5 ms·

Sartre and Borges on Orson Welles

46 points by benbreen 12y ago

malingo 12y ago
If anyone in the Minneapolis / St Paul area wants to see Citizen Kane for themselves, in a theater, it's showing this weekend at the Trylon Microcinema: http://take-up.org/series/123/ http://take-up.org/series/123/
Jun8 12y ago
Borges at least made some interesting points (most of which are spot on, e.g. the film being too grand, etc.) but Sartre's review is populistic: "Kane might have been interesting for the Americans, [but] it is completely passé for us, because the whole film is based on a misconception of what cinema is all about." What does that even mean, assuming "us" means the French and not film connoisseurs anywhere in the world? Note that Truffaut, who was himself heavily influenced by Hitchock, later heavily criticizes general tendencies of French film of this era in a famous essay on (PDF: https://soma.sbcc.edu/users/davega/FILMST_113/Filmst113_ExFilm_Movements/FrenchNewWave/A_certain_tendency_tr%23540A3.pdf https://soma.sbcc.edu/users/davega/FILMST_113/Filmst113_ExFi...) This xkcd strip seemed to be relevant in this case: https://xkcd.com/1112/ https://xkcd.com/1112/
- AnimalMuppet 12y ago
  Remember that Sartre was an existentialist. He therefore defines cinema to be an existentialist thing, and then criticizes Kane for not fitting into Sartre's definition. But to paraphrase Shakespeare: "There are more things in cinema, O Sartre, than are dreamt of in your philosophy."
  - sp332 12y ago
    Welles' F for Fake is practically a treatise on phenomenology, and it's nearly all in the present tense.
- olavk 12y ago
  It seems from the quote that Sartre simply finds flashbacks uncinematic.
- justifier 12y ago
  as per the xkcd.. interestingly someone at the top of the chess game agreed with cueball: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chess960 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chess960
ableal 12y ago
Borges was not wrong about the endurance, and the reasons. I'd guess that few under-30 year olds, even here, know of the movie, and even fewer have seen it. But then, Borges' reasoning would apply to most anything not made recently. There's a very small cadre of writers/creators aware of anything not produced in their lifetime. (Furthermore, Borges could not guess at the time that Citizen Kane would be anointed as one of the show pieces of "the seventh art" for a few decades - a fate that could probably have been bestowed upon a few other contemporary movies, but was not.)
- hullo 12y ago
  What is endurance, then, really, if it is up to the cultural whims of the young? Has Beethoven not endured because: Rihanna? Hamlet because: Twilight?
- recuter 12y ago
  Anecdotal evidence to the contrary: I am 25 and this has been one of my favorite movies since first seeing it around ten years ago. Few under-30 year olds have even given The Beatles or Pink Floyd a proper listen either or know of Ferris Bueller's Day Off - I'm serious, mass cultural memory is not very long. But I think you'll find that all of the above will be mentioned in discussions of 20th century movies and music long into the future. Citizen Kane definitely stands the test of time.
- olavk 12y ago
  Much of the praise for Kane is because it used groundbreaking cinematography, which have influenced many later films. But to appreciate that, you have to know that Kane was the first movie to use these techniques. The movie (like many historically groundbreaking movies) will be underwhelming when seen without this knowledge. A popular classic like Cassablanca have endured due to strength of story and acting, something which ages much better than "groundbreaking at the time".
  - manachar 12y ago
    Interestingly, I use Casablanca as my go to example of a classic that younger audiences find boring, predictable and cliché. By the time most viewers today see Casablanca they'll have already seen most of the scenes ripped-offed, parodied, homaged, or referenced. For the first time viewer it won't feel like the original and instead will feel like an old black and white copy with a strange style of overacting.
huxley 12y ago
Love the line: "Sartre reviewed the film in 1945, meaning he took four years even to bother seeing it." One would think German occupation of Paris and wartime censorship might have contributed to that delay.
- krylon 12y ago
  That was my thought, too - when your country is at war, you most likely have more pressing things on your mind than going to the movies.
hderms 12y ago
Whether you agree with Borges' opinions or not, you gotta give the man credit for being a great writer, whether short story or film review.
- almutasim 12y ago
  Agreed, his writing is beautifully dense and surprising.
- krylon 12y ago
  I've noticed over time that great writers - at least the ones I admire - have the ability to make almost anything interesting by writing about it. I remember reading a review by David Foster Wallace of a biography of some tennis player I never even heard of. I still would not touch that biography with a ten foot pole, but that review, and Wallace's reflections on professional sports and athletes' biographies, was fascinating to read.
uptownJimmy 12y ago
If all I had ever read from Sartre was this excerpt from his review of 'Citizen Kane', I would think him simple-minded.
gwern 12y ago
Synchronistically, I just read a brief discussion of the same pair of quotes in Simon Leys's anthology _The Hall of Uselessness_: 'Talking of Orson Welles, I wonder if many people still remember how, soon after the Second World War, his artistic reputation in Europe was nearly wrecked for a while by a blistering attack which Sartre launched against _Citizen Kane_. The profound silliness of this diatribe is startling half a century later: ... [same quote as in op] The impact of this condemnation was devastating. _The Magnificent Ambersons_ was shown soon afterwards in Paris but failed miserably. The cultivated public always follows the directives of a few propaganda commissars: there is much more conformity among intellectuals than among plumbers or car mechanics. A few years earlier, Jorge Luis Borges (who wrote superb film reviews) had also expressed a critical opinion of _Citizen Kane_, but whereas Sartre’s censure now appears odious and ridiculous in its self-importance and dogmatism (it was actually dictated by a “politically correct” anti-American prejudice), Borges made a point that should retain its validity—even for the admirers of _Citizen Kane_: "We all know that a feast, a palace, a huge enterprise, a lunch of writers or of journalists, a cordial atmosphere of frank and spontaneous comradeship are all particularly hideous. Citizen Kane is the first film that made conscious use of this reality ... It is not an intelligent film, but it is the work of a genius—in the most nocturnal and Germanic sense of this ugly word." Sartre had an unquestionable genius (and we just learned what this means)—which may not be enough to reach posterity; in this respect, Borges was perhaps better equipped: he had a sense of humour—which is also the other side of a genuine humility.'
lotsofmangos 12y ago
I really like 'Citizen Kane', but to be honest, when it comes to films involving Orson Welles, by far my favourite is 'The Third Man'. Though many of Orson's scenes he isn't actually in as he refused to leave the hotel until they tempted him out with a magician, so he is often represented by shadow.
- krylon 12y ago
  The Third Man is one great movie. As the saying goes, they don't make 'em like that anymore...

