#3: Citizen Kane

Whenever I get around to discussing "Citizen Kane", I sometimes stop myself. Much has already been said about "Citizen Kane", anything I would have to contribute would just be repeating from other people who are much better experts of the film than I am. Still "Citizen Kane" is a film one can't help but talk about. True it is the most overly analyzed film in the history of cinema, it has been examined to death. We can discuss the shots, the themes, the acting, the screenplay, the music, depth of field, the lighting, the camera movement, everything, it would all come down to what we already know, "Citizen Kane" is a masterpiece.

Amazingly in the two and a bit years this blog has been running, I haven't had one entry regarding "Citizen Kane", which is probably why of all films I've seen, I'm probably intimidated by it the most. I've seen the film multiple times since I was a child and seeked it out for the first time, for me it's a very magical movie, I've put it on my list of greatest films of the 40s not because it should be there, but because I believe it deserves to be there.

I feel some people I know look at "Citizen Kane" as something that has to be endured rather than enjoyed. They see it as a text book, something that must be learned and studied as if the teacher were forcing you, it has become to cinema what "War and Peace" has become to literature. When a film is suddenly thought of only in an academic nature, it sort of takes the fun out of watching it. Viewing the film again after so many times, I am still amazed at how fresh it is, as if it were my first time watching it. The pace of it is something that fascinates me, I think because it has become such an academic film, students have fallen under the impression that it is a slow film, when in fact it moves along at a tremendous speed, but the genius of Welles is how he can put so much ideas and condense them into such a small period of time, he was economical that way, but he makes his shots so memorable, you more time has gone by than really has.

Take the scene where young Kane is to be taken away from his boarding house and his mother to go and live with rich miser Mr. Thatcher. In all but five minutes or less, Welles creates a perfect short film within his larger one about a young boy torn from his mother that loves him in order to protect him from his abusive father. The scene is probably my favorite in the film, made so probably by Agnes Moorehead's wonderful portrayal of Kane's mother.

Take also the scene where Kane is seen defeated from his political race and Jed Leland goes to visit him at his headquarters drunk. The scene is a deterioration of a friendship, and is done in one long take with no cuts, with only two actors in the scene. Again it shows Welles' economy as a filmmaker but also his innovation with depth of field, we see the physical distance between the two friends, but Welles never lets them out of focus.

The thing I really zoned in on this time from watching it was the sound, and the wonderful understated music by legendary composer Bernard Herrman. Herrman of course made a name for himself with countless Hitchcock films, and I never really felt the impact of his score in "Citizen Kane" as I have in those films. But this time I heard the music never overpowering a scene, moving from themes of playfulness, to dread, to mystery, to joy. Listen to the music he gives in the young Kane scene, probably Herrman's most beautiful scoring.

Welles' sound in the film also is filled with a very playful quality, sometimes used to punctuate a scene or an incident, such as in the picnic scene where he slaps his second wife Susan. Susan never screams in any way, instead Welles uses the loud scream of a woman outside to illustrate to feelings of the character at that moment. There's also the moment where Kane fires Jed from his newspaper, punctuated with the sound of a typewriter resetting itself, it's all a very organic experience.

I am left in awe by "Citizen Kane" whenever I put it on, once I begin watching it, I won't turn it off. It deserves its reputation as the best American film ever made, I don't just admire it because I am told to, but because it is truly an entertaining film and should be viewed that way. My advice to those who perceive "Citizen Kane" only as a lesson plan is to put away the text book and try to enjoy it on its own terms, that is the only way to appreciate a film.