Citizen Kane

I really have a great respect for Citizen Kane. On a technical level, it was brilliant back in 1941 and even by today's standards it's incredibly inventive. Obviously, all the in-camera tricks pulled off in it could be done incredibly easily in modern times with digital manipulation, but the film remains a piece of masterly crafted cinema.

I also very much admire the story of the film and the accompanying structure. I've often read on the internet that people think Citizen Kane is incredibly boring, and in fact in my film-as-lit class in high school my teacher abandoned watching the movie because she had decided we would 'hate it'. I only finally watched Citizen Kane almost a year later and when I did found it to be very engaging. Needless to say, that was a class I did not enjoy very much. I passed with a C though :)

The things to remember Citizen Kane by:

• Nonlinear storytelling.


• Use of much stock footage.


• Pioneered the use of deep focus (the camera focusing on both the background and the foreground at the same time, often with actors moving back and forth between them).


• Use of the optical printer, which layers images over each other.


• Matte paintings.


• Make-up.


• William Randolph Hearst (look it up!).


• Orson Welles was jaw-dropping 25 years-old when he made this movie, and had already made his mark on radio. The rest of his life didn't exactly measure up, though (The Transformers: The Movie, anyone?).


• Pterodactyls in the background (look it up!).

That's about all I have to say about this great American classic, and while I know I didn't add much to the topic, it's still something I enjoy writing about.