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October 2001, Week 2

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Film and TV Studies Discussion List <[log in to unmask]>
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Fri, 12 Oct 2001 14:54:04 -0400
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Film and TV Studies Discussion List <[log in to unmask]>
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>In film classes, students justly wonder why anyone raised a fuss >about CITIZEN KANE

I've been wondering how students react to Citizen Kane because I've watched the DVD twice in the past couple of weeks and had forgotten how odd it seems.  So much I think probably wouldn't be allowed in a studio film today:  scenes set in near darkness, a fairly major character whose face is almost never shown, a scene shot almost entirely with the camera on the ground, long takes, extensive use of deep focus (or faked deep focus) with action in several planes, dialogue so overlapping that it's not all understandable, some subtle "violations" of the 180-degree rule, sound bridges between scenes that occur years apart, silent opening credits, etc.  Are these just things that I and others on this list would notice or are they actually not noticed by the average student?

(& maybe I've overemphasized a bit since some recent studio films like Three Kings, Natural Born Killers, Pulp Fiction and the underrated Knock Off are outside the norms which is of course part of their aesthetic and marketing strategies.  Kane was also a similar prestige picture.)

LT

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