Re: Top 27 best movies - ever
I'm not necessarily obsessed with Pauline Kael's introduction to "The Citizen Kane Book," it just strikes me as such a cheap shot and a missed opportunity to honor the guy. Try to recall the scene in Kane where (as a young man) he's sitting at his desk eating. Joseph Cotton asks: "Are you still eating?" Kane replies: "I'm still hungry." Then shouts for the waiter, Joseph, to bring him more.
Kael refers to this scene as having been "caught," like it was some d*am accident. People are coming and going. Mr. Bernstein, Joseph Cotton, Joseph. All talking at once. Lots of angles. Bogdanovich doesn't spare Kael harsh criticism here. You can actually hear the sarcasm in his voice at the notion that a complicated scene, with lots of actors and lots of dialogue was "caught." And how lucky Welles, as the director, was to have "caught" it. This was a woman who, for whatever reason, who dedicated herself in this piece to tearing down Welles. But only revealed herself as a cinematic poseur. "Caught," indeed.
Welles and Houseman did that production (as part of a New Deal theater program -- today it would be decried as "elitist waste"). Welles also did a production of Julius Caesar with Mercury. Late in his career he played Othello (a very highly regarded performance that I personally find somnambulent). He also did the movie "Chimes at Midnight" which is a pastiche of the Henriad and which Harold Bloom in "The Invention of the Human" said (paraphrasing) that it's the only competent rendering of Shakespeare to ever come out of Hollywood.
Welles allegedly once said that he was born as Hamlet in America and retired as Falstaff in England.
I'm not necessarily obsessed with Pauline Kael's introduction to "The Citizen Kane Book," it just strikes me as such a cheap shot and a missed opportunity to honor the guy. Try to recall the scene in Kane where (as a young man) he's sitting at his desk eating. Joseph Cotton asks: "Are you still eating?" Kane replies: "I'm still hungry." Then shouts for the waiter, Joseph, to bring him more.
Kael refers to this scene as having been "caught," like it was some d*am accident. People are coming and going. Mr. Bernstein, Joseph Cotton, Joseph. All talking at once. Lots of angles. Bogdanovich doesn't spare Kael harsh criticism here. You can actually hear the sarcasm in his voice at the notion that a complicated scene, with lots of actors and lots of dialogue was "caught." And how lucky Welles, as the director, was to have "caught" it. This was a woman who, for whatever reason, who dedicated herself in this piece to tearing down Welles. But only revealed herself as a cinematic poseur. "Caught," indeed.
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