Sunday, January 21, 2007

Citizen Kane (1941)



Directed by and starring Orson Welles. Also starring Joseph Cotten, Dorothy Comingore, and Everett Sloane.

So much has been written about what a directorial tour de force this film is that it would be futile for me to find a new angle on this idea. What separates this film from so many other technical achievements is what a great entertainment it is. When I first saw this film in high school, I came to it through its reputation as the universally-canonized Greatest Movie Ever, and so it was a little intimidating to sit down and watch it. That first time, I mainly enjoyed it for its storytelling style, with flashbacks within flashbacks and differing perspectives on its title character. Later on, in college, I had learned to pay more attention to things like style and technique, and so I was able to appreciate the film's triumphs in these aspects as well- deep focus, high-and-low-angle shots, chiaroscuro, and Welles' ever-inventive ideas for leading in and out of flashbacks. So far so awesome, but one night a few years ago I was lying on my couch watching television late at night, unable to sleep, when I came across KANE on a classic movie channel, so I watched it. And while watching it again something dawned on me- CITIZEN KANE is FUN. On top of all the innovations Orson Welles and his gang of theatre and cinema mavericks contributed to this film, there's also a showman's flair for entertainment that has kept the film fresh and exciting for more than sixty years. What makes the film so successful both as art and entertainment is that the technical stuff never manages to suffocate the entertainment value. Much of the credit for this must go to Welles, who was directing his first film here- although he had many collaborators in the making of this movie, it's his youthful boldness and outsize spirit that dominates the film even today. The film stands proudly, not only as a near-impossible goal for first-time filmmakers to shoot for, but also as one of Hollywood's crowning achievements. As the film's original poster announced, "It's Terrific!"

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