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October 1994

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Subject:
From:
Murray Pomerance <[log in to unmask]>
Reply To:
Film and TV Studies Discussion List <[log in to unmask]>
Date:
Thu, 20 Oct 1994 17:16:02 -0400
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A goodly number of truly important filmmakers must be turning in their
graves to read the density and intensity of this discussion on the
"brilliant," "seriously important" work of so untried and inexperienced a
filmmaker.  Now, when does CITIZEN KAND *really end*???
 
On Thu, 20 Oct 1994,
Richard J. Leskosky wrote:
 
> On Wed, 19 Oct 1994, Shawn Levy replied to my posting of the same day:
>
> >I think that the ending of the narrative (i.e., not the
> >ending of the actual chronology) leaves us with a moral, not a cop-out.
> >We know that of the two characters who leave at the very end of the film,
> >one dies and one changes his life.  This knowledge helps us see a message
> >in their departures, namely, stay in the life and you will die.  The two
> >characters who leave -- one to roam the earth like Caine, one on a
> >chopper -- are alive morally and physically.  The one who sticks to his
> >ways dies.  EVEN THOUGH he's the most loveable, he is still (how else to
> >put it) a Reservoir Dog, destined to die.
>
> Ye-es but.... does the character die because of sticking to old ways or
> because a Pop Tart pops out of a toaster at the wrong moment?  It's the
> inverse, as it were, of the "miracle" scene which occasioned the change in
> the other character and seems ironically to validate the dead character's
> argument that the "miracle" was a mere fluke.
>
> I also wonder how long this particular thread can continue without a
> SPOILER ALERT.
>
> --Richard
>
> Richard J. Leskosky
> Unit for Cinema Studies, UIUC
> office phone: (217) 244-2704
> FAX: (217) 244-2223
>

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