Orson Welles Spring: Citizen Kane

This scene really hit different this time

Orson Welles Spring kicks off with a film so monumental that it seems pretty silly for me to write a commentary on it. It's one of if not the most analyzed films of all time, and the stories behind its making have been turned into multiple films of their own (RKO 281 and Mank). Instead of writing any kind of general overview, I thought I would just offer a few notes for thought that might generate some thoughts of your own. 

When I was growing up I heard about Kane all the time as the film that had been anointed the "best movie ever." I had heard others my age who had sought it out on that basis, and left disappointed. Kane is one of my favorite movies, but to present it to someone on the terms of "best ever" is a bad idea. Luckily for me, I did not see it until my mid-20s, after I had already seen a lot of other films of that era. With that context in mind, Kane absolutely blew me away. It looks, feels, and MOVES like nothing else of its era in the "golden age" of Hollywood. It shows, frame after frame, just what cinema can do. It's hard for modern viewers who don't know old movies to get what's going on because the films they have been raised on live in a post-Kane world. 

Watching it again last night, I was struck by its inventiveness. Practically every shot grabbed my attention. The chopped up timeline combined with the masterful editing kept me far away from scrolling on my phone. It's easy to see why Kane became such a totem among cineastes, since it shows just what can be done with the medium. Things were getting there in the late silent era, where the camera achieved freedom. The advent of sound put the camera within new limits, but Kane found ways to overcome them. 

This time around I watched Kane thinking about the current political situation, and the political nature of the film really came home to me. When I first saw it in the early 2000s I didn't really think about this much, focusing far more on Kane as a person rather than as a political figure or symbol. Because this is a film long praised for its film-making accomplishments, we have tend to miss its message and the historical context it emerged from. 

Kane came out in 1941, in the midst of World War II and at a time when disenchantment with capitalism had reached its highest point in the Western world. Welles himself was on the left and had done work for New Deal theater programs. His famous stage adaptation of Julius Caesar made it into an allegory for the rise of modern fascism. In America the was the age of the Popular Front, the broad anti-fascist coalition that mainstreamed leftist radicalism more than it ever had been. Looking at Kane with fresh eyes, Welles is telling the story of America before the New Deal. Charles Foster Kane is a robber baron raised by a bank, the type of man who when challenged about what people will think of him crows that they will think what he tells them to think. 

Kane is the exemplar of American capitalism after the Gilded Age, and thus is shown rather intentionally as a figure from the past, adrift in the present. Welles was prone to his own arrogance, and he seems to be telling the audience "Aren't you glad that these people don't have ultimate power any more?" It feels like a victory lap for the New Deal and Popular Front, but the aftermath of the film's release showed that the forces of capital were far stronger than suspected. Welles put a thumb in the eye of the mega-wealthy and they retaliated against him. Hearst almost had the film destroyed (shades of Zaslav!) and Welles would never again be able to make a Hollywood film with the financing and freedom he had on Kane. I still admire the man for using his one shot at glory to show how completely craven and dysfunctional the wealthy can be. 

On this last point I feel the film is far more relevant than when I first saw it about 24 years ago. Modern America is dominated by Kane manques (see what I did there?) like Zuckerberg, Bezos, and of course, Musk. Yes there were rich people with massive fortunes back in 2001, but unlike Kane they were not overtly political figures with pretensions of using their wealth to mold public opinion. As the film vividly illustrates, wealth is a corrosive thing that warps the souls of those who possess it. We are now witnessing an attempted revolution from above so sweeping that Charles Foster Kane could not conceive of it. As scary as the moment is, I can find comfort in Welles' film. As much power as these wealthy people seek, they will never be happy, and they too will have to die someday, just like the rest of us. 

