Although I’ve always heard people talk about the much acclaimed Citizen Kane, I hadn’t actually seen it until last night. In the beginning of the semester, I was only really curious to see whether the all the hype about Citizen Kane was true. And I admit that was still one my goals last night. However, after watching the documentary last week about Orson Welles and William Randolph Hurst, I was really looking forward to watching Citizen Kane with or without the hype.
Well, now that I’ve seen it, I can say that I really did enjoy the story. I think having the background information from the documentary aided in my reasonably high opinion of the story but even without the background, it would be pretty decent. When the movie first started I was pretty skeptical because all the clips I had seen were well into the story and so I was not prepared for the loud voice over narration or the flashing images which were made to look like stock footage. Although I am a fan of the use of the whole flashing stock footage style, I found the narration jarring and I was glad when the film actually got into the story.
I also found Citizen Kane stylistically, very impressive. I particularly liked the scene in which Kane walks past the wall of mirrors as well as the scene when Susan leaves Kane, walking through the long hallway and out the two doors. Although Orson wells didn’t know the rules of cinematography, he certainly broke them well and this adds to the success of the film.
In the end, however, I do think that Citizen Kane’s acclaim is mostly hype. I know that’s a big statement to make considering that it’s topped a number of “greatest films of all time” lists. I also know that a lot of people say it is a film that has to grow on you but I just don’t see that happening to me. I didn’t hate it but I didn’t love it, end of story.
Image From: http://upload.moldova.org/movie/movies/c/citizen_kane/thumbnails/tn2_citizen_kane_4.jpg
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