February 3: A "Citizen Kane" Afternoon

Pretty soon, I have to go teach Citizen Kane to my students.  It's a difficult film to get young people excited about.  They aren't really into trying to put together the puzzle of Charles Foster Kane.  They aren't amazed by the cinematography or the editing.  They don't really get how groundbreaking Orson Welles really was.

It's my job to somehow bring them around at least a little bit.  Of course, my whole take on Kane is that it's about one man's lifelong quest for love.  That's usually where I start the discussion.  I stand in front of the classroom and say something like, "What the f*&k is this movie about?"  It's usually gets my students' attentions.

I wish I could spend more time on Kane in a semester, but I think the students would string me up by my thumbs and beat me with a sled.  So, we only spend a little over a week in the universe of Orson.  I suppose that's enough to give these young whippersnappers a taste of the greatest film ever made.

Saint Marty will close with one final word:  "Rosebud."

This is not the greatest movie ever made...

January 28: Rosebud Afternoon

It's been a long Monday.  I'm just about ready to head off to class to teach.  We're finishing up City Lights with Charlie Chaplin, and then we will dip into Citizen Kane at the end of class.  I can hardly wait to be done with this day.

I have to say that is has been a Rosebud kind of afternoon.  In Kane, "Rosebud" is the MacGuffin, the mysterious last words of Charles Foster Kane that drive the entire film.  Of course, at the end of the movie, Rosebud is identified as Kane's childhood sled, but it really means much more than that.  It represents a simpler time in his life, a time of childhood and innocence, a time when the most important things in his world were throwing snowballs.

I kind of feel that Rosebud longing right now.  On a day-to-day basis, my schedule is a little exhausting, with work and teaching and all.  I'd love to have the kind of day I used to have as a grad student.  My Rosebud would be the office I had in the basement of the university library.  I had a beanbag chair and scented candles.  A mountain of returnable cans in the corner.  And friends.  Tons of friends who just hung around, shooting the crap, trading stories, studying Chaucer or Dante, and eating cheap food.  I didn't have another job.  I was a student and a teacher.  It was one of the best times of my life.

Say it with Saint Marty:  "Rosebud."

Where's my sled?