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/lit/ - Literature

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4135162 No.4135162 [Reply] [Original]

What is the Citizen Kane of literature?

>> No.4135168

Ulysses. Modernist work well-known for its stylistic extravagance, praised for its genius, rarely enjoyed because it's genius, and the obvious choice to seem literati in your early 20s.

>> No.4135171

>>4135162
Citizen Kane: The Novelisation

>> No.4135190

>>4135168

>Ulysses
>Citizen Kane
>rarely enjoyed

You need to get better friends or move to a better city.

>> No.4135192

>>4135168

B-but I like Ulysses.

>> No.4135204

>>4135190
ulysses fair enough
citizen kane on the other hand is fairly enjoyable and totally overrated

>> No.4135224 [DELETED] 

Good technical-wise for its time yet overrated garbage pretentious hipsters pretend to like? Definitely Ulysses.

>> No.4135245

>>4135168
>it's genius
dropped.

>> No.4135246

Citizen Kane is much more well known than Ulysses or seems that way to me eg it has been referenced in the simpsons etc.
I think Moby Dick is the literary equivalent - much more well known, parodied, referenced, also written by an american not some crazy irishman

>> No.4135251

What is the Madoka of film?

>> No.4135253

>>4135224
Where do you find people talking about Citizen Kane to try and seem cultured? I find the dismissal of it is much more common

>> No.4135315

>>4135251
Something very shitty.

>> No.4135320

>>4135251
Faust fanfiction

>> No.4135345

The Great Gatsby of course

>> No.4135368

>>4135345
This, actually

>> No.4135426

>>4135224
>Citizen Kane
>hipster
More like entry-level art for pseudo-intellectuals.

Ulysses should be comparable to something "harder" to get in like Tarkovsky or Antonioni. Citizen Kane is a "typical" Hollywood movie, a very good one, but still a typical one.

>> No.4135431

>>4135426
do you even know anything about film history? it typified everything that's "typical" about it. and that's ignoring the technical achievements

>> No.4135440

>>4135431
That's why I put said "typical": for today standards, it's not a hard film to get and it's fairly straight-forward. Now, Ulysses is much harder to grasp even for today standards.

>> No.4135493
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4135493

>>4135162
Citizen Kane is such fucking shit holy Fuck. I had to do a huge analysis of it. It was so fucking boring. Maybe the cinematography was cutting edge of the time but praising it now is like praising the first toaster or something. Overrated pretentious trash

>> No.4135494

>>4135440
how is Ulysses hard to grasp by today's standards? it's been digested by a million scholars and there are books with annotations that can allow even a high school student to read it.

>> No.4135501

Ulysses

>> No.4135505

>>4135190
>the obvious choice to seem literati in your early 20s.

>> No.4135509

Citizen Kane is victim of a culture of top lists and quote marks on posters. It gets a lot of hate for being at the very top, often mentioned as the greatest or the best. That is meaningless. No movie labeled "greatest of all time" survives a new viewer (I wonder what people will think now of Vertigo). Citizen Kane was overlooked, then praised and overlooked again for receiving so much praise. A lot of people will just mention it for its "technical" aspects or "historic value", as if to say "I didn't like it, but it must have been important, right?" or "look, I know very well how to judge technical stuff, alright?! See, I even praise this movie I don't like."

I think it is truly a shame that people can get so schizophrenic about it. That you feel forced to like or dislike something or to express yourself with this much careful not to sound ignorant. This is the problem of being overrated. Not in the sense of being rated too highly, but of being rated way too many times. Try to watch it again without all that in mind.

>> No.4135510

>>4135493

I can tell you're super-smart and I should listen to you by the amount of swearing you require to get your point across.

(To be kind, forcing anyone to do an analysis of something DOES ruin that something.)

Philistine.

>> No.4135517

>>4135345
this is the only sensible answer

>> No.4135534

>>4135509

Very good post.

It's the baggage. You cannot give a description of Citizen Kane without your opinion losing its personal value and being attributed to what others think in some way. That's completely unfair of course.

I enjoyed Citizen Kane the one time I watched it for its dramatic story-telling. The artistic value is there but, to be completely honest, it has been overshadowed by later cinematic work. Welles' films are very theatrical, which isn't necessarily how many films function right now, and having really functioned since the early 60s so we're not accustomed to looking at the film in its context.

The historic value is there but I'll be damned if I'm a good enough film scholar to actually know about it rather than spewing somebody else's opinion on the matter - which is the problem really because, as you mention with the schizophrenic point, people feel they NEED to have an opinion about it rather than suggest they probably don't really know what they're talking about either way.

>> No.4135566

>>4135534
>The artistic value is there but, to be completely honest, it has been overshadowed by later cinematic work.

Well, no shit. It revolutionized cinema pretty much instantly. Of course the movies in its wake will be more evolved.

>> No.4135592 [DELETED] 

>>4135566

>It revolutionized cinema pretty much instantly.

