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Sample Annotated Bibliography-1 (2).docx

Brown 4

Sarah Brown

Professor Proctor

English 102

3 May 2019

The Basis of the Good Life: An Annotated Bibliography

Aoun, Steven. “Citizen Kane (Film).” Metro, no. 140, Mar. 2004, p. 172. Academic Search

Premier, search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=f3h&AN=12875863&

site=ehost-livescope=site. Steven Aoun’s DVD review of Citizen Kane loosely frames the film as a platform to evaluate and question life and human meaning. Aoun states that “[the film] encourages us to embrace the spectres of relativism and subjectivity.” He goes on to piece together the film’s supposed critique of perspective, understanding, and truth. As the short review gives a quick explanation of the film, it is stated that an investigative reporter tries to figure out what Kane’s last words meant “as if it might be the missing jigsaw piece in a great existential puzzle.” Both quotes are critical points I wish to draw on in my essay. One of the questions I want to answer in my essay has to do with what the film suggests about what it means to have and to want and how that influences whether or not one can claim having lived a ‘successful life.’ The subjectivity of a successful, good life and the symbolic nature of comparing the meaning of life to the recurrent use of jigsaw puzzles in the film will both be talking points.

Armstrong, Richard. "Some Kind of a Man: Revisiting Citizen Kane." Australian Screen

Education, no. 33, 2003, p. 125+. Academic OneFile, http://link.galegroup.com

/apps/doc/A112130505/AONE?u=sain32367&sid=AONE&xi=f3942e5e. Accessed 25

Apr. 2019. Richard Armstrong’s words pick apart various aspects of the film as he explains what was happening in America at the time of this film and how Kane relates to the real life newspaper tycoon, William Randolph Hearst. Most of this I do not plan on using in my essay, but, about halfway through, Armstrong starts to critique how the film ponders the meaning of life. Is the meaning found in love? Success? Personal fulfillment? Armstrong carefully considers each of these possibilities, using scenes from the film, and he eventually makes the assumption that the film leaves Kane’s fate (either being a “great American” with a fulfilled life or a human being who compromised to maintain a cultural construct) largely up to the undoubtedly subjective views of the audience. I plan to use this to solidify the subjectivism of my topic. Armstrong eventually asks, “how do we make sense of that life--by what was said, what was done, or by what is left?” This is another key talking point I wish to touch on. The film clearly placed heavy emphasis both on actions, words, and possessions, and I think the film does this to suggest all three (what is said, done, and left) is how one “makes sense” of another’s life.

Firestone, Bruce M. “A Rose is a Rose is a Columbine: Citizen Kane and William Styron’s Nat

Turner.” Literature Film Quarterly, vol. 5, no. 2, Spring 1977, p. 118. Academic Search

Premier, search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=f3h&AN=

6899814&site=ehost-live&cope=site. Though this analysis switches back and forth between Citizen Kane and Nat Turner, there are some quotes that I could use to help explain several points I wish to make in my essay. Firestone states that, after the audience is afforded a glimpse into Kane’s life through multiple conflicting perspectives, “we begin to see a driven and ultimately lonely man, one for whom wealth and power becomes unhappy substitutes for love. No one narrator completely understands him…” Again, this highlights the subjectivity of success. Can Kane be considered successful if he did, indeed, have and want at the same time? Is the meaning of life - a successful life - really found in wealth, or the acquisition of material things, if one lacks, or cannot acquire, intangible things (i.e. love)? Firestone also highlights Kane’s obvious experience with loss (i.e. love, his youth, his mother) and explains that “[Kane’s] life can only be understood in the light of that experience.” As mentioned before, whether life and its meaning can be measured by what is said, what is done, and what is left behind, I will use this quote to solidify that what is done does matter.

Higham, Charles. “Citizen Kane.” The Films of Orson Welles, U of California P, 1971, pp. 9–47.

This section in this book provides a scene-by-scene summary of the movie, analyzing Kane and every other character along the way. This section mostly comments on the film’s portrayal of authority, power, and riches. The audience is reminded of Kane’s contempt for both authority and power just before he, too, “becomes a victim of power.” And, when it comes to both riches and possessions, “all they symbolize in the end is the broken jigsaw puzzle of emotional ruin that dissolves into smoke rising sluggishly from the chimney of Xanadu.” As I mentioned before, I wish to comment on Citizen Kane’s portrayal of the meaning, or search for the meaning, of life, whether it be found in success, or, in this instance, riches. I will use the aforementioned quote to help me explain that this film clearly challenges the idea that a successful life is one characterized by the acquisition of things.

Maxfield, James. “‘A Man Like Ourselves’: Citizen Kane as an Aristotelian Tragedy.” Literature

Film Quarterly, vol. 14, no. 3, Sept. 1986, p. 195. Academic Search Premier, search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=f3h&AN=6905870&site=ehost-live&scope=site. James Maxfield’s critique of Citizen Kane rest mainly in the idea that the film should be considered a tragedy. Much of what he says probably will not be used in my essay; however, he did help me understand both Kane and the film a bit more. He focuses entirely on human nature in his critique, which, in a way, was helpful in my search for information to use in my essay’s discussion of life and what a good life is. Maxfield points out that many would consider Kane’s death to be a lonely one, but we should not “ignore the fact that Jed Leland - in most respects a more honest, honorable, and morally perspective man than Kane - is apparently fated to die just as lonely a death in the hospital.” If one does consider Kane’s life to be unsuccessful and miserable, can it be blamed on his negative and destructive turn as a character if an arguably better man suffered the same fate of a lonely death? What does this say, then, about life? Does life favor one over another? Can we view life as something that is done to us or something that we, ourselves, conjure up in an attempt to create meaning out of what it is we, as humans, are doing on this earth?