Hollywoodland Vs. Citizen Kane

Posted by Payam Emrani (pemrani@socal.rr.com) on September 18, 2006

In this post-modern world of ours it is easy to get lost. With no past to cling to, we are often lured by the siren song of the future. Hollywoodland reminds us of our film past. It takes us back to a world before digital technology and special effects ran amok; before George Lucas threw up on everything.

Hollywoodland is a filmmaker’s film. Every shot is exquisitely framed and lighted; every shot captures the beauty of light and the harshness of shadow. It reminds us of the need for harshness and contrast; a quality digital film fails to capture.

I’ll let you in on a little secret. When I watch a movie, in my critical capacity, I have two tests:

I will randomly pause a film and treat the image like a still photograph. I will look at how it is framed; how it is lit. Many people fail to realize that a movie is simply a string of photographs linked together. Needless to stay a vast majority of films fail this test.

Second, I like to turn off the sound. This might seem weird at first, but you have to remember that you are watching a film and not attending the theater. In theater the images are superfluous, it is all about the dialogue. In film, however, the dialogue is not the key component, the images are. A truly brilliant film will captivate and enthrall you with the simple use of images. It will convey its meaning without the use of a single word. In fact, sometimes the words get in the way.

Many believe that Citizen Kane is the greatest film ever made; many also find it to be extremely boring. How can this be? One can only answer this by watching it with the sound turned off. Once the mind is freed from concentrating on the words it can truly appreciate the beauty of light and the revolutionary camera angles employed in this movie.

I found the plot of Hollywoodland to be superfluous as well. The plot is simply a vehicle to heighten the cinematography. Think about it. If this film focused on our modern era would the cinematography have been the same? The softness of the light, for example, would seem a little ridiculous. If this film was not a detective-noir film would such extensive use of shadows been permissible?

One of the main debates in film today is about the small screen versus the big; the theater versus the home-theater. Many believe that with the creation of home theaters attending a movie theater has been rendered unnecessary, and while for many films I would agree with this, nothing could be further from the truth in regards to this film. Ironically, a detective noir film set in the late 50’s might be the saving grace of film studios.


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