Watching Kane again last night with that in mind, the final scene hit differently. There was the usual shudder at watching so many of his possessions being burned after his death, including the childhood sled that represented an alternate life where he would not have been rich and maybe have become a decent human being. I usually feel a heavy sadness in that moment, and a clear warning about how to live my own life, but this time a smile came to my face. In the final shot, watching the smoke of all he had accumulated go through the chimney I muttered to myself with spite, "good." 

Reflection (Road Trip 2024)

I got home to New Jersey from my Midwestern road trip last Friday, and I want to conclude my travelogue with some reflection. Before I left I had pretensions of seeing what was going on in different parts of the country during a contentious election year. Little did I know my trip would coincide with one of the most tumultuous two weeks in American political history. 

The assassination attempt on Donald Trump happened two days before we left. At that time the calls for President Biden to withdraw from the race were dominating the headlines. That left the center stage of the political news for maybe two days. The Republican convention followed while we were on the road and in Chicago. Despite some rather, well, weird behavior at the convention, Democrats still dedicated themselves to a circular firing squad instead of highlighting the extremity of their opposition. Speaking of, JD Vance gave a straight up blood and soil nomination speech to began his run as a true wet fart of a candidate. By the time my trip was over the couch memes were dominating my feed.

That week ended on the Sunday when Biden announced his withdrawal from the race. The news flashed across during a family gathering, and I have to thank my cousin (who does not share most of my politics) for jumping in and cutting off any political discussion. The next day Kamala Harris had already claimed the mantle of presumptive nominee. I ran some errands with my wife and kids in the car, abuzz with the kind of political conversations we were avoiding at my parents' house. I knew things were changing when my 12-year old daughters whooped and hollered when we told them the news about Harris. I had been thinking that the Democratic Party was in an impossible situation, that either with or without Biden the election was unwinable. Suddenly progressives had their mojo back, and the needle had been threaded. Biden had stepped down, and a new nominee had been found without a destructive intra-party dispute. That nominee was already generating the kinds of enthusiasm from Democrats unseen since 2008. It was some kind of miracle. The last night of our trip my family gathered around my laptop in our roadside hotel room in Ohio, watching a Harris organizing meeting with barely contained energy. Between July 15th and July 26th it felt like the entire world had changed. 

On my trip I kept looking for clues to the national mood, but since I spent most of my time with family and old friends I would have to admit I can't say I observed much. My anecdotal observation is that I was pleasantly surprised at how little evidence of MAGA I detected. A house in my hometown not far from my parents that once flew a "Fuck Biden" sign no longer did. (I did see another house in another part of town flying one, though.) On our drive to and from Nebraska I saw a lot fewer Trump bumper stickers and fashy emblems than usual. I have long suspected that Trump is losing the juice, and that Biden's fumbling had obscured Trump's decline. With Harris's vitality dominating the news, Trump's doddering incoherence seems that much more pronounced. Nevertheless, one day when we drove through the Nebraska countryside a house on a backroad decorated to their fence to say "I am voting for the convicted felon." As the ranks of enthusiastic Trump supporters have dwindled it feels like the remaining ones have only intensified their zeal. This is a dynamic that mimics that in the churches many of these folks belong to.

It was eerily appropriate that we spent the last morning of our trip on the campus of Kent State University. We had decided to spend the night before at a random spot in Ohio because it was eight hours down the road from our previous stop. I soon realized we were right near Kent State, and I was lucky enough to have an online friend there in the history department who showed us around the site of the 1970 massacre. I learned a lot, to be sure, but I was also shook by the knowledge that when deep political divisions meet authority figures willing to wield violence, the blood will flow. As excited as I was that Democrats had come back from the dead, I also knew the reality of the situation we are in. Thinking about May 4th, 1970, I could not help but be reminded of the violence of our own political moment. I could not stop thinking that a new Trump administration would probably result in dozens of Kent States. My trip to the Midwest and back reminded me of how much I love this country, but also that the people who cheered the National Guard gunning down protestors are still alive and well. I'm more committed than ever to keeping them out of power. 

