Life At Xanadu
In the opening scene of the Xanadu you see Suzanne and Kane talking in the foyer with stairs and a fire bigger than the both of them combined. The proxemics of Kane standing in front of the stairs made him look inferior and powerless. Although he had all this money to spend he wasn't spending it in the right ways. Suzanne even said to Kane, "You never give me anything I really care about", which continues to show that even with all his money he couldn't buy her. To continue with proxemics, Kane was shown standing in front of objects in his house that were larger than him. They seemed to almost swallow him. I believe that the director did these shots because it showed how expensive the things were that he was buying and how nice they were. They seemed to have little to no fun inside of the Xanadu and I think it's because the house was filled with thousands of materialistic items and not sentimental items.
When Suzanne and Kane began to talk inside of the Xanadu their voices were echoing and it was hard to hear each other. At one point they were even yelling at each other in order to hear the other person speak. The echoing gives the audience a feeling of sadness and loneliness and separation. Later on after they leave the Xanadu Suzanne is yelling at Kane and he says to her, "We're no longer in the Xanadu so there is no need to yell". This further points out how lonely and sad they both were. Suzanne just wanted Kane's love and Kane thought that all his money would buy her love. He always thought about the materialistic things and never things that truly brought pleasure to Suzanne. Why does Kane treat Suzanne like a child sometimes? Do you think that he really loved Suzanne?
In response to your question, I really don't think Kane ever had any ill intentions toward her. I think that because of his childhood and experience of having to basically raise himself (minus Thatcher), he subconsciously would "parent" Suzanne. We know that he found her to be youthful and was drawn to her because of her innocence. I think he genuinely did care for her but sometimes came off too hard and pushy towards her success because success is something that Kane strives for and has for his entire life-the idea of achieving something and being great is something that Kane constantly desires because that is all he's ever known really.
ReplyDeleteI think that Kane really did love Susan, but it was a type of love she could not understand. Susan said that he never gave anything that truly mattered to him, but I disagree with this. Throughout the film, the only two objects that had any significance to Kane were the sled and the snow globe, both of which represented his childhood. Kane never had the youth he wanted, so he tries to give it to Susan. He often babies her and treats her like a doll, which to Susan may have seemed like he thought she was a child, but I think this was Kane's way of showing affection. He was trying to preserve her innocence, which is the only thing he could have given her that actually mattered to him.
ReplyDeleteI think your idea of objects being bigger than life inside the palace at Zandhu to be spot on. All of these items make the audience see Kane for somebody small or weak compared to how he has been depicted in the majority of the movie. I don't think Kane loved Susan nor did Susan love Kane but what I do believe is that Kane never learned how to love anything. The only people in his life that were suppose to love him unconditionally were his parents, and he was taken away from them. Instead he was given to Thatcher where we witness Kane being given a toy. This idea of more gifts meant love was placed into Kane's mind from youth. He also deals with the same issue with his first wife, by buying her ton's of diamonds and fancy clothing.
ReplyDeleteI really liked how you discussed the proxemics used in this scene and the materialistic vs. sentimental objects that seemed ubiquitous in Xanadu.
ReplyDeleteTo answer your question, I think Kane treats Susan like a child sometimes because he almost wants to be the parental figure that he never had to Susan. To me, it almost seemed as though Kane was trying to do what he thought was best for her, even if that meant babying her oftentimes or buying her lavish gifts that she didn't really need. He thought he was doing so much good that it never occurred to him that Susan was unhappy, until they were at Xanadu and she finally said she was unhappy, but I think even then he was still kind of in denial. It wasn't until she actually left that Kane realized a little bit of what he had done to Susan all those years and that is why he destroys her room, because he is so angry.
In my opinion Kane treated Susan like a child because he saw her as less equal to him, and he wanted to have the power in the relationship and in order to do so, he had to execute a sense of maturity and dominance. He also never really knew what his childhood was like vs what it should have been like, and when he persued Susan, he saw she was still in his youth, so he felt he had to treat her like he was treated. In my opinion, Kane did not actually love Susan. He loved her qualities like her outter beauty and innocence, but they were always fighting. Love is a pure thing, it is real, from the heart, mutual. Kane and Susan's relationship was not that.
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