CITIZEN KANE

"I didn't know he was collecting diamonds." "He's collecting someone who collects diamonds"--CITIZEN KANE

Tonight I saw Orson Welles' 1941 classic CITIZEN KANE for the umpteenth time, at the Fairview screening room with the Classic Movie Meetup.  Despite all the times I've seen it, I still notice new details.  Like in the breakfast-table sequence, when they show them silent, he's reading his own newspaper while she's reading the rival sheet.  Or when he meets Susan for the first time, she says "I can give you... hot water," rather suggestively.  Or when Leland says, "You should sail to a desert island and lord it over the monkeys," reminding me of the opening shots in Xanadu, showing the monkeys in his menagerie.  Or the line in the singer's encomium: "With wealth and fame, he's still the same!" Or Kane jokingly saying, "You don't expect me to keep those promises, do you?"

What more is there to say about CITIZEN KANE?  Lots.  Like that the older Kane reminded me of Donald Trump. (When Giuseppe was giving me a singing lesson once I mentioned something about Trump and he immediately said, "I don't think much of him." Giuseppe's very upfront about people he thinks little of.) Or that Bernstein's story of seeing the girl on the other ferry and thinking about her ever since has something of an F. Scott Fitzgerald tone.  Or that I find the scene where he trashes Susan's room a bit conventional.  Of course, the meaning of "Rosebud" is a McGuffin, important only in giving the reporters something to search for. (Welles saw this more clearly than his screenwriter Herman Mankiewicz, adding the speech at the end suggesting that even if they solved the mystery it wouldn't be the big explanation they hoped for.)

The Classic Movie Meetup will be showing MEET JOHN DOE on Monday (they should have let Gary Cooper jump at the end) and THE FRENCH CONNECTION next month.  But alas, the former conflicts with my choir practice and the latter is on the same day that I'm seeing the PARSIFAL digital broadcast.