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Post by wmcclain on Dec 11, 2019 16:36:02 GMT
Citizen Kane (1941), directed by Orson Welles. The nonlinear life, loves and death of a wealthy newspaper magnate. Told in flashbacks as journalists try to figure out how to write his life. It has monomaniacal focus on Kane's character and ambition and the puzzles of his personality. Is he trying to buy or command love because his parents were cold? Who really knew him? Did he ever love anyone? What did his dying words mean? Such concentration on one huge ego is wearying. He doesn't change or develop at all: from young and ambitious to old and rigid, he's the same person and it's all about him. He never achieves any self-knowledge, or even considers that he should. It is a good film, with especially impressive special effects (often meant to be invisible) but I do not understand the cult of " Citizen Kane as the best film of all time." It was made by a certified boy genius and employed much innovative photography; does that make it a great film? Welles said he learned everything by watching John Ford pictures; why is there no cult of The Grapes of Wrath (1940) or How Green Was My Valley (1941)? It is almost without humor. Oddly enough, I have a hard time taking such a film seriously. In his commentary, Ebert (a huge fan) calls it a "shallow masterpiece": plenty of surface detail but not much depth. You might classify it with other films that present mysteries which are never solved, like The Birds (1963) or Picnic at Hanging Rock (1975). I know I'm in the minority, but I've seen even harsher critics: Bernard Herrmann score. Available on Blu-ray with two commentary tracks: Roger Ebert and Peter Bogdanovich. Ebert's is almost entirely about camera and lighting technique and the clever stage construction. He says "what is the best film ever?" is a pointless question, but he answers Citizen Kane because he likes watching it. Bogdanovich's is more or less a subset of Ebert's and repeats some of the same stories.
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Post by mattgarth on Dec 11, 2019 16:54:29 GMT
Another job nicely done, William.
No humor, though? I find it full of fun. Orson was having a swell time with it.
"You know, Mr. Thatcher -- at the rate of a million dollars a year, I'll have to close this place in ... sixty years."
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Post by koskiewicz on Dec 11, 2019 17:00:54 GMT
I love this film. But I believe the "Third Man" is superior. In any rate, I love the entire body of Orson Welles work. A particular favorite of mine is "Mr Arkadin" and the under rated and obscure "Don Quixote"
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spiderwort
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Post by spiderwort on Dec 11, 2019 17:49:21 GMT
I have so much admiration for this film, given that I think it's probably the most brilliant American film I've ever seen. Sheer genius in so many ways. I love to watch and analyze it. That said, I prefer his next film, The Magnificent Ambersons, which I find more emotionally appealing. But the cinematic genius of Citizen Kane is a wonder, pure and simple. Kudos to the young, brilliant Welles (age 25), and also to the great cinematography of Gregg Toland. The deep focus shots are stunning.
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Post by teleadm on Dec 11, 2019 19:11:21 GMT
It's a great movie, but I found it a bit cold. A giant fireplace at the real Hearst's San Simeon: That is nothing compared to the fireplace in Kane's Xanadu:
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Post by politicidal on Dec 11, 2019 19:48:00 GMT
It's an important film (I guess).
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biker1
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Post by biker1 on Dec 11, 2019 19:54:59 GMT
Never heard of it. Sounds like one of those boring black & white movies they used to make in the 'good ol' days'.
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Post by koskiewicz on Dec 11, 2019 21:24:00 GMT
The good ol' days are gone. You're now in the bad ol' days with nothing but crappy cinema...
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Post by bravomailer on Dec 11, 2019 21:29:00 GMT
It's a great movie, but I found it a bit cold. A giant fireplace at the real Hearst's San Simeon: That is nothing compared to the fireplace in Kane's Xanadu: Man, I've lived in studio apartments the size of those fireplaces. Yes, it is cold. It begins as a pseudo-documentary and never, well, warms up. Nonetheless, truly great.