Putting the House Republicans' Disorder into Historical Context

Over at Substack I wrote about the current fight in the Republican party over the Speakership. We are so used to seeing political events in a decontextualized 24 hour news cycle that many miss how McCarthy's fate mirrored those of Boehner and Ryan because the same dynamics are at play. I basically argue that Gingrich broke the House as a legislative body, and that it's impossible for a Republican Speaker to be both his party's ideological firebrand and an effective legislator. 

I mention the power of conservative media in the piece, and I after I wrote it I read that Sean Hannity is whipping votes for Jim Jordan. I guess I'm pretty smart. 

Notes on a Trip to Small-Town America

 I haven't been posting due to being on the road. I went on a cross-country journey to my Nebraska homeland, where we wrapped in a trip with my parents to the Black Hills. I wrote about it in a Substack post that I am pretty proud of, and would like you all to take a look. I used my own hometown to discuss the realities of these places, not the mythical versions we encounter in pop culture.

I muse a lot about politics, and I will offer an insight here that I did not include in the original article due to its growing length. While I was there, I noticed that Wal-Mart was one of the few crowded public places. I also noticed how so many people had a worldview shaped by Fox News, and I see a connection. Small-town America used to be much more varied and diverse. Small towns in different regions could be wildly different from each other. While each town is different, national institutions like Wal-Mart and Fox have created a kind of national small-town culture. This new culture has replaced the small-c conservatism of my town with the usual MAGA stuff. That terrible Jason Aldean song speaks to the self-narrative of this newly nation-wide small-town culture. 

As I write about in my piece, however, there's a lot more than this going on in my hometown. Give it a read!

Democrats are Sleep Walking to 2016

I just wrote a Substack thinking about the 2024 election (I know, I know.) My main takeaway is that Democrats are repeating the mistakes of 2016. They are running an old, unpopular candidate who has a low ceiling for expanding his support and won't turn out base voters. All it will take is a few thousand votes shifting in key states and a robust third party candidate. 

Tucker Carlson is the Symptom

Liberals, befitting their historical origins, have an intense attachment to the ideology of the Enlightenment. They tend to see the people who vote for their opponents of having been misguided or mislead, and that if they knew the true facts they would have to acknowledge their error.

Of course, it's a ridiculous outlook, but it colors liberal opinion on a lot of things, especially the conservative media apparatus. The liberal Enlightenment take says that if we can somehow shut down Fox News or push it in a less extreme direction, its followers will surely moderate. Once the Fox blinders are lifted the truth shall miraculously set them free. 

Yesterday's news that Fox let go of Tucker Carlson was met with some rejoicing in liberal circles, but the wise heads were not moved. In the first place, this fits a larger pattern. Fox has dumped Beck, O'Reilly, and Dobbs, and their message has not moderated a wit. A new demagogue will surely take Carlson's place. Liberals also fail to understand that the audience has the agency here. 

People like Tucker aren't just radicalizing their audience, they are also responding to their audience's radical demands. He says crazy shit on TV because his audience WANTS him to say crazy shit on TV. Just take the revelations about Carlson's private castigations of Trump. He may loathe the man in his heart, but when Trump comes on his show he bends the knee because that is what his audience expects. 

After January 6, Fox was concerned about losing their core audience to Newsmax and One America News, and had to compete with the crazies. Carlson served them well in that purpose, and I am sure they will find someone else to fulfill the same role.

Of course, if liberals are finally able to understand that their opponents' supporters are reactionaries because they WANT to be, and not because they are tricked, that will be hard pill to swallow. They want to pretend that their conservative neighbors and acquaintances are "good people," and if they have horrible politics, well, they just haven't heard the right message. It's much harder to understand that many people you like and respect quietly support a politics meant to destroy you. It's easy to blame radicalization on Tucker Carlson, it's harder to accept that he is much more the product of his viewership, a viewership that includes people in our own lives.