Citizen Kane (1941) Review

 

Citizen Kane (1941)

So, obviously anyone who has ever been interested in cinema has heard the term “The Citizen Kane of...” in reference to great films. Well...

Focusing on a journalist’s investigation into a news magnates final words, Citizen Kane slowly unravels the life story of Charles Foster Kane through the testimonies of those closest to him.

So, with cinema, there are a few major shifts and one of the biggest was movies pre-CK and movies post-CK. It’s the realism that is present, that at the time, simply hadn’t been done, as with so much that hadn’t been done. Cinema had a very clear cut formula, with camera angles, music, realism, and acting that just wasn’t broken, until this film.

Directed by fresh faced, first time director, in Orson Welles, he threw out the conventional movie making techniques and did his own thing because he had never made a movie before. He didn’t know all of the different things that went into making it, so he did his own thing, brilliantly I might add. He used creative camera angles that highlight the highs and lows of Kane’s life, made groundbreaking advancements in VFX, and edited in a very unique way, that really utilizes cross-dissolve transitions, one time even fading THREE different shots over another by triple exposing them (sorry, GEEKING OUT). As well as directing, Welles also plays the lead, who through the use of phenomenal makeup, ages from his 20s to his 70s, covering many years in between, with the makeup looking better than most CGI aging that is done today! He commands the screen, playing Kane so so well that it’s mind blowing that it isn’t a different actor for each phase of his life.

The story, based on the real life William Randolph Hearst, is timeless, with it powerfully criticizing the rich and famous, while ironically providing a biography on Welles’ own life.

One of the most important films ever made, Citizen Kane is able to bring together all of these new, old, and revolutionary techniques in storytelling, to bring you a really timeless story, that is perhaps more important now than it was nearly 80 years ago.

10/10