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Post by OldAussie on Dec 11, 2019 21:42:01 GMT
Clever, tragic, amusing - and fun to watch. The most outright entertaining of the "great" classics? Possibly. Only negative - the Susan Alexander section drags a little. Agnes Moorehead delivers one of the mightiest one-scene performances of all time. An easy 9/10.
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Post by Feologild Oakes on Dec 11, 2019 21:46:09 GMT
When i watched it for the first time when i was 18 i rated it 3/10
Than i watched it again when i was 30 and rated it 7.5/10
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Post by Prime etc. on Dec 11, 2019 21:49:16 GMT
On the surface it is kind of a King Midas story (money and power can't buy happiness or love), but in reference to the media praise over the decades as the best film of all time, I think the story being about the destruction of an establishment (in 1940) WASP type American character is probably the major catalyst for all the hoopla around it in the decades since--it fits the politics. It's not an American success story-it is an American failure story, so it ties into the demoralizing trends which have accumulated for decades.
I think the recent prominence of VERTIGO in best film lists continues this sensibility, since the story is more directly on neurosis and men controlling women, so it fits into the new expanded "toxic masculinity" theme. I don't think Citizen Kane was making any conscious statement on masculinity--after all it is his unsympathetic mother who pushes him into the life he leads.
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spiderwort
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Post by spiderwort on Dec 11, 2019 23:15:56 GMT
I have so much admiration for this film, given that I think it's probably the most brilliant American film I've ever seen. Sheer genius in so many ways. I love to watch and analyze it. That said, I prefer his next film, The Magnificent Ambersons, which I find more emotionally appealing. But the cinematic genius of Citizen Kane is a wonder, pure and simple. Kudos to the young, brilliant Welles (age 25), and also to the great cinematography of Gregg Toland. The deep focus shots are stunning. Welles hurt the Ambersons when he did not return from South America to finish shooting it. His cinematographer Robert Wise was under pressure from the studio to fix it and did a good job, but not the ending Welles intended.
Yes, Welles did himself a great disservice when he abandoned the editing process on AMBERSONS. Wise was a great editor and under the circumstances I thought he made the ending work well in his direction of it. Not the ending Welles wanted, nor the final cut in general, but that's on him. I never understood why he made that choice. He was so lucky to have Wise at his back, not only in directing that final scene, but in doing his best to honor Welles' cut in the editing room, fighting the studio all the way. Wise was a real talent and also a gentleman.
Btw, I attended the DGA Awards in 1984, the year that they gave Welles the Lifetime Achievement Award, and Wise presented it to him that night. It was the first time they had been on a stage together in forty years. It was quite amazing to all in the room.
And just to clarify something I think you already know: Wise was the editor of AMBERSONS, not the cinematographer. Stanley Cortez was the cinematographer.
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Post by OldAussie on Dec 12, 2019 0:09:58 GMT
Is Rosebud the greatest Mcguffin in film history?
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Post by BATouttaheck on Dec 12, 2019 0:17:33 GMT
When I saw it for the first time, I enjoyed the fun of the mystery of not knowing what Rosebud was. On later viewings, I knew, but the story was not spoiled by the knowing.... rather like the twists in Witness for the Prosecution and The Sixth Sense.
When touring the Hearst estate ... the guides don't seem to appreciate questions about the film. I didn't ask but some in the group did !
Watching he "making of" at the end of the dvd is fun .. seeing some of the trick shots made to try to save some $$$.
Memorable scenes .. shared table and breakfast newspapers and wrecking the bedroom.
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Post by telegonus on Dec 13, 2019 10:01:41 GMT
I love Citizen Kane for more reasons than I care to list at this moment. Broadly speaking, it rocks; while some scenes play better than others the film's story holds together as a whole; and the art direction, photography and editing (Wise and Robson) are swell. There's almost nothing that I don't like about this film.
