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Ready for Their Close-ups

Citizen Hane & Sunset Boulevard

at the Brattle Theater

Monday, April 17

Kane at 3:10 and 7:30

Sunset at 1:00, 5:20 and 9:45

tickets $6 for both or each; $5 at 9:45

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Charles Foster Kane and Norma Desmond are two of the largest personalities ever to cast their shadows on the silver screen. This Monday, an extraordinary Brattle Theater double feature finally gives these two egos worthy company: each other.

There are many reasons Orson Welles' "Citizen Kane" (1941) is widely regarded to be the greatest film of all time. To watch it is to relive your favorite cinema moments; every scene, every plot turn, every camera angle has influenced countless filmmakers. But the pleasure of watching, or rewatching, "Citizen Kane" is not derived solely from an appreciation of its technique. The greatest films tell great stories, and Kane's, like that of Norma Desmond in "Sunset Boulevard," is an absorbing tale of ambition and loss.

"Citizen Kane," loosely based on the life of media magnate William Randolph Hearst, follows the rise and fall of a national celebrity whose initial passion for championing the "working man" is replaced by an obsession with embodying his own myth. Welles, who co-wrote, directed and produced the film, plays the cynical multimillionaire from his idealistic college days through his demise, old and forgotten in the "Xanadu" he has built to himself.

Welles' narration technique set a standard for all films to follow; anyone who believes that "Pulp Fiction" was the first film with a nonlinear plot should take a front row seat at the Brattle on Monday night. The film is told, in present and past, as a quest for the elusive element that drove him through his triumphs and to his downfall. The only clue is Kane's dying word, "a piece in a jigsaw puzzle": "Rosebud."

Welles' talent for aging into the bitter, declining Kane is truly remarkable. And as the young Kane, full of fire and utopian spirit, he is unstoppable. Sweeping through the staid New York Inquirer, the young man announces that the paper is to enter a new era, "If the headline is big enough, it makes the news big enough!" Kane soon proves that his new journalism sells--that he can fight for the downtrodden while boosting his circulation; that he can create wars with a run of his press; and power in the world can't bring him what he wants.

He is backed by a powerful supporting cast: Ruth Warrick as the prize society wife his fortune buys him; Dorothy Comingore as the heart-and-hair-of-gold lounge singer he wants instead; Joseph Cotten as his intellectual school chum dogging him through life like a nagging conscience; and Agnes Moorehead as the mother whose rejection forms the foundation of the empire he builds.

"Citizen Kane's" storytelling and performances are enhanced by Gregg Toland's masterful photography. Each moment is a sleight of light. As Kane reads his publishing "Declaration of Principles" in a moment of giddy righteousness, Toland manages to keep Kane perpetually in an opaque shadow while fully lighting the other actors in the scene; even when one moves to Kane's side, they remain as day and night to each other, foreshadowing the depths to which Kane will soon sink.

The use of shadow and illumination in "Citizen Kane" tells the story with force equal to its story and character; together they create a cinema legacy which is strengthened with every new movie released. Look for the works of Spielberg, Stone, Scorscese, Branaugh and Coppola in the film. they're all in there, somewhere in the long shadow cast by "Citizen Kane."

Perhaps the only person who would be uncowed by the challenge of following Kane is the indomitable Norma Desmond. Nothing can beat the sheer eerieness (and glorious camp appeal) of fading silent screen diva Gloria Swanson "playing" fading silent screen diva Norma Desmond on film.

Like "Citizen Kane," "Sunset Boulevard" begins with its ending, the unexplained death of the hero. In a trick of cinematography, the glassy face of a B-movie screenwriter wavers across the screen, his corpse floating facedown in the white marble swimming pool of a forgotten star. As the sun rises over Hollywood, he begins to narrate the great story he never produced: his own demise.

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