The idea of writing a review for the ‘best film ever made’ is a daunting task I tell you that, especially considering I’ve only just seen said film for the first time in my life. Citizen Kane has become so synonymous with the idea of perfection that it has engrained itself into pop culture vocabulary as a system of measurement! When something comes out that pushes the boundaries it is hailed as the next Citizen Kane, or when you leave a cinema disappointed with something you simply proclaim that it was certainly no Citizen Kane. But why is the film so synonymous with high quality? Why do many high-profile critics and publications consider it the best film ever made? I’ve purposefully avoided watching it for so many years mainly because I am not the biggest fan of the ‘Golden Age’ of cinema. Old films and I don’t mesh all that well and whilst I certainly agree there are good things about them, I almost always get bored, the spoils of modern cinema have caused irreversible damage it seems. Secondly, much like the opening of this review, even the idea of watching the ‘best film ever made’, for someone who considers themselves quite the cinephile, it’s a daunting task considering I’ve never done it before…and what if I don’t like it? Does that mean everything I’ve ever thought about films is wrong? But with David Fincher’s biopic about the making of Citizen Kane, Mank, now out on Netflix, I decided it was high time I faced the music and tackled this momentous film.
“Rosebud”, the final words of Charles Foster Kane (Orson Welles). A man who came from nothing and over the course of his life amassed unimaginable wealth as a newspaper mogul and political figure, only to die alone and with nobody to call a friend.
Following the news of Kane’s death, reporter Jerry Thompson (William Alland) seeks out the closest living acquaintances of Kane in the hope of understanding the meaning of Rosebud, and perhaps to shed a little light on a man whose life never left the news but was ultimately someone who nobody ever truly understood.
“Rosebud”, the final words of Charles Foster Kane (Orson Welles). A man who came from nothing and over the course of his life amassed unimaginable wealth as a newspaper mogul and political figure, only to die alone and with nobody to call a friend.
Following the news of Kane’s death, reporter Jerry Thompson (William Alland) seeks out the closest living acquaintances of Kane in the hope of understanding the meaning of Rosebud, and perhaps to shed a little light on a man whose life never left the news but was ultimately someone who nobody ever truly understood.
I won’t lie, and I know I’m not the only person to say this. The story to Citizen Kane is not overly spectacular, in fact many may consider it boring (I know there were a few moments when my concentration waned). But the way Citizen Kane is told is where the magic truly lies and is the reason for much of why the film is regarded so highly.
Before I divulge on that too much further, I want to set the scene. Hollywood in the 1930’s and 40’s was a very different place to what it was today, twenty years ago, or even forty. The movie studios had all the power and all the say, I mean they still do today to an extent, but unlike today back in that period of time there was no other way for a film to get made than with a massive production company like RKO or MGM. At the time Orson Welles was really only majorly famous for his theatre work, and his panic inducing War of the Worlds radio broadcast. Yet Hollywood were clamouring for him to direct a film so much so that they said he could make a film about anything he wanted, and he would get all the credit for it, an auteur’s dream come true. Now whilst it can be contested about how much Welles was responsible for (I’ll address that in more detail in my Mank review), it cannot be understated how big of a deal this was in that era of Hollywood. Production companies were brands, you went to see the new RKO picture because it was an RKO picture, not because of who made it or who starred in it; with Citizen Kane, people went because it was a film made by Orson Welles, starring Orson Welles.
Now that I have that out of the way, why is the way Citizen Kane told its story so important to its legacy? It should be fairly easy to assume that the average audience member, no matter how well versed in film they are, can distinguish the difference between a modern film and an old film based solely on what they look like. Well, Citizen Kane was different to every other film that had come before it, and even a lot that came after it, in terms of how the film looks. In fact, aside from the fact that the film has the visual hallmarks of cameras from that era and the quality of the sound, Citizen Kane could pass as a modern film in how shots are framed, the sequences are edited, and the non-chronological structure of the narrative.
Welles always was a perfectionist in any field he worked in, he was no different as a director. So, using his theatre skills in conveying an emotional narrative to an audience, he makes the camera an active participant in the narrative at play. Films before Citizen Kane typically consisted of limited camera shots and usually crammed as much into the frame as possible so that the shot didn’t need to be changed very often. Kane then set the new standard where the camera would frequently cut to different places or move around the set as the actors did. Welles also used a lot of depth of field effects in Kane that weren’t overly present previously. In almost every scene there are things happening in the background that are arguably just as important as what is happening in the foreground. This was one of the true pioneers of visual storytelling, something that I as a critic value very much. It's important to note that Kane wasn't the first to employ such technical achievements, but it was the first to unify all these disparate practices into one film.
