There is a scene in Citizen Kane
where the wife of the titular character has just finished singing at
her opera premiere. I didn't hear anything awful about her singing,
but the audience is quiet at the curtain call. Kane begins clapping
like a maniac, trying to convince by his plaudits that they have just
witnessed a masterpiece.
Kane's reaction in that scene reminds me of
how movie critics praise the mediocre Citizen Kane.
My brother in law, Mr. Pink, asked me
to review this movie for the blog, so I sat down last week and popped
it into the DVD player. For those unfamiliar, the story revolves
around Charles Foster Kane, who dies a lonely old man at the
beginning of the movie, murmuring “Rosebud.” A reporter is then
assigned to interview the people in Kane's life to understand his
life. Through piecemeal we discover the life of a poor boy who was
given up by his parents to a rich upbringing who buys a newspaper to
shape public opinion. He pushes hard with questionable ethics to run
for election, only to be derailed. His personal life and business
life also slowly implode from his self-interest run amok.
Let's start with the good: Orson Welles
is an amazing actor.
I was blown away by the transformation he
presented in Kane's life. Wells was only 25 years old when he
starred in this film and he projected not only worldly maturity, but
he wore the weight of age with amazing believability Most of the
time when I see an actor playing beyond their years, even with modern
makeup effects, it usually falls flat. But Welles magically ages in
every part of his performance. It was an absolutely fascinating
performance, worthy of accolades.
The directing and cinematography are
also top notch. I will gladly show clips of this film in my classes
to demonstrate how to masterfully use light and shadow. Also Welles
was masterful in his use of space and how to make characters look big
or small in order to get across an emotional reality. Kane at first
seems larger than life in the screen, but then as the movie
progresses, he slowly gets swallowed up by the largess of his
cavernous home.
But Citizen Kane is missing the
most important element a great movie needs: someone to care about.
Even in movies full of reprobates like Reservoir Dogs or Wag
the Dog have characters that you either empathize with or find
charming. Citizen Kane has neither. The movie is supposed to
draw you in with the great mystery of Kane's life. But I could never
care about him. I couldn't even find myself caring about any of the
supporting cast. Part of this is purposeful on Welles' part. The
reporter investigating Kane's life, Jerry Thompson (William Alland),
is rarely given any face time. He is always obscured by shadows or
angles of the camera. Wells wants you to feel like the one who is
investigating his life. But there is no emotional tether to the
character at all.
The second problem is the story
structure itself. The film begins with a 10-minute news reel
summarizing Charles Foster Kane's life. A 12th of the
movie feels like an abstract of the plot. Not only is this too long
and kind of boring, but it sucks all of the air out of the narrative.
The whole journey was about discovering who Charles Foster Kane
really was. But in the first 10 minutes I hit all of the major plot
point so that there is no dramatic tension. Within these first few
minutes I know that he ran a newspaper, ran for governor and lost
because of a scandal, married the president's daughter (who later
died), married again and tried to make his wife an opera star but
failed, built a lavish estate called Xanadu but got divorced and died
alone. These aren't spoilers, this is the movie's opening. Some
movies start with the end of the character arc with great effect
(e.g. Titanic and Young Guns II). But Citizen Kane
doesn't just give you point A and C and spends the rest of the time
exploring B. It gives you A, C, E, G and then explores points B,D,
and F. The story gives you no room to be surprised.
Citizen Kane is lauded as one of
the best films ever made.
It's not.
It is a decent film and it is an
important film in terms of the development of cinema. But like
Charles Foster Kane himself, it has a powerful reputation with very
little emotional substance.
3.5 out of 5 stars
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