Friday, December 18

We continued briefly our discussion of the musical score of Citizen Kane and of the significance of sound editing more generally.

Students received an assignment for the break:

On Tuesday, January 5, you are to turn in a typed assignment which has two parts: the first involves cutting and pasting, while the second requires writing of your own.

Part 1: After consulting several websites from the Links page of the class website copy the five or six critical comments or passages which you find most interesting and insightful.

Part 2: In response to those passages, write a 400-word piece of your own describing, analysing and evaluating the film, its techniques, impact and significance.

Thursday, December 17

We focused on Bernard Herrmann's musical score for Citizen Kane, listening to the film's opening scene without the image several times, both before and after reading Herrmann's remarks about the score's use of musical motifs. We considered the relation of musical motifs with visual ones, and we began to look at the use of camera angles and movement in the film.

Thursday, December 16

Starting from a statement by Orson Welles about the centrality of Kane's love for his mother and the "dollar book Freudianism" of Citizen Kane, we examined various scenes in the film and the imagery of snow which binds them together. We analyzed the scene in the snow when young Charles is taken from his home and revisited the by now rather tedious dispute over whether certain details in films have meaning beyond their simple, matter-of-fact existence as objects in a story.

Tuesday, December 15

We examined subjective uses of the camera in Citizen Kane, first reviewing the subjectivity of the viewer's response to the opening sequence and consequently to the film's investigative mission as a whole, then re-viewing and comparing to each other the two montages of Susan's opera performances.

After this it was Sentencing Time: students wrote two drafts of a single sentence summing up the theme of Citizen Kane, and several students then read their sentences aloud to the class.

Monday, December 14

Students turned in their second outside reading essays.

Students received back their quizzes from Friday, and we went over them, after which we looked very briefly at the opening sequence again.

Friday, December 11

Students took an unannounced quiz over Citizen Kane.

HW due Monday:
Single-scene analysis essay (outside viewing)

Thursday, December 10

Mr. P announced that essays turned in tomorrow as assigned would earn five points extra credit and that essays turned in Monday would receive full credit.

We finished watching Citizen Kane.

HW due Monday:
Single-element analysis essay. Essays turned in Friday will earn five points of extra credit.

Wednesday, December 9

We spoke briefly about the single element analysis which is due Friday, using Citizen Kane as an example of possible approaches.

Afterwards we continued watching Citizen Kane for the balance of the period.

Tuesday, December 8

We watched twenty-five more minutes of the documentary we began yesterday, then watched the first twenty-five minutes of Citizen Kane.

Monday, December 7

We continued to address questions which were raised Friday regarding film as a storytelling art and the techniques it employs. The careful choice and presentation of details -- and the embuing of those details with emotive and other meaning -- through visual and other means was compared with the purely verbal resources of literature.

After this discussion we turned our attention to a new film, Citizen Kane, directed by and starring Orson Welles -- many film lovers' choice as the finest American film. We began not with the film itself, however, but with the first few minutes of a documentary about the making of the film containing information about both Welles and the person on whom the central character Charles Foster Kane is largely based, the newspaper mogul William Randolph Hearst.

HW due Friday:
Second outside viewing essay.

Friday, December 4

We continued the discussion begun yesterday about the final scene of City Lights, ranging far and wide , but focusing especially on the relation of plot and story to symbolism and other aspects of film technique.

Thursday, December 3

Students read a handout compiling numerous critical commentaries on the final scene of City Lights, which students themselves wrote about in class on Wednesday.The welter of emotions on the faces of both characters and the heavy question mark left hanging in the air at "The End" elicited differing views and various comments.

Class was shortened by an evacuation drill.

Wednesday, December 2

We finished watching City Lights, then watched the final scene a second time, after which students wrote for ten minutes on the following:

(1) Describe what happens in the final scene. Include what people think and feel as well as what they say and do.

(2) What do you think will happen next?