Charles Foster Kane, American

February 23, 2006

We watched Citizen Kane last night, and I guess if this blog must begin to mark my movies, then that is not a bad one with which to begin. I was moved at the end with the expanding views of stuff, the piles and piles of stuff that Charles Foster Kane had acquired.. just buying anything. From our vantage point, the historical connections to William Randolph Hearst seem irrelevant, and it is clear just how well Orson Welles has captured a peculiarly American personality. The election sequence calls to mind Bill Clinton, in his own quest for acceptance. The monumental acquisitiveness of Kane is played out in miniature all over America, as we, in our epigonal way, get more and more.. and demand that life turn out the way we want it to. It would be hard to point to anything about the personality of Kane that is not American.. from the entrepreneurial push to remake the Inquirer, to his incurable romanticism.. but these traits only serve to make the tragedy more American as well.

Today Emily and I went to the mall to get some clothes. Pulling into the Lennox Mall—where we had not been in at least a year—we were surprised to find that some of the up front parking was now open only to those who were willing to pay $3 for a space. It is stunning, sometimes, just how stridently profit-making moves into our national life, bit by bit. I took some pictures walking through the mall.. a small portrait of how we now acquire.