And the countdown continues in my quest to watch and find something inspiring in every single one of Yahoo’s 100 Movies to See Before You Die…
The first time I watched this movie was in journalism school. Maybe it was the early-morning class time, maybe it was difficult to concentrate on a movie when I was wearing pajamas, as I was wont to do in college. Whatever the case, this supposed best movie of all time didn’t capture my attention the way I was told it should. This time around I watched it all the way through, waiting for the answer to the question, “What’s Rosebud?” Along the way, I found the most compelling scenes to be ones newspaper-centric, including the telltale headline above. As soon as it hit the screen, I noticed the sarcastic quote marks around the word singer, and I made mention of it as only a newspaper gal would. Sure enough, a few scenes later, Leland explains how Kane operated: “The whole thing about Susie being an opera singer, that was trying to prove something. You know what the headline was the day before the election, ‘Candidate Kane found in love nest with quote, singer, unquote.’ He was gonna take the quotes off the singer.”
There are a lot of things to roll your eyes about with this movie. Rosie Perez dancing at the beginning, for instance. Background music that doesn’t match the action on screen. Or the apparent lack of plot throughout. But if you want to watch a movie to spark a conversation, this one is the ticket. Racial tensions and temperatures run high. The only likable character in the entire movie is old drunkard Da Mayor, whose sage piece of advice (“do the right thing”) is largely ignored by the rest of the cast, most of whom prefer to hang out on a street and bitch about the injustice of the world. At least they are hanging out in front of a bright, mad red wall to underscore the anger simmering just below the surface. Symbolism = inspiration.
