Note: This is my first post, so please bear with me as I get into the swing of things and figure out how my critiques should be done :) In hindsight I realize I chose a beast of a movie to start out with. Thanks!
The Story Being Told
Citizen Kane is about a group of news reporters trying to discover who deceased newspaper mogul Charles Foster Kane was through his dying words.
The Kind of Story it Tells
It's interesting, I haven't watched this movie in a couple years, and on my most recent viewing I realized it's a story about telling a story. A prominent man in American history has died and a newspaper needs to tell the story of his life. The first 13mins of the film are spent by giving us a comprehensive run down of Kane's life from birth to death, his accomplishments, and his missteps. The newsreel ends and a man speaks forth saying that the newsreel is great except it doesn't tell us who Kane really was. It tells us what he did, but it tells us nothing about the man himself. If we simply share what a man did, we are only giving out the bullet points of his life, but if we can express who he was we can connect those dots and hopefully understand him.
Right in the beginning the movie lays out the plot points, but it also tells us what a good story needs to be. We've already established what Kane did, now we can begin to truly understand who he was. It's not enough to just watch what somebody did, anyone can do anything, but why they do things is what interests us. We find out through what may have seemed to be a power hungry control freak of a man, was just a poor guy who missed out on his childhood and wanted nothing more than to have what was taken from him.
Now this is the story the films tells on its own, but the story that encopasses Citizen Kane goes much deeper than what appeared on screen. I won't go into too much detail since you can do your own research, but Citizen Kane is a satirical drama that directly targeted real life newspaper tycoon William Randolph Hearst. Citizen Kane broke a lot of ground by developing a lot of new camera techniques, but it's what it did for the career of Hearst that makes this film "the best movie of all time." Citizen Kane exposed and effectively ruined Hearst's career, and no other film has had such a great impact on a single man or the world. Whether or not you have seen Citizen Kane I strongly suggest you watch the PBS special, The Battle Over Citizen Kane. This special gives context to this epic film, explains it's impact, and helps a contemporary audience better understand why Citizen Kane is such an important film.
Analysis
Objectively I want to say Citizen Kane is indeed a good film, however it's really hard to enjoy it if you don't understand the context. As a stand alone film, however, what makes the movie enjoyable is how well it tells a story. The film begins by outlining the main character's life. We're given enough to know the type of man our hero is, yet not enough to understand him. This makes us want to keep watching. The way his story is told is through classic five act structure. We've already been introduced to him, the inciting incident is him gaining his independence and taking over a newspaper, the climax is when he makes the newspaper successful, the falling action is depicted through Kane confusing power and success with a good life, and the resolution is in discovering that "Rosebud" was his childhood sled, that all he wanted was his childhood.
Although the movie attacked William Randolph Hearst, it also makes us pity him as well as other's we consider to be money grubbing or power hungry. Even though these "tyrants" may do evil things, the movie claims they do them because they missed out on something and the evil deeds are the only way they know how to cope. There are many things Kane says that show us who he is: "If I hadn't been rich I could have been a great man." "Love on my terms. The only terms anyone ever knows, his own." He was a man who just wanted to live life, but was only able to live it the way he was taught; which was through the eyes of the banker who took him from his family.
If we ignore this films historical context, I would say this movie does a good job of expressing the problems with working too hard, growing up too fast, getting everything handed to you, and having more power than you know what to do with. In that sense the piece will remain timeless so long as our society has workaholics and people who are more concerned with earning money and buying things than they are with being a good person.
Why You Might Like It
You will probably like Citizen Kane if you like: classic cinema, history, dramas, dialogue, epic stories, rags to riches, or stories about the human condition. That last one is what this movie is truly about. Although people may have more power, more money, and do things we don't think we would do, it doesn't make them any less human than ourselves.
Why You Might Hate It
You probably won't like Citizen Kane if you don't like anything I listed above. The movie can be a bit slow at times and is somewhat plain if you don't understand the films historical context.
Why You Should Give It A Chance
Well, after all it is arguably "the best movie of all time." But on a more serious note, the impact this movie had on William Randolph Hearst, Orson Welles, as well as the world is truly amazing. If you consider yourself to be a movie buff you must absolutely cross this one off your list. Pay attention to the cinematography in this film. It was the first time many of the techniques in this film were ever used. Some of the double exposures and inserts would still be considered experimental to this day. Before watching this film, I highly recommend watching the documentary, The Battle Over Citizen Kane. If you've already seen Citizen Kane I still recommend watching the documentary (if you haven't), and then re-watch Citizen Kane. If you didn't like it before, you'll at least appreciate it more on your second viewing.
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