RNL
Global Moderator
Posts: 6,624
|
Post by RNL on Aug 2, 2009 23:45:39 GMT
Features 1. Citizen Kane (1941) ***** 2. Touch of Evil (1958) ***** 3. The Trial (1962) ***** 4. F for Fake (1972) ***** 5. The Stranger (1946) ***** 6. The Magnificent Ambersons (1942) ***** 7. The Lady from Shanghai (1947) ***** 8. Mr Arkadin (1955) *****
Shorts 1. The Hearts of Age (1934) *****
I must watch The Magnificent Ambersons again. Nearly four years since I saw that, wow...
|
|
|
Post by Michael on Aug 3, 2009 0:05:44 GMT
Features1. Citizen Kane (1941) ***** firealzies yo?
|
|
Kino
Published writer
Posts: 1,200
|
Post by Kino on Aug 4, 2009 3:45:35 GMT
I think I am the only one who didn't find Citizen kane interesting. I couldn't even finish the movie. I am planning to rewatch it. I really want to like it and appear cool among the cinema elite ( ), but I seriously suspect that it is going to be even more underwhelming the next time. Citizen Kane I find it to be a highly entertaining film. It's quite funny at times.
|
|
|
Post by svsg on Aug 4, 2009 16:31:17 GMT
I found it much easier to watch it this time, so it was not as bad as I had remembered it to be in terms of entertainment.
|
|
Kino
Published writer
Posts: 1,200
|
Post by Kino on Aug 4, 2009 20:49:31 GMT
What did you think of the film's visual style? What were the things that impressed you?
|
|
|
Post by svsg on Aug 4, 2009 21:29:46 GMT
I liked some things visually - the use of huge spaces especially, like in the scene where one of his wives plays jigsaw. The physical distance between them was kind of nice, showing loneliness, separation and also the fact that they were just two people living in a ridiculously large home.
--Another instance I liked is the election campaign with a large poster of Kane behind. It reflected his ego well.
--I didn't care much about low angle shots, which in my feeling didn't convey anything special to me, given its frequent use in the film. I don't buy the theory that low angle shows the subject in superior light or larger than life etc etc.
--I really really didn't care for the deep focus. For example, the scene where the wife swallows poison (or sleeping pills, I don't recall) and both the bottle and the door are in focus. Apparently this was done with a special overlay of two frames. As though it is supposed to make any difference! I mean, how bad would it be if a rack focus was used to switch between the bottle and the door? It is cool, and all that, but meh from me.
|
|
Kino
Published writer
Posts: 1,200
|
Post by Kino on Aug 4, 2009 21:53:53 GMT
--I didn't care much about low angle shots, which in my feeling didn't convey anything special to me, given its frequent use in the film. I don't buy the theory that low angle shows the subject in superior light or larger than life etc etc. I don't believe in a codified film language in that close up always conveys intimacy or low angle always conveys inferiority/superiority or larger-than-life-ness. However, I don't see not buying it in the sense that it's something far-fetched. It's a very reasonable interpretation and artistic motivation/justification. Was it possible to rack focus back then? I'm ignorant in regards to the technology, but I don't recall the use of it back then. If the answer to that is no then the alternative would be to do an insert shot of the pills. The viewer can choose what to look at whenever he/she chooses to. With rack focus or an insert shot, it's look here, then there. Also, not having deep focus in that shot means we don't get to see Kane when he's out of focus. Sure, we get the gist that he's there and we can fill in the blank, but it's also a different physical experience seeing/feeling him in focus the whole time as well as registering the sleeping pills. Also, deep focus is closer to how we see things in real life. A sort of realism (i.e., contiguous space and time) with the long takes, deep focus, and medium/long distance shots is one of the aims of the film's style. It's like a two-shot. Both characters are in the frame and we choose who to look at whenever we want. Peripheral vision plays a part as well. A director can obviously stage the exact same scene with singles in the ubiquitous shot-reverse shot, but ultimately it's a different physical, visceral, emotional, etc. experience. Even if it doesn't consciously register with the viewer.
|
|
RNL
Global Moderator
Posts: 6,624
|
Post by RNL on Aug 4, 2009 22:50:59 GMT
Rack focus closer approximates human vision though, doesn't it? Deep focus is more flattening, paradoxically; it 'two-dimensionalizes' the picture plane, allowing us to looks at objects at different 'distances' from our eyes without refocusing our irises (insofar as the camera lens stands in for our eyes, because obviously all parts of a film image are the same physical distance from the viewer).
|
|
Kino
Published writer
Posts: 1,200
|
Post by Kino on Aug 4, 2009 23:01:37 GMT
That's true. I was thinking more in terms of things not going out of focus in human vision to the extent as it does in rack focus.
|
|