Ep 1.4 // Citizen Kane

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03/19/21 • 85 min

It’s Lora’s pick... ‘Citizen Kane,’ the 1941 debut film by Orson Welles. Often referred to as the greatest film ever made, it’s possibly Welles’ greatest achievement, but the controversy surrounding it (mainly stirred up by William Randolph Hearst, the main target of the film’s narrative) also led to his quick fall from grace. The film has appeared on every single one of Sight & Sound magazine’s decennial polls of the “greatest films,” debuting as a runner up in 1952, then sitting at #1 for the next 50 years, before eventually dropping to #2 on both the 2012 polls of critics and directors.

Produced by Stereoactive Media

Produced by Stereoactive Media

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Ep 1.3 // The Magnificent Ambersons

It’s Stephen’s pick... Released in 1942 and directed by Orson Welles, ‘The Magnificent Ambersons’ depicts a wealthy midwestern family at the end of the 1800s and start of the 1900s. Based on the 1918 novel by Booth Tarkington, its prologue sets the Ambersons up as either the toast of the town or privileged aristocrats lording it over everyone else. After a young suitor named Eugene Morgan embarasses himself – and by extension, her – the object of his affection, Isabel Amberson chooses another man as her husband and has a spoiled son who others in the town hope will one day meet his “comeuppance.” After going off to school, this son, George, returns to his family just as his own father is in dire financial straits and Eugene Morgan has himself returned from years away, both with a daughter and a successful business producing automobiles. After Isabel’s husband passes away, she begins to actively rekindle her former romance with Eugen Morgan, who’s obviously still in love with her. But this relationship upsets Isabel’s son, George who, fearing loose talk and scandal, keeps the two apart.

The movie was Orson Welles’ follow-up to ‘Citizen Kane,’ a film which had caused some controversy. As a result, RKO, the studio behind both films had lost some confidence in its deal with Welles and after unfavorable test screenings, they famously recut the movie and shot a new ending while the director was out of the country. The cut footage was destroyed and the film that went out to theaters was not the one Welles had planned. The incident only fueled the image of Welles’ as a “difficult” filmmaker to work with, at least as far as studios were concerned, which may have helped to make it harder for him to work as a director in the years to come. Despite the compromised state of the film, it’s still regarded as a classic, though one that people tend to regard with a sense of regret for what could have been.

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Ep 1.5 // Tokyo Story

It’s Alicia’s pick... Released in 1953 and very loosely based on a 1937 American film called ‘Make Way for Tomorrow,’ ‘Tokyo Story,’ follows a retired couple living in a town in the southern part of Japan as they visit their grown children, who mostly live in Tokyo. Over the course of the film, the couple’s children have trouble managing time to spend with their parents, while their daughter in law, the widowed wife of the couples’ son who died in the war, does all she can to make them feel welcome and cared for. Eventually, the couple return home and the mother falls ill and dies soon after, prompting all the children to gather in their hometown to mourn. Directed by Yasujirō Ozu, whose career as a director began in 1927 with silent films, it is considered emblematic of the themes and style he’d already developed and would continue to develop over the course of the next decade before he died and also includes many actors he worked with often -- perhaps most notably Chishū Ryū as the retired patriarch and Setsuko Hara as the caring daughter in law.

Even though ‘Rashomon,’ directed by fellow Japanese filmmaker, Akira Kurosawa had introduced many people in the West to Japanese cinema, Ozu’s work was deemed “too Japanese” by some and it did not begin to gain attention in the West until a few years after this film’s release. Filmmaker and critic, Lindsay Anderson, after seeing it in London in 1957 wrote a review for Sight and Sound magazine titled “Two Inches off The Ground,” likening the film to the idea that to achieve a Zen state is to experience the world in the same way as before, but feel as if you’re 2 inches off the ground. And the film became more popular in the United States after a screening in New York in 1972. Newsweek’s review said it was "like a Japanese paper flower that is dropped into water and then swells to fill the entire container with its beauty."

The film has been on the Sight & Sound critics poll of the “greatest films ever made” 3 times: #3 in 1992, #5 in 2002, and #3 again in 2012 (just behind ‘Vertigo’ and ‘Citizen Kane’). And the Sight and Sound directors poll ranked it as the greatest film ever made in 2012, just ahead of 2001: A Space Odyssey and Citizen Kane, which tied for 2nd.

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