Citizen Kane

 

Citizen Kane 1941

• Director: Orson Welles
• Seen by this director: Chimes at Midnight
• Based on book: no
• Cast: Orson Welles, Joseph Cotton, Dorothy Comingore, Agnes Moorehead, Ruth Warrick
• Personal “oh yeah him/her” reaction, i.e. have seen this actor in:
• Orson Welles – Voyage of the Damned, Catch 22, Casino Royale, A Man for All Season, Chimes at Midnight, The Long Hot Summer, Moby Dick, A Touch of Evil
• Joseph Cotton – many, no doubt
• Agnes Moorehead – Bewitched, Hush Hush Sweet Charlotte, Pollyanna, Raintree County, Showboat, many TV series
• Why? Required.
• Seen: Once before. Now 28 September 2022      

       It’s on every Best Film Ever list in the world, or at least the Western World. I don’t remember being overwhelmed the first time I saw this about thirty years ago, but I was young and foolish then, scarcely in my forties. Maybe I’m now wiser cinematically.

       What I’d really like to be doing is watching this with a film-loving teen-ager who’s never heard of it, and one who knows of its reputation but has only seen films made since, say, the 80s or 90s. But, alas, I’m on my own here.

       Words that come to mind: nice but not spectacular B/W filming. Long-winded. Slapstick. Fox News.

       Is it a must-see? No. Is it worth all the adulation and 10*? No. Do I admire it? Some of it. Does it move me emotionally? Not in the least. Never mind best of all time – is it the best film of the 40’s? Nope. Chaplin’s The Dictator is far better, and I also prefer It’s a Wonderful Life, Rope, The Red Shoes, The Bicycle Thief, Arsenic and Old Lace, The Grapes of Wrath, Casablanca, Rome Open City, even Olivier’s melodramatic Hamlet. To name a few.      

2 ½* of 5.