant two-minute flashback in Orson Welles’ Citizen Kane (1941) that takes place during the interview of Mr. Leland (Joseph Cotton) at the hospital includes six brief scenes demonstrating the breakfast time exchanges between Kane (Orson Welles) and his first wife Emily Norton (Ruth Warrick), and these scenes feature clear and subtle clues to the sour trajectory of Kane’s first marriage. As the camera dissolves from Leland in the foreground to the early days of Kane’s marriage to Emily in what critic James Naremore identifies as the “celebrated breakfast table montage,” Leland states in a matter-of-fact fashion that, after the first few months, their marriage was “like any other marriage.” Through these six brief scenes, we learn that Leland’s observation of their relationship implies that most marriages begin with passion and dwindle into silent despair and contempt.

Orson Welles as Charles Foster Kane in Citizen Kane (1941)

The first scene within this two-minute flashback opens with Emily sitting daintily at the breakfast table and pours herself tea. Her bright formal gown, we realize, has been worn since the previous evening, and Kane enters jovially with a cloth napkin and food for each of them. His tuxedo and demeanor are clearly aligned with his adoration of his young wife. Throughout this exchange, Kane appears to be so enamored by her beauty that he rather rudely interrupts her speech as he repeats a compliment. The shots cut back and forth on each character during this first scene, but the indication is clear that they maintain intense eye contact. Kane’s boyish body language exhibits his helplessness against her pronounced beauty. The sexually suggestive conclusion of this first sequence implies Kane’s willingness to sacrifice time from work in order to stay with his wife. Yet, this brief moment of mental and physical attraction is never superseded in the following five scenes within this flashback, during which the contents of the breakfast table and each character’s body language serve as two key unstated changes that support Leland’s claim of the marriage’s typical downward spiral of passion. 

During the subsequent five scenes, all of the food and drink are already on the table, which suggests that Kane’s cordiality has floundered. There is no physical contact, and each character experiences an increase in stress, though Kane attempts to insert self-serving wit to wash away the building discontent. Flowers appear between them in the foreground during the opening three portions, but they are absent remaining scenes, serving as a clear metaphor for their relationship. Though we are naturally drawn to each character’s face during each interaction, the removal of the flowers creates a void between them and seems to broaden and lengthen the physical space between husband and wife. This subtle space-generator signals the growing distance among two former lovers.

Consistently, each scene opens with a medium shot of Emily always facing Kane directly; however, Kane’s position across the table moves slightly to his right over the next two medium shots on him. This “turning away” indicates a departure from the giddiness we see in the opening scene. In the fourth scene, Kane is formally dressed for his day and faces her squarely, but this repositioning is overshadowed by his business-like demeanor. Emily questions Mr. Bernstein’s presence in the nursery, but Kane coldly rejects this concern. In the penultimate exchange, each character’s facial expression has drastically shifted to concern and defense. Emily’s hopefulness to discuss matters of concern has been replaced with a clear indication of her growing frustration. Kane’s squinted eyes demonstrate his equal amount of angst. The final wordless exchange, though, serves as a powerful microcosm of their marriage’s demise. Emily’s intentional choice of her husband’s rival newspaper implies her eventual departure, and Kane’s sneer over his copy of the Inquirer echoes his selfishness. 

Naremore identifies Citizen Kane as “a series of reminiscences by witnesses to Kane’s life,” and suggests that viewers are being presented the truth through these interviews. Though Mr. Thompson’s interview with Mr. Leland creates an opportunity for this flashback, the scenes potentially misrepresent the “truth” they attempt to exhibit because they are, notably, conjecture from someone who was not in the room during these alleged exchanges. If we assume these six brief moments were constructed in Leland’s mind through a variety of Kane’s comments, we must then understand that these scenes are subjective and not objective. Thus, the subtle strategy of this flashback further emphasizes Kane’s tireless protection of his ego and appearance to the world.  Naremore also centers on the ironies of the five distinguishable extended flashbacks. The six short scenes in the singular montage between Kane and Emily include examples of irony as well. Kane and Emily appear in either contrasting colors or clothing choices. Furthermore, viewers experience dramatic irony in this flashback since neither Kane nor Emily know that their marriage will dissolve before its tragic and sudden end in her death. 

Bicycle Thieves (1948) – Response Paper 1

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*I am beginning a new graduate course today at Ball State – ENG 654 – Film Studies. We were tasked to view the film Bicycle Thieves and write a brief 500-700 word response prior to our first class session tonight.

The film is available for rent or purchase through streaming services, but there is also a site/app called Kanopy where it can be viewed for free by subscribers. My response begins under the photo below.

L: Enzo Staiola (“Bruno”); R: Lamberto Maggiorani (“Antonio”) in Bicycle Thieves (1948) directed by Vittorio De Sica.

The 1948 Italian film Ladri di biciclette (Bicycle Thieves) from director Vittorio de Sica features the quest of Antonio Ricci, a newly employed layman, who searches for his stolen bicycle. Antonio’s dependence on the bicycle is not only established quickly, but the bicycle also proves to represent various tangible and intangible elements of humanity. The bulk of the narrative exhibits Antonio modeling strong, respectable citizenship while in the company of his young son Bruno, yet Antonio reaches a moral threshold that clearly demonstrates a central struggle through an example of the circumstances that would lead anyone to contradict one’s own ethical code. 

