Some scattered thoughts on Citizen Kane:
Classic, deserves the praise I think, robed in scandal, love it.
I wonder though. In most of the reviews that I've read they talk about Kane's lust for power and how that, eventually, was his downfall. I'm not sure. Welles' wrote that his idea (apparently unreached) was that Kane would seem a different person through the different lenses we meet him through. I say unreached because the article I read implied as much, in addition to the fact that I agree. I think we did get a pretty similar view on each recitation, though that explains some jumps in logic I noticed the first time around. This is a very complicated way of saying, maybe I just stuck with one of many tellings of Kane's story but it seems to me that his tragic flaw was not a lust for power but a need to be loved. Beyond anything else. With his money came the ability to try and buy or force love (a la the later years at Xanadu) but it seems like all of his bad decisions were made in an effort to simulate or feel or find love.
It seems if he would've been after power he definitely could've found and maintained it. He would've been more savvy about running his paper and about his political campaign. Power is a static goal: get rich (check), get famous (working on it) and stay that way. Kane didn't care about wealth ("I spent a million dollars this year and I'll spend a million dollars next year") or about fame (his exploits with what's-her-name-the-actress prove that I think). Love, on the other hand, is a goal that always moves and changes. Thus Kane's inexplicable behavior: his priorities are skewed because once "being loved" is a priority, you have to do crazy things defined by the people you want to love you. It's totally external so totally arbitrary...
Something to think about at any rate.
Wednesday, January 7, 2009
CK
Posted by Kjerstin Evans Ballard at 4:04 PM
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3 comments:
Is needing to be loved a tragic flaw? Is it a flaw at all?
Interesting post.
I think the issue may be this: a friend of mine theorized that morality may be just a kind of predictability. Morality says that in situation a you will react more or less this way (not killing or raping anyone, not lying or stealing). Though I don't love the implications (are moral people boring) I do think that if this is the case that Kane isn't moral. If he will do anything for love, external morality is turned on its head and moreover Kane is entirely unpredictable. Because what will bring him love in one situation will not in another.
Yes tragic flaw, if it's the biggest motivator you've got and isn't shored up by other convictions.
Yes, I felt the same idea when I watched it. When I wasn't being mesmerized by all the beautiful images and cinematography, that is.
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