Before I divulge on that too much further, I want to set the scene. Hollywood in the 1930’s and 40’s was a very different place to what it was today, twenty years ago, or even forty. The movie studios had all the power and all the say, I mean they still do today to an extent, but unlike today back in that period of time there was no other way for a film to get made than with a massive production company like RKO or MGM. At the time Orson Welles was really only majorly famous for his theatre work, and his panic inducing War of the Worlds radio broadcast. Yet Hollywood were clamouring for him to direct a film so much so that they said he could make a film about anything he wanted, and he would get all the credit for it, an auteur’s dream come true. Now whilst it can be contested about how much Welles was responsible for (I’ll address that in more detail in my Mank review), it cannot be understated how big of a deal this was in that era of Hollywood. Production companies were brands, you went to see the new RKO picture because it was an RKO picture, not because of who made it or who starred in it; with Citizen Kane, people went because it was a film made by Orson Welles, starring Orson Welles.
Now that I have that out of the way, why is the way Citizen Kane told its story so important to its legacy? It should be fairly easy to assume that the average audience member, no matter how well versed in film they are, can distinguish the difference between a modern film and an old film based solely on what they look like. Well, Citizen Kane was different to every other film that had come before it, and even a lot that came after it, in terms of how the film looks. In fact, aside from the fact that the film has the visual hallmarks of cameras from that era and the quality of the sound, Citizen Kane could pass as a modern film in how shots are framed, the sequences are edited, and the non-chronological structure of the narrative.
Welles always was a perfectionist in any field he worked in, he was no different as a director. So, using his theatre skills in conveying an emotional narrative to an audience, he makes the camera an active participant in the narrative at play. Films before Citizen Kane typically consisted of limited camera shots and usually crammed as much into the frame as possible so that the shot didn’t need to be changed very often. Kane then set the new standard where the camera would frequently cut to different places or move around the set as the actors did. Welles also used a lot of depth of field effects in Kane that weren’t overly present previously. In almost every scene there are things happening in the background that are arguably just as important as what is happening in the foreground. This was one of the true pioneers of visual storytelling, something that I as a critic value very much. It's important to note that Kane wasn't the first to employ such technical achievements, but it was the first to unify all these disparate practices into one film.
The narrative jumps around in time an awful lot as it is told almost entirely through flashbacks. This was also something relatively new to film as the story was not one continuously unfolding series of events, but as each interviewee reveals more information about Kane, we learn more about what kind of man he really was, and in turn what we learned about him twenty minutes earlier now has an entirely different context to it. We start at the end of Charles Foster Kane’s story and as we go through the various flashbacks, we fit in new pieces to a puzzle that doesn’t become visible in its entirety until the final shots of the film. Whilst this style of narrative development is commonplace today, in 1941 this was unlike anything audiences had seen before and it required significantly more from viewers than to simply sit back and watch. You need to think and piece things together, just as Jerry Thompson does.
I’ve said all I can really say about Citizen Kane, and ultimately, it’s nothing new, everybody who has reviewed or analysed the film has said exactly the same things as me and probably in much more interesting ways. But here comes the brutal truth. Should you watch Citizen Kane? Now of course that silver badge up the top of the page says it’s a must watch, but in all honesty, I would say to avoid it unless you love (and I mean really love) films from the 1930’s and 40’s. On top of that I would say to only watch it if you’re a massive film fan. It’s a very important piece of film history (hence the must watch badge), and whilst I would say it can certainly be a bit of a drag at times narratively, if you’re a self-respecting cinephile don’t do what I did and put it off for the best part of ten years just because the prospect of watching it seems daunting, it's actually far more digestible than I imagined it would be.
I enjoyed it more than I thought I would, but it is absolutely a film I respect more for what it achieved technically and the precedent it set, rather than for the story it tells.
I’ve said all I can really say about Citizen Kane, and ultimately, it’s nothing new, everybody who has reviewed or analysed the film has said exactly the same things as me and probably in much more interesting ways. But here comes the brutal truth. Should you watch Citizen Kane? Now of course that silver badge up the top of the page says it’s a must watch, but in all honesty, I would say to avoid it unless you love (and I mean really love) films from the 1930’s and 40’s. On top of that I would say to only watch it if you’re a massive film fan. It’s a very important piece of film history (hence the must watch badge), and whilst I would say it can certainly be a bit of a drag at times narratively, if you’re a self-respecting cinephile don’t do what I did and put it off for the best part of ten years just because the prospect of watching it seems daunting, it's actually far more digestible than I imagined it would be.
I enjoyed it more than I thought I would, but it is absolutely a film I respect more for what it achieved technically and the precedent it set, rather than for the story it tells.
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