The choice of the bicycle for this purpose is apt due to its multifaceted symbolic power. The universality and familiarity with bicycles contributes to the power of the film’s general thesis which exhibits the challenges one man faces with his own moral code while under extreme duress. Bicycles are often associated with youth as the first mode of transportation that truly separates the owner/rider from his or her home and outside the realm of visible adult supervision, which conjures the notion of one gaining independence. The independence Antonio desires is not one of isolation from others but rather one that would remove him out from under the weight and struggle of poverty. As Antonio’s story develops, the bicycle further serves as a symbolic generational bond between Antonio and his son, and the clarity of the father-son relationship blurs at the same pace as the whereabouts of the stolen bicycle. 

The opening sequence of the film cleverly establishes the immediate, yet undefined, significance that owning a bicycle has for Antonio, and this leads to the first of many conflicts the protagonist faces. Viewers are immediately immersed in the struggle all of the unemployed workers experience, and their frustration with the lack of opportunity quickly becomes a microcosm for the oppressed individuals. Because Antonio has pawned his bicycle, his wife Maria decides that selling their bedsheets, objects she clearly treasures, is worth the sacrifice so Antonio can not only reach the desired position but eventually earn enough to take them out of their dire financial state. Thus, the specific bicycle he re-claims serves as a physical representation of his past debt and current cash crisis. 

What is so striking about this scene is how quickly Maria’s sharp and selfless idea to pawn the sheets comes to her when compared to the visibly painful and helplessness Antonio displayed after accepting the job bid. In this scene, De Sica could be promoting the maternal instinct to think of the entire family’s needs before her own, but this altruistic action is never later discussed among the couple. However, upon buying back his bicycle, viewers watch through Antonio’s vantagepoint as the sheets they’d just sold are stored into an immense and seemingly endless collection. It is clear De Sica felt an obligation to contrast these two through tangible goods for this scene to garner as much as time as it does. 

Once the bicycle is stolen, the narrative’s tone returns to the struggle the unemployment line conjured in the opening scene. Antonio helplessly chases after the thief, earns little or no respect from law enforcement, and becomes visibly fraught with the notion of returning home to his wife and newborn to explain the loss. Interestingly, De Sica opts to allow the viewer to watch the seedy heist the three-man team of thieves initiate come to fruition, which makes the audience experience the struggle and helplessness right alongside Antonio. Because the lone thief who rode off initially was shown briefly and only in profile, the audience cannot be any more sure than Antonio himself when he believes he’s found him the following afternoon. De Sica thus forces Antonio and the viewer to consider one’s willingness to reach closure, even if it means putting others into a poorer condition. 

Lively…on Beyonce (?)

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Much of the conversation in class after we finished viewing Lemonade this week centered on the expansive funding required to produce a professionally scripted and directed visual album that features elaborate costuming, choreography, and set designing. There is something to be said about the size of the platform Beyonce has by leading the production of this film, but that creates a slippery slope. These discussions can, for example, suggest that various hypothetical redistributions of the presumably hefty final costs of a project of this size might have directly benefited intended viewers and very people it features. That said, the film has spawned a large academic response in just three years, so it stands to reason that scholarship on it will only grow at a higher frequency in the coming years. Thus, our attention should be redirected toward the functionality and general value of the film.   

Ashleigh Shackleford’s article discusses representation, and the tone of her essay mixes compliments with condemnation. The notion of representation is an intriguing one because, on the surface, it seems to be the most respectful way to display oneself artistically as conscientious of minorities and marginalized groups. However, meeting our collective idea of how we are differentiated (e.g. age, gender, sexuality, ableness, skin tone) would lean toward inclusion more than it would representation. Shackleford sees the film as a missed opportunity for Beyonce et al. to destroy stereotypes from within the Black community because the film does not include any “fat” Black women, especially since “fat” professional dancers exist, but none were brought into the fold of this film’s creation. If this criticism of the film were included as a paired text with Lemonade for undergraduates or high school students, the instructor has an obligation to chart the distinct differences between these two terms. 

One of the arcs presented throughout the visual narrative is that of a jaded lover who vocalizes her inquiries as to the whereabouts of someone with whom she is intimate, and we  eventually see that she has correctly guessed at/uncovered his disloyalty. A particularly curious portion of the narrative that stands out early in the film is the baseball-bat wielding version of Beyonce whose anger is represented through various acts of glass-smashing, denting, and crushing while maintaining a presumably satisfied smirk. While these criminal acts may not just be a thinly veiled revenge trope, the sinister exuberance she appears to be experiencing while creating so much havoc is simultaneously progressive and regressive. Fearlessly acting out an immediate impulse to destroy can inspire (especially impressionable) viewers to react just as violently through similar vivid, lasting “statements” when they are victimized. However, it is equally regressive not to promote a less violent response. The Louisville Slugger-swinging character clearly represents a fed-up woman whose struggle while being on the receiving end of a (now former) lover’s emotional abuse are behind her. This angry, reactionary, and physically agile persona exemplifies the liberating ramifications of shedding the anvils of a toxic relationship by violently (and/or maniacally?) destroying objects of literal or sentimental value, but the character here is less directly reminding viewers that it is only the relationship–not the individual–that has died. Perhaps a second missed opportunity lay in the absent scenes of this liberated, untethered woman celebrating a personal or professional success instead of the imagery of instant gratification, which, at its core, perpetuates the adrenaline-enhanced–but relatively brief–antidote that a smashing ceremony does for one’s soul.