Rob is constantly being bombarded by people telling him “you haven’t seen ____? You gotta check it out.” Or hearing critics rave “this movie is a classic, a must see.” So Rob decided that from now on every time he actually watches one of these flicks, he’ll give us his take on whether the film will live up to the hype or fall short.
So, what’s the deal with Citizen Kane?
Citizen Kane is one of those movies that became bigger than itself. The whole time I was watching it I was comparing it to the ‘Bobo’ episode of The Simpsons and I picked up on a ton of pieces of the movie that have been parodied or borrowed. This gives Citizen Kane a ‘bigger than life’ type of hype that it has to live up to in order for the viewer to enjoy the movie, and the movie is done so well it feels like it isn’t even a challenge for the film.
I feel like Citizen Kane is sort of like The Beatles of movies. The movie did a lot to further the genre by introducing filming techniques and story telling methods that are now commonplace. Looking back, you may not realize all that the movie did for future films because everything that you see is something that you’ve seen before. However, I can imagine people seeing this movie for the first time and really being blown away by it.
There are a lot of flashbacks and scenes that cut in at times to elaborate on the main story. While the reporter, trying to find out what kind of a man Charles Foster Kane was in order to write a good editorial piece on the mans life, conducts interviews and reads memoirs of those close to him we get to see the scenes as they actually happen. The report is never able to get the level of depth the viewer is and this creates a sense that we knew the man better than he could and maybe even better then those he was close to. When we find out what Kane’s last word ‘Rosebud’ means, it is done in a way where it is possible only the viewer is aware out of the entire cast. It creates a really nice effect that leaves you feeling that perhaps Kane was misunderstood his whole life.
Asides from the story, everything else is done rather well. However, there are a few things such as music cues played by a flourishing trumpet and that one of the actresses speaks in an outdated ‘flapper girl’ style that are less than desirable. These things don’t hurt the movie, but they are the only pieces besides the black and white scheme that remind you that you are watching an older movie. But since this movie came out in 1941 before movies like Casablanca and the Alfred Hitchcock classics, it still manages to feel ahead of its time.
Overall, Citizen Kane is a movie that is well crafted and has a rich story that can be examined and analyzed in a way that is really enjoyable. It is definitely story driven and begs to be mulled over in your head for days after watching. The nuances and undertones are layered deeply and insures that the movie could never be considered outdated.