alex ross on orson welles

i was poking around alex ross’ website looking for some kind of easy access to current experimental music (something lyrical but interesting. maybe with unusual instruments, particular vigor or so on) and i found this essay on orson welles. in general, i agree that welles’ entire career is underrated–there is so much emphasis on citizen kane as a thing separate from the rest of welles’ films or his work in general, when, if you look at kane in a certain light, it shows that welles is interested, and this is a primary interest, in our eagerness to swallow culture whole–our relentless appetite for news and entertainment. what ross does, as many other people have done, is to remark that welles’ willingness to dip into commercials, television, and other forms of mass-media, cheapens his formal film work. not so, i argue; welles’ wanted to be involved in everything, in all forms of media, because he sees that they are interrelated. in kane, charles foster kane makes his welth and his reputation based on the public’s desire to be entertained and to be informed. if his final words are an impetus for journalists to uncover kane’s life history, what is revealed at the end is that his life history is one that has provoked interest. kane wants to tell a story, mostly a true one, and we want to see a story, mostly a true one, but in both cases we all want it to be human and revealing, and we all want to be in conversation with each other (kane) but also to be able to judge one another (audience.) for welles, it is the storytelling itself, not the veracity of the story, that compels. jonathan rosenbaum, among others, noted the post-modernness of kane. but that is not even quite right. one could argue that welles wanted to make high art–why otherwise would he have so often worked with shakeapeare–but if we topple SHAKESPEARE to shakespeare, we already know that the stories themselves are based in both the coarse and the fine human emotions. more on wells later, i’m sure….

anne carson

which would you teach, of the chapters in autobiography of red? 

stanley fish on the humanities

as a humanitiestarian, i like to keep up. 

understatement

“thinking is an underrated thing in journalism” daniel schorr. thinking is an underrated thing in lots of places–politics for one. i am fine with teary hillary, but i hardly thing it is an appropriate place for public opinion to turn upon. should we not elect based on intellect? who wants a leader who will respond hotly rather than thoughfully. (this is not a criticism of senator clinton; plenty of politicians or candidates construct platforms with an emotional foundation. and are applauded for it.)