- See Citizen Kane.
- Have you seen Citizen Kane yet?
So should begin the list of New Year’s Resolutions for any so-called film lover who has somehow escaped the transformative experience of Orson Welles’ 1941 masterpiece. So here’s a chance to make good on a resolution just two days into the new year, and have fun doing it.
It’s no accident that Citizen Kane has been named the Greatest Movie of All Time by numerous groups—the American Film Institute, British Film Institute, BBC, New York Film Critics Circle, National Board of Review, internet aggregator They Shoot Pictures Don’t They, and on and on. But in a way, the legend has become an albatross, and the movie is now perceived by some as cinematic medicine, something that must be endured on the way to seeing the movies you actually like. Fact: that’s wrong.
Because here’s the thing: Citizen Kane is a joy-ride, an absolute delight, about as much fun as you can have watching a movie.
The thrill of innovation is everywhere. The dazzling, multiple-perspective script by Welles and Herman Mankiewicz is kaleidoscopic storytelling at its best, and earned the film its only Oscar. The still-unmatched deep-focus cinematography by the great Gregg Toland is forever-breathtaking, the result of Toland actually inventing lenses and techniques that made it possible. The film also marked the debuts of a slew of great actors who would become Hollywood regulars over the years, including Joseph Cotten, Agnes Moorehead, Ray Collins, Ruth Warrick, and Paul Stewart. Oh, and Kane is the debut first film score by the legendary, Oscar-winning Bernard Herrmann (Vertigo, Psycho, Taxi Driver)!
And you can’t talk about firsts without noting that this is Orson Welles’ first film (!!). He was 25 years old at the time, and already the toast of the New York theater scene. He had complete creative control, down to the final cut, something he would never have again.
Another positive: Citizen Kane is a penetrating, lacerating study of malignant American megalomania, a timely and pertinent tale, for sure. The film greatly upset the person it was at-least-somewhat based on (publisher William Randolph Hearst), so it gets full points for ruffling the feathers of the 1%.
So when people (like me) go off about how great this movie is, remember: sometimes, something just really is THAT good, and that’s the case with Citizen Kane.