46 points by benbreen 12y ago

If anyone in the Minneapolis / St Paul area wants to see Citizen Kane for themselves, in a theater, it's showing this weekend at the Trylon Microcinema: http://take-up.org/series/123/ http://take-up.org/series/123/

Jun8 12y ago

Borges at least made some interesting points (most of which are spot on, e.g. the film being too grand, etc.) but Sartre's review is populistic: "Kane might have been interesting for the Americans, [but] it is completely passé for us, because the whole film is based on a misconception of what cinema is all about." What does that even mean, assuming "us" means the French and not film connoisseurs anywhere in the world? Note that Truffaut, who was himself heavily influenced by Hitchock, later heavily criticizes general tendencies of French film of this era in a famous essay on (PDF: https://soma.sbcc.edu/users/davega/FILMST_113/Filmst113_ExFilm_Movements/FrenchNewWave/A_certain_tendency_tr%23540A3.pdf https://soma.sbcc.edu/users/davega/FILMST_113/Filmst113_ExFi...) This xkcd strip seemed to be relevant in this case: https://xkcd.com/1112/ https://xkcd.com/1112/

AnimalMuppet 12y ago
Remember that Sartre was an existentialist. He therefore defines cinema to be an existentialist thing, and then criticizes Kane for not fitting into Sartre's definition. But to paraphrase Shakespeare: "There are more things in cinema, O Sartre, than are dreamt of in your philosophy."
- sp332 12y ago
  Welles' F for Fake is practically a treatise on phenomenology, and it's nearly all in the present tense.
olavk 12y ago
It seems from the quote that Sartre simply finds flashbacks uncinematic.
justifier 12y ago
as per the xkcd.. interestingly someone at the top of the chess game agreed with cueball: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chess960 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chess960

ableal 12y ago

Borges was not wrong about the endurance, and the reasons. I'd guess that few under-30 year olds, even here, know of the movie, and even fewer have seen it. But then, Borges' reasoning would apply to most anything not made recently. There's a very small cadre of writers/creators aware of anything not produced in their lifetime. (Furthermore, Borges could not guess at the time that Citizen Kane would be anointed as one of the show pieces of "the seventh art" for a few decades - a fate that could probably have been bestowed upon a few other contemporary movies, but was not.)

