If we must pick just one movie as the greatest, it may as well be Citizen Kane. However, this crown has done the movie a bit of a disservice. A modern movie-goer who never watches classics may watch Citizen Kane out of context because of its reputation and not see it as a cinematic miracle. In fact, I have heard just as many negative reactions to the movie as positive ones, because I have noticed a tendency for people to dislike whatever’s the most popular. Those who aren’t yet familiar with Vertigo will soon hate it.
What all the understood praise doesn’t convey is that Citizen Kane is a truly great movie. Its production has become film legend. Welles was only 25 when he wrote, directed and starred in the film, the first he had been involved with and one of the only ones he’d ever have complete control over. The story of the rise and fall of an enormous newspaper tycoon was seen as a jab at William Randolph Hearst, who used his power to try to keep the film from release. He did succeed in temporarily burying it and guaranteeing that Welles’ future career would be overshadowed by studio meddling, for fear that his free creativity would only get everyone into trouble. The reason it became so well regarded later is usually attributed to the technological advances with deep focus and other camera tricks, the unprecedented addition of ceilings to the elaborate sets, and all the other notoriety.
What never seems to come up is how great Welles’ storytelling abilities were. I think the movie’s greatest strength is how disconnected it is. We were never meant to care about the man the story is about, but rather to care about the story itself. There are many clues, the most obvious of which is the revelation of just what “rosebud” refers to, that suggest that the point and moral of the film is that the man’s life we are witnessing doesn’t ultimately matter. As such, it is very cold and, therefore, very powerful. There are scenes that still give me chills no matter how many times I’ve seen them, and the fact that the movie always leaves me feeling drained proves that it did its job well.
The biggest danger in Citizen Kane’s famous greatness is the temptation to overindulge. Everyone falls back on it too much, studies it too extensively. If the movie was nothing but a textbook guide to cinematic trickery, it would be worthless. I do believe to an extent that Welles was probably more interested in perfecting than entertaining, but his film is great above all else because it actually is entertaining, as well as perfect. A movie can be great by being one or the other, but having both is what elevates it to the top of the ladder.
Citizen Kane was one of the first classic movies I ever saw. I watched it along with several other essentials many years ago with the intent of seeing the movies everyone ought to see. Knowing nothing about it, its greatness was a surprise to me and the impact was long-lasting. Even now that I am aware of its true place in movie history, I still see it and revisit it as a great movie that has been a part of my movie life since the beginning, not just as an object to be unraveled. I can also easily call it one of the primary reasons I became so fully interested in film from an artistic perspective. The movie has left a similar impression on so many others, making it one of the most influential movies ever made. Orson Welles was a great entertainer and artist, but was most valuable as a pioneer. There haven’t been too many individuals who had the genius to single-handedly change a whole medium. Welles was one of them and, 70 years later, Citizen Kane is still changing everything.
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