"Rosebud." - The last word of a dying man that starts an intrusive investigation into that man's extraordinary life.
'Citizen Kane' is a remarkably significant film that conveys many themes and motifs. It offers a damning verdict of the 'American Dream' and materialism while also mourning the loss of childhood and innocence.
I have read that 'Citizen Kane' was one of the first movies to oppose the traditionally positive view of the 'American Dream' to gain financial prosperity and material luxury. Kane's accumulation of wealth and material goods is done for love and control, not happiness. For Kane the 'American Dream' is seen as a hollow one. He is depicted as a happy child playing in the snow during his childhood where his family were poor and had no elements of materialism. This is in stark contrast to his death where his seen as an lonely isolated figure, surrounded not by the love he craves, but by his material possessions that symbolize all that is wrong about the perception of the 'American Dream'.
I wonder whether Kane's obsession with acquiring statues and other possessions portrays his want, his need perhaps, to control people. He is able to control them whereas in the real world he found difficulty controlling things the way he wanted. His mother sending him away, his failed political career, and Susan's failure as an opera singer. In his lavish palace Xanadu, he is able to exert control over everything.
I believe the fact that Kane's last words 'rosebud' represents his realization that the life he has led hasn't given him the happiness or love he craved. It conveys the loss of his childhood innocence, where he was happy, playing in the snow with his sled 'rosebud'. This is contrasted with his lonely existence in the grand palace of Xanadu. The significance of 'rosebud' to Kane is of paramount importance. It is the only love he truly encountered.
Thursday 12 November 2009
Sunday 1 November 2009
More Ulysses...
I have just read Molly Bloom's soliloquy in the final chapter of Joyce's and I feel it really conveys the groundbreaking modernist aspect of Joyce's novel. It is an enormous section of interior monologue narrative, with minimal use of punctuation. In fact it is split into eight 'paragraphs', with just two marks of punctuation.
Alongside the narrative technique and distinct lack of punctuation, Joyce makes use of sexually explicit language and vulgar phrases. For example:
Alongside the narrative technique and distinct lack of punctuation, Joyce makes use of sexually explicit language and vulgar phrases. For example:
- 'Ill let him know if thats what he wanted that his wife is I s l o fucked yes and damn well fucked too up to my neck nearly not by him 5 or 6 times handrunning theres the mark of his spunk on the clean sheet I wouldnt bother to even iron it out'
- 'if he wants to kiss my bottom Ill drag open my drawers and bulge it right out in his face as large as life he can stick his tongue 7 miles up my hole as hes there my brown part'
- 'I know every turn in him Ill tighten my bottom well and let out a few smutty words smellrump or lick my shit '
It was this use of language that found Joyce's work banned in many countries over the world. It was too different, too modern for the audience of its time. It is a mark of the change of times that nowadays people, myself included, can read this passage and feel offended. The text will always have the shock factor, but in this modern age, taboo is becoming a thing of the past. Most products are sold by sex, beit newspapers such as The Sun, The News of The World or men's deodrant. This is the age where sex sells, and Molly's sexually vibrancy would produce millions!
Modernism and Freudism
I have to admit to being slightly disappointed that we were not shown a screening of James Joyce's Ulysses as scheduled for the lecture of week 4. I was looking forward to seeing a cinematic represenation of Joyce's great work. (I guess I'll have to watch it in my own time.) However, I must also state that the material shown in its place was of high interest.
Intrigued would be the best word to describe how I felt after reading Chris warn us that the lecture would contain 'SEXUALLY EXPLICIT MATERIAL OF AN ADULT NATURE INCLUDING SEXUAL CONTENT OF A POTENTIALLY DISTURBING OR OFFENSIVE NATURE.' Now if you want people to attend a lecture, this is the way to do it! Offer a group of young adults a lecture containing sexual material and more than likely they will turn up!
However, this wasn't just some big screen porn show (although I did take down some notes on how Chris has an average sized member, potentially a homosexual, and something about a nazi disco!), this was a lecture of interesting observations in reference to psychoanalysis and modernism.
Early on in the lecture Chris commented on the fact that with todays technology we can use incredible advanced machines to see how each and every one of our brains and bodies function. Through the advancement of science we can literally see inside someones brain, which is essentially what Sigmund Freud set out in doing. His machine was mythological literature and comparing ancient myths with patients' problems in his practice. The most classic example of this is the Oedipus complex. Wikipedia explains:
The complex is named after the Greek mythical character Oedipus, who (albeit unknowingly) kills his father and marries his mother. According to Sigmund Freud, the Oedipus complex is a universal phenomenon, built in phylogenetically, and is responsible for much unconscious guilt.
So basically, within our subconscious, we all want to kill our fathers and have sex with our mothers. On the face of it this seems a truly rediculous theory. Who in their right mind has ever even considered this act? Freud maintained that the supression of this subconscious desire could result in neurosis, paedophilia, and homosexuality.
I think it is interesting to compare Freud's reading of the brain with some of the material Chris showed us in the lecture. The fact that the parts of the brain called the Amygdaline and the Hippocampus light up when sex, rage, fear; emotions are engaged shows Frued's work as mere speculation. It conveys my earlier point that scientific breakthroughs in neurology seem to undermine Freud's methods and theories. You cannot aruge with this sort of high level science, but people have been arguing over Freud for years.
Intrigued would be the best word to describe how I felt after reading Chris warn us that the lecture would contain 'SEXUALLY EXPLICIT MATERIAL OF AN ADULT NATURE INCLUDING SEXUAL CONTENT OF A POTENTIALLY DISTURBING OR OFFENSIVE NATURE.' Now if you want people to attend a lecture, this is the way to do it! Offer a group of young adults a lecture containing sexual material and more than likely they will turn up!
However, this wasn't just some big screen porn show (although I did take down some notes on how Chris has an average sized member, potentially a homosexual, and something about a nazi disco!), this was a lecture of interesting observations in reference to psychoanalysis and modernism.
Early on in the lecture Chris commented on the fact that with todays technology we can use incredible advanced machines to see how each and every one of our brains and bodies function. Through the advancement of science we can literally see inside someones brain, which is essentially what Sigmund Freud set out in doing. His machine was mythological literature and comparing ancient myths with patients' problems in his practice. The most classic example of this is the Oedipus complex. Wikipedia explains:
The complex is named after the Greek mythical character Oedipus, who (albeit unknowingly) kills his father and marries his mother. According to Sigmund Freud, the Oedipus complex is a universal phenomenon, built in phylogenetically, and is responsible for much unconscious guilt.
So basically, within our subconscious, we all want to kill our fathers and have sex with our mothers. On the face of it this seems a truly rediculous theory. Who in their right mind has ever even considered this act? Freud maintained that the supression of this subconscious desire could result in neurosis, paedophilia, and homosexuality.
I think it is interesting to compare Freud's reading of the brain with some of the material Chris showed us in the lecture. The fact that the parts of the brain called the Amygdaline and the Hippocampus light up when sex, rage, fear; emotions are engaged shows Frued's work as mere speculation. It conveys my earlier point that scientific breakthroughs in neurology seem to undermine Freud's methods and theories. You cannot aruge with this sort of high level science, but people have been arguing over Freud for years.
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