hullo 12y ago
What is endurance, then, really, if it is up to the cultural whims of the young? Has Beethoven not endured because: Rihanna? Hamlet because: Twilight?
recuter 12y ago
Anecdotal evidence to the contrary: I am 25 and this has been one of my favorite movies since first seeing it around ten years ago. Few under-30 year olds have even given The Beatles or Pink Floyd a proper listen either or know of Ferris Bueller's Day Off - I'm serious, mass cultural memory is not very long. But I think you'll find that all of the above will be mentioned in discussions of 20th century movies and music long into the future. Citizen Kane definitely stands the test of time.
olavk 12y ago
Much of the praise for Kane is because it used groundbreaking cinematography, which have influenced many later films. But to appreciate that, you have to know that Kane was the first movie to use these techniques. The movie (like many historically groundbreaking movies) will be underwhelming when seen without this knowledge. A popular classic like Cassablanca have endured due to strength of story and acting, something which ages much better than "groundbreaking at the time".
- manachar 12y ago
  Interestingly, I use Casablanca as my go to example of a classic that younger audiences find boring, predictable and cliché. By the time most viewers today see Casablanca they'll have already seen most of the scenes ripped-offed, parodied, homaged, or referenced. For the first time viewer it won't feel like the original and instead will feel like an old black and white copy with a strange style of overacting.

huxley 12y ago

Love the line: "Sartre reviewed the film in 1945, meaning he took four years even to bother seeing it." One would think German occupation of Paris and wartime censorship might have contributed to that delay.

krylon 12y ago
That was my thought, too - when your country is at war, you most likely have more pressing things on your mind than going to the movies.

hderms 12y ago

Whether you agree with Borges' opinions or not, you gotta give the man credit for being a great writer, whether short story or film review.

almutasim 12y ago
Agreed, his writing is beautifully dense and surprising.
krylon 12y ago
I've noticed over time that great writers - at least the ones I admire - have the ability to make almost anything interesting by writing about it. I remember reading a review by David Foster Wallace of a biography of some tennis player I never even heard of. I still would not touch that biography with a ten foot pole, but that review, and Wallace's reflections on professional sports and athletes' biographies, was fascinating to read.

uptownJimmy 12y ago

If all I had ever read from Sartre was this excerpt from his review of 'Citizen Kane', I would think him simple-minded.

gwern 12y ago

Synchronistically, I just read a brief discussion of the same pair of quotes in Simon Leys's anthology _The Hall of Uselessness_: 'Talking of Orson Welles, I wonder if many people still remember how, soon after the Second World War, his artistic reputation in Europe was nearly wrecked for a while by a blistering attack which Sartre launched against _Citizen Kane_. The profound silliness of this diatribe is startling half a century later: ... [same quote as in op] The impact of this condemnation was devastating. _The Magnificent Ambersons_ was shown soon afterwards in Paris but failed miserably. The cultivated public always follows the directives of a few propaganda commissars: there is much more conformity among intellectuals than among plumbers or car mechanics. A few years earlier, Jorge Luis Borges (who wrote superb film reviews) had also expressed a critical opinion of _Citizen Kane_, but whereas Sartre’s censure now appears odious and ridiculous in its self-importance and dogmatism (it was actually dictated by a “politically correct” anti-American prejudice), Borges made a point that should retain its validity—even for the admirers of _Citizen Kane_: "We all know that a feast, a palace, a huge enterprise, a lunch of writers or of journalists, a cordial atmosphere of frank and spontaneous comradeship are all particularly hideous. Citizen Kane is the first film that made conscious use of this reality ... It is not an intelligent film, but it is the work of a genius—in the most nocturnal and Germanic sense of this ugly word." Sartre had an unquestionable genius (and we just learned what this means)—which may not be enough to reach posterity; in this respect, Borges was perhaps better equipped: he had a sense of humour—which is also the other side of a genuine humility.'

lotsofmangos 12y ago

I really like 'Citizen Kane', but to be honest, when it comes to films involving Orson Welles, by far my favourite is 'The Third Man'. Though many of Orson's scenes he isn't actually in as he refused to leave the hotel until they tempted him out with a magician, so he is often represented by shadow.

krylon 12y ago
The Third Man is one great movie. As the saying goes, they don't make 'em like that anymore...