Communications 150

January 19, 1999

Announcements:  None.

Lecture Notes:

I.  Cross Gender Sensitization

    A.  Some Like it Hot

• In Chicago, Joe and Jerry are masculine gangsters in a violent world
• On the way to Florida, they are sensitized to the plights of women
• Emphasis on physicality; signal of biological difference
• Example:  bathroom scenes
• Men discovered that in order to pursue women, they must give up their disguise

• Dustin Hoffman plays a struggling actor
• The only way he can get a job is to become a woman for a part on a soap opera
• He is also sensitized to women issues
• To successfully pursue a woman, played by Jessica Lang, he must reveal his true self

• Restoration of gender difference at the end; heterosexuality is confirmed
• Offers audience vicarious trespass into taboo ways of thinking - cross dressing, gender ambivalence

II.  Goodfellas:  Modernist Narration

    A.  Violates Hollywood narrative style

• The movie does not begin in a state of equilibrium

• Classic style demands invisibility to draw audience into the movie
• In Goodfellas, Henry Hill directly addresses the camera, which is not usually done
• The purpose is to question the mythology of the gangster film
• Usually gangster rises up to point of power, wealth
• However, Hill ends up living in suburban anonymity
• It also shows how voice-over narration is an artificial construct

• Violates typical convention of narrative, visibility

• Style adopted in Citizen Kane
• Means "putting on the stage"
• Editing is avoided to force the audience to contemplate what is on the screen
• Guides audience attention very specifically
• There is a scene in Kane's office:
• very crowded room with a lot of material objects around
• suggests that Kane is very busy
• implies that he is on his way to success

• Deep focus - all objects (in foreground, mid ground, and background) are kept in crystalline focus
• Depends on a lack of editing in order for it to work
• Forces audience to analyze scene and determine what is important

MOVIE:  CITIZEN KANE
 

1.    The first scene is at Xanadu.  Charles Kane is holding a snow globe in one hand, he says the word "Rosebud", drops the globe , and dies.

2.    We next see a news report about Xanadu, and Charles Kane's life and death.  After it is over, editors in a newsroom are discussing it.  One reporter, Thompson, is given the assignment to find out what Rosebud means.

3.    Thompson first goes to see Kane's second wife, Susan Alexander, in a restaurant, where she is drunk.  She refuses to talk to him about Kane.

4.    Thompson then goes to Walter Thatcher's library to look at manuscripts about Kane.
       Flashbacks:

• We see Charlie as a young boy at Mrs. Kane's boarding house.  The Kane's are in the house signing papers to sell Charlie to Mr. Thatcher.  Outside they tell Charlie he is going on a "trip" with Mr. Thatcher.
• Kane is supposed to take over Thatcher's fortune, business, etc.  But he wants to run a newspaper.  His newspaper loses a million dollars a year at first, but he doesn't care because he has so much money.

5.    Thompson then goes to see Mr. Bernstein, who was pretty much Kane's partner at the newspaper.
        Flashbacks:

• The day they took over the Inquirer, Bernstein, Kane, and Jed Leland, Kane's oldest friend, meet Mr. Carter, the editor-in-chief of the paper.  Kane tells him that he will be living in Mr. Carter's office as long as he has to.
• Kane comes up with a declaration of principles for himself and the paper which will be printed on the front page.  They take over the Chronicle's team of newsmen and the Inquirer becomes the most circulated newspaper in New York.
• Kane goes on a vacation to Europe.  When he comes back he is engaged to Emily Monroe Norton, the niece of a president.

6.    Thompson goes to a nursing home to talk to Mr. Leland, who tells him about Emily.  He also says that all Charlie wanted out of life was love.
        Flashbacks:

• Charlie and Emily usually only saw each other at breakfast because Charlie was always at the paper.  At first their relationship was good.  Then you see Charlie and Emily at the table over the years and you can see how their relationship is crumbling.
• Kane runs into a woman on the street who invites him up to her apartment.  They spend a lot of time together.
• Kane runs for governor of New York.  His campaign is to protect underprivileged, underpaid, and the underfed.  He plans to convict and indict Jim Geddes.  After the speech, Emily takes Kane to an apartment, which turns out to be Geddes'.  The woman he met on the street, Susan Alexander, is there.  Geddes threatens to publish a story about Charlie and Susan's affair.  Emily then divorces him.
• The story is printed and Kane loses the election.  Jed meets with Kane and tells him he is going to Chicago.
• Kane marries Susan and builds her an opera house.
• He goes to see Jed, who is writing a pitiful review of Susan's opera performance.  Kane fires him and rewrites the review.

• Susan wanted to quit singing because she was so bad and got such horrible reviews.  Kane wouldn't let her because that would make him look ridiculous.  She almost kills herself by taking the wrong pills.  Kane then decides to let her stop singing.
• She gets very lonely and hates living at Xanadu (the palace he built for her) because they never see anyone.
• Susan leaves Charlie and loses all of her money.

9.    The reporters never find out what rosebud means.  They decide rosebud is just a piece in a jigsaw puzzle.  It wouldn't really say anything about Charles Kane's life.

10.  At the very end, workers are throwing Kane's things into an incinerator.  They throw in a sleigh that Charlie had received as a boy one Christmas.  There is a close-up of the sleigh and on it is the word Rosebud.