Cinema Sunday: Citizen Kane

Last week, I launched this new series called Cinema Sunday where I pontificate on a variety of movies I have seen over my life, from films I first encountered in my childhood to movies I may have stumbled across a few weeks ago while channel surfing. 

Last week, I began with a trio of movies that met the following standards: 
1) they made me laugh
2) stuff blowed up real good 

This week, I thought I might go back to a movie I was introduced to in college to demonstrate I know art when I see it.

That movie is Citizen Kane. 

Citizen Kane can almost be a punchline, the thing certain snobbish aficionados of the theater might relent to having watched as a concession to having seen a movie.  The same way people may dismiss radio but will concede to listening to NPR. 





Others may use Citizen Kane as a get out of jail free card when trapped in a discussion with people at a party who toss out names like Scorsese and Truffaut while most of the movies you've seen are based on the concept of "stuff blowed up real good".  

Citizen Kane is a short hand for "I know of movies that that don't involve spitting, farting and stuff blowing up real good."  

The idea that Citizen Kane is a good movie is a cliche.  

The thing is Citizen Kane is actually a good movie. 

I took film courses in college when my communications major was for Film & Television. A few years into my time in college, my university created a communications option for just television which was less expensive than the Film & TV option.  So I switched my focus from Film & TV to just TV. 

But before I did that, I took a film history class and right off the bat, we had to watch Citizen Kane. 

Citizen Kane was the brainchild of Orson Welles who co-wrote, directed and starred in the film.  Welles made his rep in New York City working on stage and in radio. It is the latter medium where Welles made his rep with the infamous broadcast of War of the Worlds, the one people reportedly thought was an actual news cast of an actual invasion by actual Martians.  (Some sources indicate these reports of panic were mostly false and overstated.) 

Citizen Kane was Orson Welles' first motion picture. Much of this movie's notoriety in film history stems from Welles' lack of knowledge of how films were made at the time.  For example, Welles wanted to shoot certain characters from below to elevate their status. But Welles didn't know you couldn't shoot actors from below because the studio lights would be in the shot.  


So Welles and his production crew had to figure out how to angle cameras to shoot up at the actors without having stage lights in the shot. 

Director Orson Welles and cinematographer Gregg Toland
shooting from an extremely low angle
that required cutting into the set floor.

Orson Welles knew what he wanted to see in Citizen Kane and the limits of the film industry be damned, he was going to see what he wanted to see.  Welles' approach to film making meant revisiting and reworking many accepted film making caveats in editing, story structure and cinematography. A lot of the language of what a modern movie looks like was established in the production of Citizen Kane.  

Before Citizen Kane, most directors were of the mind set of just pointing the camera at the action and record what happens. Under Orson Welles, the movement and placement of the camera became an integral part of the story telling process of film. 

(I think I might be channeling my younger self writing papers for my film history class.)  

In addition to the mechanics and the artistry of film-making being advanced, Citizen Kane's story itself is noteworthy.  It tells the story of one man's life, an epic sweep over decades as that man achieves wealth and power but cannot grasp and hold what is important to him.  

Orson Welles portrays Charles Foster Kane from a lithe and optimistic young man eager to dedicate his fortune to progressive and advocacy journalism to a hunched over, jowly old man, cynical and bitter, bent over by the weight of all he has obtained and burdened by all he has lost. 


Charles Foster Kane is a not the hero of his own story nor is he the story's villain. He is just a man, subject to failings of spirit and will that all men are subject to. Because of his position as a man of means and power, a man viewed by the outside world as an unqualified success, the inner pain of his failures is just that much harder to bear. 

(Man, my professor in my film history class would just be eating this up. I hope I was able to channel some of this stuff 30 years ago when I needed to.) 

It's been about 20 years since I last saw Citizen Kane. But of the dozen or so times I've seen Citizen Kane since that first time in my college film class, I am always impressed by the power and the scope of this story.  And admittedly, there is a part of the story of Citizen Kane that speaks to me on a personal level.

There's a moment in the film when Kane is being challenged by Jed Leland. Leland was Kane's best and maybe only friend. Leland became a reporter for one of Kane's newspapers and over time, their friendship became strained.

Leland correctly points out that Kane is desperate for adoration, affection and to be loved but only on his own terms. Kane proffers a drink. 

"A toast, Jedediah: to Love on my own terms." 

Every time I get to that scene and I think of every lost relationship in my life. I can't help but think that's been my principal failing, seeking love but only on my terms. 

(OK, this got dark and rather personal awfully fast.) 

Anyway, it may sound like a cliche to cite Citizen Kane as a great movie. It's the sort of answer we're supposed to give. But every time I see Citizen Kane, I remain to this day still impressed with it, objectively for its cinematic accomplishments and subjectively for how it makes me think and feel.

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I think we could do with a laugh.

Next week, Cinema Sunday looks at one of my favorites comedies.