Favorite Student Tweets: (Senior) Citizen Kane, The Great Garbo, and An Ageless Samuel L. Jackson

This entry is part 3 of 9 in the series Favorite Student Tweets.

Here are some of my favorite student tweets of the week, mostly covering our in-class screenings of Flesh and the Devil, Buster Keaton’s Sherlock, Jr., and Welles’s masterpiece, Citizen Kane. And there’s one leftover Do the Right Thing tweet that didn’t make it in last week’s list. Enjoy!

Ageless Jackson

(PS. To see a graying, aged-looking Jackson, check out the trailer for The Sunset Limited, an upcoming HBO film co-starring Tommy Lee Jones.)

Flesh and the Devil

While heterosexual romantic love and sex constitute much of Flesh and the Devil‘s narrative, also quite prominent is the strong friendship between the two male characters, Leo and Ulrich (depicted below). From the beginning of the film, my students noticed just how “bromantic” this (rather racy and very sexy) silent picture could be.

(NOTE: Nick’s cell phone autocorrected Rogen to Roger.)

Regarding Garbo’s face, I think this student is right on. In fact, Roland Barthes couldn’t have said it better himself.

For those who want more, The Self-Styled Siren has written a lovely post on Flesh and the Devil on her blog. A quick excerpt: “To put it mildly, there is a lot of baggage attached to this one. Baggage, hell, it drags a freight train full of Hollywood history, foreshadowing and hindsight into your living room the second you hit play.”

Sherlock, Jr.

It’s always a joy to hear students’ laughing heartily at a 90-year-old film like Sherlock, Jr. Looks as though Buster even acquired a few new fans…

Citizen Kane

“Love! You don’t love anybody! Me or anybody else! You want to be loved — that’s all you want! I’m Charles Foster Kane. Whatever you want — just name it and it’s yours! Only love me! Don’t expect me to love you.” These words of contempt come from Susan Alexander Kane, Charles Foster Kane’s second wife. As the student below points out, yeah, Susan is sometimes rather annoying, but (as I’ll point out), she certainly has a right to be angry and vocal.

Right after the shot below, Charles Foster Kane (Orson Welles) demolishes his wife’s (oddly childlike) bedroom, breaking shelves, throwing chairs, and beating bookcases. Watch Kane go nuts at TCM’s video library. Here’s one student’s reaction to that scene — poor senior citizen Kane…

To be honest, I’d probably also be upset if Welles had decided to conclude Citizen Kane with the shot below rather than (spoiler alert!) this one.