Dork Calling Orson Wednesday, May 07, 2008

I've been on a Welles kick lately, after reading a book of interviews. (Obligatory trivia: Orson, like Hitchcock, was raised a Catholic. God loves fatsos.) Sadly, most of his movies just don't hold up--he either didn't have the money to finish them, or he didn't have the final cut, so you end up with bastardized mishmashes. "Mr. Arkadin," for instance, has lots of great flourishes but ultimately just comes off as disjointed and silly.

"Citizen Kane," of course, was the one time he had total control, the one time a movie looked exactly the way he wanted it to. And it shows. It's not a perfect movie by any stretch, but damn if it's not a singular vision, top to bottom. The look, the acting, the vibe, even the credits--it's a genre all to itself. (At least until David Lynch came along. This is probably obvious to all the film geeks in the audience [Mom?], but there are so many influences there, from the weird cuts and camera angles to abrupt changes in tone...amazing.)

Watching "Kane" again, for the first time in years, I had a Deep Thought. The going interpretation seems to be that Rosebud stands for Kane's lost childhood. But I wonder if it actually stands for his lost son. The movie tells us, as a quick aside in newsreel footage, that Kane's first wife and son died in a car crash just after the divorce. There's no scene where Kane gets the news, or reflects on the deaths, or otherwise mourns. I wonder if "Rosebud" represents a delayed reaction to the news. Coming to the end of his own life, Kane flashes back to his childhood and all the happiness he lost--and then realizes his own kid lost everything.

Any takers out there?

@ 3:55:00 PM,

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