Review of Citizen Kane (1941) by Manny C — 07 Aug 2012

For decades Citizen Kane sat at the top of Sight and Sounds centennial poll of film critics and filmmakers as the greatest film of all time. Until last week, when the latest poll showed Citizen Kane dethroned by Alfred Hitchcock's moody masterpiece Vertigo. But even before that, other than the Sight and Sound poll, Citizen Kane, Orson Welles' spectacular debut film, had enjoyed great accolades like no other film ever. Deemed the greatest film of all time in 1998 by the American Film Institute, a Best Picture award by the New York Film Critics Circle and the National Board of Review, and earned an Oscar for its screenplay, all this despite being a total flop when it was released in 1941. Citizen Kane carries a lot of legend with it, namely the fact that Welles was only 24 years old when he made it, but more for its obvious parallels and allusions to real life newspaper magnate William Randolph Hearst, who stopped at nothing to try and stop the film from being released, and then discredited it when he failed to do so. But really there are a number of reasons Citizen Kane has been well-regarded for decades, beyond feuds with possible inspirations and talk or prodigal filmmaking prowess.

For one, the film itself tells a remarkable story: It centers on Charles Foster Kane (Welles), born into poverty, but eventually striking it rich when a gold mine once owned by his mother is bequeathed to him. And so he begins a populist news publication and radio empire, and eventually marries the niece of an American president and even running for governor. But when his ambitions for real power take hold, they are continually stymied. As he becomes isolated by his power and need for more, he becomes abusive to those who care for him, namely the women in his life, first his wife, then his mistress, finally dying alone in his baroque, unfinished castle, known as Xanadu, longing for the simplicity of his impoverished childhood. In short: money cannot buy happiness, but rather than extolling this message in a very American point of view, the film takes an almost Dickensian path to conveying this message, perhaps in keeping with New Deal traditions at the time.

But what is even more significant about this compelling tale is that it begins explicitly with Kane's death, and with him uttering the enigmatic final word of his life: 'Rosebud'. A band of reporters latches onto this mystery, pondering what it may possibly mean or refer to, and go about doing so by interviewing those who knew Kane best, which is to say they only knew so much. Therefore the film is told in flashback, but as aforementioned, they can only provide so much insight, from their own specific, likely biased perspectives. It's this brilliant complex method of telling Kane's story that garnered it such praise from those who knew they were seeing something astonishing, without straying to far from conventional Hollywood continuity. This lead critic Pauline Kael to hail the script by Herman J. Mankiewicz as the true hero of Citizen Kane, rather than Welles' presence as director and star.

But for me, the film's real power lies in its dazzling cinematography, care of the great Gregg Toland, who developed a technique in which everything can be in focus, from the extreme background, the foreground and central middle-ground, so that a cinephile's eye can wander all over the place and really see the shots. It's more than striking, it truly unforgettable. So is the film, which is no less an important touchstone of film history because of it descent from the top of Sight and Sounds poll.