Citizen Kane's unchallenged reputation as one of the greatest films in all cinema is matched only by the accumulation of critical commentary that surrounds it. What more can there be to say about a masterpiece so universally acknowledged? As Laura Mulvey shows in a fresh and original reading, the richness of the film, both thematically and stylistically, is inexhaustible. In a lucid and perceptive critique she investigates the psychoanalytic structure that underlines the film's presentation of Kane's biography, for once taking seriously what Orson Welles himself disparagingly referred to as "dollar-book Freud." She also illuminates the film's historical context, revealing it to be a prescient commentary on the isolationist politics of prewar America.
| |||||||||||||||
Book Description
Frequently Bought Together
Editorial Reviews
Amazon.com Review
This is a brilliant introduction to what many consider to be the greatest American film. Critic Laura Mulvey provides new insight into the creative collaboration of screenwriter Herman Mankiewicz, cinematographer Gregg Toland, and writer-director-star Orson Welles. She sheds new light on the relationship between the fictional Kane and the character upon which he is based, legendary newspaper tycoon William Randolph Hearst. Mulvey is especially sensitive to the way Citizen Kane--and Hearst--negotiated liberal and conservative politics; for her, Kane's psyche mirrors the political unconscious of the United States in the early 1940s. The appendix reprints a press statement by Welles himself in which he describes his reasons for making the film.
About the Author
Laura Mulvey is Postgraduate Programme Coordinator at the BFI. She is the author of Visual and Other Pleasures and Fetishism and Curiosity (BFI, 1996) and has directed films in collaboration with Peter Wollen.
Product Details
Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
|
More About the Author
Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.
Customer Reviews
|
Share your thoughts with other customers:
|
||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
13 of 17 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Feminist analysis of "Citizen Kane",
By c-medina@uiuc.edu (Urbana, IL) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Citizen Kane (BFI Film Classics) (Paperback)
Laura Mulvey writes well, and her analysis of "Citizen Kane" is, in several aspects, a joy to read. But, for an in-depth coverage of the subject, I really recommend Ronald Gottesman's "Focus on Citizen Kane", or, better yet, his "Perspectives on Citizen Kane", which I think should be required reading on the film, along with Carringer's "The Making of Citizen Kane". In other words, if you needed to read just one book on the subject, this one would not be it.
2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
A formal treatment of the psycoanalytic aspects of the film,
By poppy (Taiwan) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Citizen Kane (BFI Film Classics) (Paperback)
This book has laid a fundation for understanding the film from a psychoanalytic perspective. The author re-examined the visual style of the film, its narrative structure, the historical context during production and the director's political activities, discovered new facts and finally came to an interpretation in psychoanalytic terms in which all the clues would fall into places. Although some of the arguments were not given in full length and rigidness (there are only 87 pages), this book certainly built a new system of meanings regarding the film that includes many facts discovered in the past several decades.
2 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A wonderful film that deserves a book like this.,
This review is from: Citizen Kane (BFI Film Classics) (Paperback)
This is an example of what the BFI classics should hope to attain for each of their forthcoming books.A great insight into the film and the events surrounding it. Praise, I suppose, is due to the fact that there was so much that went on around the making of this film that it would be hard to write a bad book about it.
Share your thoughts with other customers: Create your own review
|
|
Inside This Book
(learn more)
Citations (learn more)
47
books
cite this book:
See all 47 books citing this book
- Reading Melanie Klein by John Phillips in Front Matter, page 245, and page 253
- Closely Watched Films: An Introduction to the Art of Narrative Film Technique by Marilyn Fabe on page 93, Back Matter (1), and Back Matter (2)
- Reelpolitik: Political Ideologies in '30s and '40s Films (Prager Series in Political Communication) by Beverly Merrill Kelley on page 44, page 74, and Back Matter
- What Ever Happened to Orson Welles?: A Portrait of an Independent Career by Joseph McBride on page 44, and Back Matter
- Orson Welles, Shakespeare, and Popular Culture by Michael Anderegg in Back Matter (1), and Back Matter (2)
See all 47 books citing this book
What Other Items Do Customers Buy After Viewing This Item?
Tags Customers Associate with This Product(What's this?)Click on a tag to find related items, discussions, and people.
|
Sell a Digital Version of This Book in the Kindle Store
If you are a publisher or author and hold the digital rights to a book, you can sell a digital version of it in our Kindle Store.
Learn more
Customer Discussions
|
This product's forum
Active discussions in related forums
Search Customer Discussions
|
Related forums
|
