Today's Mini-Review: Citizen Kane

Citizen Kane

Rating: ****/*****, or 8/10

Nothing can be added to everything that has already been said about this hugely influential, historic movie that broke with cinematic conventions of the day and heralded the modern standards of filmmaking, other than my personal opinion. I think it's a pretty good film, but I think it's too risquée to claim it to be 'the best motion picture of all time', as the journal Sight and Sound did in 1962, as such a statement is terribly subjective and only prone to endless and pointless debating. Nevertheless, many viewers new to Citizen Kane will be surprised as to how well it has stood the test of time in terms of its feel, certainly compared to other films of its day. In fact, it's only the Academy ratio (and maybe the black and white photography) that make it feel dated in any sense. Otherwise it's dynamic, slick, marvelously acted and above all, overly fast paced: even for modern day audiences the witty dialogue might feel like being on acid as it flies by ever so rapidly. Citizen Kane is first and foremost a product of Orson Welles' visionary mind, and his strong grip over the piece can be felt in every department; which is not surprising considering he directed, produced, wrote and starred in it. Welles crafts the ingeniously, deliberately chronologically garbled tale of the excessively rich newspaper tycoon Charles Foster Kane, starting at the moment of his demise at old age. On his deathbed he utters the phrase 'Rosebud', after which reporters start a frantic search into the details of his personal life to find out its meaning (and don't think I'm gonna tell you what that is!). From this point onwards we are treated to whatever there is to tell about the man Kane, all his victories and defeats, his joys and parties, but mostly his many tragedies and failures, as his long life is recanted by various people from his inner circle, both his friends and enemies, his colleagues and rivals, and those people closest to him he estranged over the years, including his (ex-)wives. The psyche of a complex man is explored, an eternal optimist and innovator, who proved to be just too big for life to his own dismay and misfortune. In many ways Orson Welles is no different, optimizing many existing techniques and alternative methods of photography that were already available at the time but sparsely appropriated, making solid use of them to help tell his unusually told story (a-linear narratives were also not a common thing in Hollywood back then) and ushering in a standard that would find continuous emulation in later years, but only when the audience proved ready in grasping it. Unfortunately for Welles, that wasn't in 1941 when the movie was released. It fared rather poorly at the box office, though much of the blame for that goes to actual media tycoon William Randolph Hearst, on whom the character of Kane seemed to be based, who used his influence in an attempt to utterly destroy the film's reputation, its chance at commercial success, and even its very existence (but fortunately failed). Time at least was kinder on both Welles and Kane, and the movie itself stands out until this day.

Starring: Orson Welles, Joseph Cotten, Dorothy Comingore

Directed by Orson Welles

USA: RKO Radio Pictures, 1941