Yes, it's ambitious, though I'm not sure that director and co-author Orson Welles was aiming to make the greatest movie of all time. He aimed high, was blessed with gifted collaborators (Herman Mankiewicz, Bernard Hermann, the RKO art department, a brilliant cast). It's not like Welles did it all alone. He had help, and one can see that on the screen.
Maybe this movie, controversial to this day, is too highly praised. I think it would play better as a cult classic, which is almost is but for the cult being to large to be called a cult. It's more of a critic's favorite; and a lot of critics do favor it. Something about the movie's PR, even today, makes it an easy target (too jumpy, hard to follow, the black and white makes it difficult to watch, confusing storyline, such as it has one, et al.)
What can I say about all this? This is not a movie for all tastes. Orson Welles was what we would now call an elitist. Big deal. I still think Citizen Kane's great; and it's also great fun. One final observation: director Welles was a man of vast ambition and talent, and while he had an enormous ego he was not solemn about his work. There is humor in Citizen Kane and in many of his later films as well.
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Post by hitchcockthelegend on Dec 18, 2019 0:56:31 GMT
I have not long "finally" purchased the Blu-ray, so let me spin that after Xmas and get back on thread about it - a thread I might add that is superb. I love this board, it's full of grown up film loving people.
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Post by Captain Spencer on Apr 13, 2020 3:04:21 GMT
Just thought I'd chime in with my thoughts on Citizen Kane. Do I think it's masterpiece that should be declared the greatest movie of all time? Not by a long shot, but I still enjoyed it very much and have tremendous respect for it being so innovative and groundbreaking in filmmaking. I mean, here we have Orson Welles, this 24-year-old punk who is self-taught by watching mostly John Ford movies, and he comes up with all these neat camera techniques such as dark cinematography that makes people shadowy and mysterious. And there was that surreal spinning camerawork during the breakfast scene. Clearly Welles was thinking outside the box.
I also dug the way Welles made Kane's seemingly deserted mansion look sinister and creepy at the start of the film, giving it the feel of a Univeral horror movie. It help sets the dark and grim tone.
Themes that were explored in Citizen Kane include the loss of innocence, the hardships of being wealthy, and the ruthlessness of politics. And I don't know this to be certain, but perhaps it was the first, if not one of the first movies, to explore the power of the media and how it can be very manipulative.
So it's definitely a classic that should be preserved, and likely will be for a very long time. I would say that viewers who watch Citizen Kane for the first time should go into it with the knowledge that it changed the course filmmaking with all the various camera techniques, because that would make it all the more fascinating to watch.
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Post by BATouttaheck on Apr 13, 2020 3:34:18 GMT
I have not long "finally" purchased the Blu-ray, so let me spin that after Xmas and get back on thread about it - a thread I might add that is superb. I love this board, it's full of grown up film loving people. ahem ...
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Post by Doghouse6 on Apr 13, 2020 14:53:06 GMT
Themes that were explored in Citizen Kane include the loss of innocence, the hardships of being wealthy, and the ruthlessness of politics. And I don't know this to be certain, but perhaps it was the first, if not one of the first movies, to explore the power of the media and how it can be very manipulative. Newspaper dramas (and comedies as well) were quite popular all through the '30s, and two early ones, both from 1931, specifically explored the manipulative power of media: The Finger Points, in which a naive reporter from a small town on his first big-city job (Richard Barthelmess) is recruited by racketeer Clark Gable to kill bad stories about his operations and replace them with favorable coverage; Five Star Final, with Edward G. Robinson as an editor who dredges up an old murder case, making tabloid fodder of the now-respectable woman who once served prison time for it. In the form of screwball comedy, 1936's Libeled Lady has editor Spencer Tracy hiring reporter William Powell to frame a society heiress (Myrna Loy) in a scandal in order to neutralize the lawsuit she's filed against the paper. There are dozens of others of the period, many of which offer their own takes on the power to which you refer.
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