Citizen Kane (1941)
I'm not honestly sure I would have picked Orson Welles as my second choice for a marathon if it was not for the fact that he made Citizen Kane. Now, even without Citizen Kane, Orson Welles would be a worthy choice for a marathon such as this, but he wouldn't necessarily have distinguished himself from a George Cukor or a Howard Hawks pick if not for Citizen Kane.
Citizen Kane has for years remained my greatest blind spot in my film knowledge, although I have many blind spots when it comes to classic movies. I have never been able to bring myself to watch it because I largely expected it to disappoint and I largely expected the outsized reputation that it holds to be bewildering.
One thing is clear: I am not all confused by its reputation. It's a beautiful looking film with great direction, great performances, and a compelling mystery. Better yet, against all odds, the mystery's conclusion with all the buildup still satisfies, and makes the entire movie come together.
Now, is it the greatest movie ever made? Well, no. Apparently its reputation was not immediate. The movie was an expensive bomb that was critically praised but was largely ignored and forgotten until the mid-1950s when it was re-released in theaters to promote Orson Welles' return to the stage and it was shown on television for the first time. By the 1960s, it started to automatically be included on any top ten films ever made and was frequently the top film.
This is confusing to me. Because I get why the movie would be considered the greatest ever made at the time and to be fair even as late as 1960, I can still see that reputation. But then critics kept it at the top for years and years and years and it makes less sense the farther away from 1941 you get, but the farther away it got, the more cemented it became as the best film ever made.
One misconception I had about Citizen Kane was that its greatness was largely attributable to Orson Welles himself, seeing as he wrote, directed, and starred in the movie. But he co-wrote the movie with Herman J Mankiewicz, the look of the movie can pretty much entirely be credited to Gregg Toland, and the editing to Robert Wise.
Welles didn't know much about directing when he made Citizen Kane, but in his own words, he was "ignorant" and because of that, he made impossible demands to Toland, who was an acclaimed cinematographer prior to Citizen Kane and chose to work with Welles precisely because he was so inexperienced and would want to push the limits of what could be done on screen. Toland just so happened to be so incredibly good at his job that he somehow made the impossible demands come to screen exactly as Welles imagined it.
If there's one thing that completely holds up, in 2020, about Citizen Kane, it's Toland's work. Welles was incredibly lucky that Toland wanted to work with Welles. Toland had been Director of Photography for Wuthering Heights, Grapes of Wrath, and The Long Voyage Home prior to Citizen Kane, among other movies. Welles himself worshipped the ground that the John Ford directed The Long Voyage Home walked on and watched it constantly as he was making Citizen Kane.
I cannot say enough good things about the cinematography. The movie is just a master class in its use of lighting, frequently using shadows to its advantage. Apparently the movie's shots of ceilings was unprecedented at the time, not to mention its extended use of deep focus. Neither of those things are really going to be noticed in 2020 when both of those things are way easier things to do, but the lighting is still kind of jaw dropping.
As for the groundbreaking editing, this part has actually shown its age a bit. The movie overuses the intersecting shots where before one shot fades out, then next shot fades in. And every time that is utilized, it goes on about ten seconds longer than it should. We don't need to see 10 headlines of the same thing, a few will suffice. Similarly, the newsreel footage that functions as an overview of Kane's life goes on way too long. This would have been less noticeable at the time, because it was trying to mimic a real thing that hasn't existed for a very long time. But I imagine many modern viewers will find themselves nodding to sleep before the movie really kicks off.
Even accounting for that, the editing is still impressive. It was edited by future director Robert Wise, who could have been a feature for a marathon himself, having directed The Sound of Music, West Side Story, and the first Star Trek movie. Both Welles and Wise were somehow in their mid-20s when they made this.
Again, not something I really should have been surprised about, but I was genuinely pleased with Orson Welles the actor. He seems to play his role a lot more modern than most actors at his time did. He doesn't really have the weird exaggerated acting style prominent before Marlon Brando and is successfully charming, commanding, vicious, whatever the script needs him to be. I can buy his character as a media tycoon.
He isn't alone. Welles wanted to use first timers to the screen for whatever reason, and somehow the gambit paid off. A large majority of the important players were members of Welles' own Mercury Theatre company, so he clearly knew they could act. Joseph Cotten was well-established on the stage and ended up being a leading actor later that decade. Agnes Moorehead was one of the few women who was able to start her film career at 41-years-old and have it last until the day she died.
Aside from the cinematography and editing, I must give due credit to something I rarely notice in films: the makeup. Welles plays Kane both young and old, and the old scenes are considerably more convincing than you'd think. Welles, again, was 25, and while his performance suggested an older guy, the makeup really helped sell it. The old makeup in this movie is better than some modern productions, though the black-and-white probably helps. Same goes for his old friends who also appear younger in the flashbacks.
Roger Ebert makes a compelling case for why the newsreel footage that opens the film is important. It gives you his life and death right away so that when the film follows what he calls "an emotional chronology" you can still follow it. But I'll be honest. I think you can do without it. Or at least shorten it. It goes on forever and I think when people call Citizen Kane boring, it's almost solely because of this. Because you are immediately on the verge of falling asleep, and it's hard to recover from that.
I do like the structure though aside from the newsreel. I want to say this was also a revolutionary decision, but I'm less certain about this. Anyway, the mystery firmly established at the beginning, the movie managed to keep my attention throughout the gradual reveal by the people close to him. And as I got closer to the end, the more sure I became that the movie wouldn't have a good reveal of what Rosebud meant.
Which was a stupid assumption on my part. Yes, I was under the impression that this movie would disappoint, but still. I should expect Citizen Kane to at least stick the landing on the ending. Surely, its reputation as the greatest movie of all time wouldn't have happened with a disappointing ending. But I'm having trouble articulating why I think it's a great ending, so I'll just leave it up to the readers to already know the reason.
It's amazing to me how much one's preconceptions about a movie can impact what you think about a movie. I did not necessarily go into this with the greatest expectations, and I loved it. Had I expected the #1 movie of all time, I think I might have a different opinion. Enough people "warned" me about the movie that I allowed the movie to surprise me. I wish I could go into every movie like this.
But alas I can't. I hope I can free myself of what many critics at the time suffered from: Welles was compared to Citizen Kane for the rest of his career. To use an analogy I doubt anybody has ever used before, Citizen Kane was Illmatic, and everything else he made was compared to it and suffered because of it. So I'll do my best to avoid that if possible.
This marathon has already been a success one movie in. The rest of the movies can be duds and I'll be happy I chose Orson Welles. And in case it wasn't clear, I'll end with this:
4/4 stars
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