cynical behavior

5/31/04:
    I need to write more in this blog.  I need to see more films.  I need to do a lot of things but my life just can't permit all that I desire.
    I celebrated my Memorial Day as I do any holiday working at the movie theater.  Seems Shrek 2 just broke a record.  Start the parade...
     After work I decided to pay respects to those lost in the war of cultural ignorance and the war against active entertainment.  While thousands of families and children and zombies sat watching mindless disaster styrofilm or dateable kiddie sequelfare, a few miles down the road, I caught my first theatrical viewing of Citizen Kane.  Not my first projected film screening, that would be the first viewing altogether back at SVA.  Surely most kids going into film school have seen the monumental "GREATEST FILM" before their freshman year, but I was of late decision to study the subject and my experience of such things was minimal. 
     As happens with many high rated movies, Orson Welles' masterpiece failed to wow me.  There was also the factor that something taught is not something enjoyed, much like the failure of literature on syllabi to interest me.  I take great pleasure in my own discovery of things rather than being told what is good.  I went on to see the film or parts of it in other classes and knew so much about its insides that I was left with nothing from the bare enjoyment I originally had.  The picture went from being slightly entertaining to being a poked and prodded dissection. 
     At some point, as the years went by and my eyes became glued to TCM, particularly when Kane was featured, I got over the initial distaste and took increased pleasure in seeing the story unfold so well.  The help of Todd Hayne's Velvet Goldmine and my favoring of how films are about rather than what they are about (one of the few things gained during my short appreciation for Roger Ebert), gave new insight into its assets that go beyond the photographic craft with depth of field so uncommonly seen these days. 
       Still, I understand the consensus with many people that Citizen Kane is overrated.  Some things are better with background knowledge and study in order for proper appreciation.  A great deal of paintings and buildings and literature is more agreeable to those more educated on them.  Not to say that this level of cognitive associtation is altogether better than that which moves us soley by itself, but in younger generations and in different times, there may not be so much to relate to or be interested in, narratively, with Kane. 
         Today, though, was more incisive than ever for me.  Having more often liked the film for its craft than its themes, the shots and anatomy sunk into the background while subtext and broad allegory came forward.  No longer a story about Charles Foster Kane nor representational of William Randolph Hearts nor a finely structured frame of script and story, Citizen Kane now portrayed for me the abstraction and absurdity of politics as historically layed out between the beginning of the Civil War to the beginning of World War II.  I'm no expert on politics or history but I'm intrigued nonetheless to see how much correspondence there is with each on a consistent level throughout.  ``I don't think any word can explain a man's life," becomes the signifying sentence at the end of the film which can  be best associated with the political defining of people. 
       I am glad that I can watch a film and get something new.  If I have to keep rewatching Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and Citizen Kane and others over and over just to get some cinematically cerebral activity than I may just have to stop bothering with new movies or (because Eternal Sunshine is fairly new) take even more care in picking which new fare to see.  Sure I will have a lot of fun watching Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban this thursday, and I can't deny the need for such experiences, but something tells me I have no reason to see Shrek 2 or The Day After Tomorrow or whatever the next event film may be just to fit in with popular culture.  Some things just don't need to be consumed no matter how good they immediately taste.  I gave up fast food and television.  It is time to put a ban on summer fluff entertainment movies too.
    Happy Memorial Day!