>The historic value is there but I'll be damned if I'm a good enough film scholar to actually know about it rather than spewing somebody else's opinion on the matter - which is the problem really because, as you mention with the schizophrenic point, people feel they NEED to have an opinion about it rather than suggest they probably don't really know what they're talking about either way.

>> No.4135891
File: 105 KB, 500x333, 1377918526229.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
4135891

My favourite ever book, 1985

>> No.4135895

>>4135891
Are you...you're a...huge...Orson Welles, aren't you?

Aren't you?!

>> No.4135914
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4135914

>>4135162
I'm a huge Orson Welles

>> No.4136000

Just posting to say I really enjoyed Citizen Kane, i thought it would be very slow and pretentious but everything about it was just top notch.

>> No.4136048

>>4135534

Citizen Kane is a fine film, but Battle of the Algiers is superior.

>> No.4136128

>>4135493
I'm going to send you to sing sing, post no 4135493
SING SING

>> No.4136138
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4136138

>>4136000
>>4136135

agreed

>> No.4136135

>>4136000
That's the thing, Kane's not dry and pretentious, it's fun, it's top-notch old-hollywood. Arguably it's camp

>> No.4136156

>>4136135
>Arguably it's camp
no. it isn't.

>> No.4136168
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4136168

What is the Metropolitan of literature?

>> No.4136169
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4136169

>>4136156

yes. it is.

>arguably

>> No.4136172

What's the Waking Life of lit?

>> No.4136181
File: 194 KB, 1024x768, 1540590-neon_genesis_evangelion_2.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
4136181

What is the Neon Genesis Evangelion of literature?

>> No.4136197

>>4136169
It has some humorous moments but you can't seriously call it camp in any way.

>> No.4136204

>>4136169
that's not camp. they're laughing at it right there in the frame.

>> No.4136212

>>4136169
you sound straight, arguably

>> No.4136220

There seems to be a lot more of those who hate on Citizen Kane because "fuck critics man they're just loving it because they're told to do so" than those who just pretend to like Citizen Kane because "everybody told me it's good and important so I guess it must be good".

It personally think it's pretty great. I wonder why people think it's really boring and pretentious when it seems pretty accessible to me. It's not especially slow-paced either.

>> No.4136223
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4136223

>>4136181

>> No.4136224
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4136224

>any answer other than this one

>> No.4136227

>>4136220

>I wonder why people think it's really boring and pretentious when it seems pretty accessible to me

Because it's in white and black

>> No.4136228

>>4136227
Oh, right.

>> No.4136234

>>4136212
thank you

>> No.4136413

>>4136156
I'MM CHARRLESSSS FOASTAHHHH KAYNNE

>> No.4136448
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4136448

>>4136413
I don't get it. Did you have a point to make or are we just randomly shouting quotes now?

ROUSBUDH

>> No.4136673

>>4136448
You're right, I did lose a million dollars last year. I expect to lose a million dollars this year and I expect to lose a million dollars next year. But, you know, Mister Thatcher, at the rate of a million dollars a year, I'll have to close this place in... 60 years.

>> No.4136703

>>4136673
using elementary calculus i deduced that he has a current net sum of $60 million

>> No.4136850

>>4136448
NEWS
ON THE MARCH!

>> No.4136860

>>4136181
lord of the rings

>> No.4136867

>>4135168
nope

>> No.4137204

The Satyricon

>> No.4137231

>>4135493
I remember when I was 18.

>> No.4137644

What is the Annie Hall of literature?

>> No.4137687

>>4136168
Aaaa! Seen that film where a drug dealer is discovering a lie by grammatical analysis on the fly.

How McStreet of you, WS. You're McFired from life, WS!

>> No.4137892

>>4136223
wasn't one episode of nge named after this book?

>> No.4139717

I'd need some qualifiers before I could answer that.
It all depends on what aspects of Citizen Kane you want to live up to.
For example, it's going to be a different recommendation if you want to cover the ins and outs of one man's journey from birth to death, his rise to prominence and fall from grace, than if you want to find something that matches the cinematic way the story is told, the tones and atmosphere of the work, and still another recommendation if you're trying to cover similar topics and themes.

I guess that's a verbose way of saying, I'm not sure.

Don Quixote?

>> No.4139793

>>4135162
There's a collection of books known as the bible. I think it's a mighty fine candidate

>> No.4139831

What is the Lord of the Rings of literature?

>> No.4139833

>>4139831
Harry Potter

>> No.4139860

>>4139717
don quixote is actually good

>> No.4139887

>>4137892
yeah, episode 16

"Splitting of the Breast (In sickness unto death, and...)"

>> No.4139947

>>4135162
This is a difficult question to answer, as the narrative that derived out of written literature came centuries before film existed. Music is tied closer to the development of the narrative and literature than film. Film's development had to wait for the proper technology to come about. It is a much younger art form. Sadly, in the age that we live today, in which the narrative of literature and music is being degraded over time from the state it once had been, film is likewise in degradation in a similar fashion.