#40 - Citizen Kane (1941)

I can't believe it took me thirty nine films to sit down and watch what so many people call the best movie ever made. No particular reason, but I can finally agree with that statement... Kind of. It is a brilliant film, but I guess all the praise it got is probably because of how innovative its narrative style and themes were for its time; seventy years later I've seen it done a lot of times so it isn't such a fresh concept. But don't get the wrong end of the stick, it still holds up.

Citizen Kane follows a "rise and fall" story. The film opens with the death of the famous, rich and eccentric Charles Foster Kane, played by Orson Welles, whose last word was "Rosebud". "Wait, what? Rosebud? So many cool things to say before you kick the bucket and that's the best you can come up with?" That's probably what was on the mind of the press at that moment, so a reporter decides to solve the mystery behind it. So he starts to interview friends and relatives of Kane who tell the story of his life through flashbacks, showing one bit at a time. It's a brilliant approach to a premise that hooks you in from the very beginning.

      

Ugh. Thank god I never grew a moustache. That close-up looks terrible.

Through these testimonies we learn that Kane used to live with his poor family until a gold mine was discovered in their properties and he is sent with a wealthy banker to be educated in New York. Through the years Kane makes a fortune out of his purchase of the New York Inquirer newspaper, gets married, divorced, remarried, and then secludes into his estate in Florida. The character is great: he has everything he could ever want but still is unhappy because of poor choices, like cheating on his first wife, forcing the second one into a singing career just to boost his ego... Up until the last ten minutes I thought to myself "well, it was pretty good". Then the true reason for Kane's unhappiness is revealed at the end of the film and my opinion suddenly changed to "genius".

That's all I can really say about Citizen Kane. The other characters are not very interesting and have very little time on the spotlight. And while the narrative is intricate and original for its time, the plot is relatively simple. At all times, the focus is on Kane, his rise and fall. And that totally works, surprisingly. It really helps with the message: Kane may be always on the spotlight and everyone talks about him, but in the end that's not what he wants. I'll stop now before I spoil the ending.

     

That huge ego of his is suddenly more tragic once you know what's behind it.

 

I can totally see why so many people call it the best film of all time, and I am glad I watched it. I wouldn't count it as a personal favorite but it still is a great fucking film and a timeless classic, and if you're a movie enthusiast you can't miss it.