Rosebud blind

[MASCARO at humnet.ucla.edu]

Shamed tamed blamed by Chris (I guess the honeymoon's over), I must confess that I find 
CITIZEN KANE a pompous and poorly paced film.  Yeah, sell off your little kid and he'll 
probably grow up desperately and unsuccessfully looking for love.  Heavy.
 I know, I am evil and I am sorry.  I just can't appreciate it (nor that MAGNIFICENT 
AMBERSONS either, for that matter).  Maybe it's just become--too familiar--such a 
cultural reference point!  Such an easy tale to summarize, to paraphrase, to encapsulate, I 
dunno. A-and that *Boy Genius* crap, I never could get behind that either.  Some 
excellent stuff, unquestionably.  But man, did you ever try to sit through his MACBETH?  
Really risible.  Sorry again.  Chris is right:  deep end time for bonzo.  Need more sugar.  
Must cranch.

johnny out of touch

(PS I returned the paper, and my student, convenientally, has gone to Germany, so I can't 
get you a copy now, Chris.  If he contacts me on his return, I'll try to do so.
(PPS  If Chris is correct about the audacious reference in *Rosebud* I will stand at least 
partly corrected.  Do you really think Welles had that kind of sense of humor?)





>     My buddy Mascaro goes off the deep end:
>     
>     >We do tend to inject, say, Kane's stupid rosebud with heavy symbolic 
>     >significance, but a student of mine just wrote me a nice paper 
>     >showing that rosebud too is a McGuffin. 
>     
>     Now hold on thar, Babalouie.  I was with you when you said that Pynchon 
>     took the McGuffin to a deeper level than Hitchcock etc. etc., but, "stoopid 
>     rosebud?"  C'mon, John, Rosebud's as much a symbol of sweet, sad loss 
>     remembered in repose as the Fire of Paradise.  (Forget about it bein' a 
>     spectacularly audacious tweak by boy-genius Welles on William Randolph 
>     Hearst's showgirl lovin' nose.  C-cunts, anyone?)  The difference between 
>     Rosebud and a MacGuffin is that, if one is successfully able to follow the 
>     quest to its source, the meaning of the symbol *will* become apparent, the 
>     answer *will* be found.  It must be so, because Citizen Kane is, in part, a 
>     cautionary tale (and Rosebud is its leitmotif) that traces Kane's losses 
>     over the years beginning with his separation from his mother.  There's no 
>     argument from me that it's the viewer of the film -- and not the reporter 
>     -- that makes these connections (so, I guess, in that sense, Rosebud *does* 
>     lead to nowhere), but the connections get made, Johnny.  The same is *not* 
>     true of, say, Stencil's quest, or Oedipa's.
>     
>     Send me that kid's paper.  I want to read it.
>     
>     Third post of the day.  Must be those Wheaties.
>     
>     Chris
>