Orson Welles was 24 years old when he made Citizen Kane. What have you done? For that matter, what have any of us done? Don't answer that.
Maybe we were the first person in our family to finish college. Maybe we were published at an early age. Maybe we were working, self-sufficient, paying our own way in the world. Could've had kids. Could've done a lot of things. Success is relative. I'm not here to indict anyone.
I started graduate school in screenwriting at 24. By 25, I'd written my second screenplay, which is a total piece of shit that I don't let anyone read. (My second screenplay is my "Star Wars Holiday Special" — like George Lucas feels about the worst Star Wars thing ever, I wish I could track down and burn every copy of that script. I'd say don't get me started but it's too late. I'll stop.)
Citizen Kane is a film that demands our attention, as many older films do. The dialogue matters. The camera movements, set pieces, transitions, and other visuals matter. This is a film for film lovers, for people who can appreciate the hall of mirrors shot.
Lots of people bash this film. Overlong, overdone...I've heard everything. Virtually everyone with a passing familiarity of film history knows about Citizen Kane and likely knows the meaning of "Rosebud."
I had seen this film maybe once prior to graduate school. I saw the film again during graduate school, picked up the DVD, and I've re-watched probably twice at this point. I love having this film on my shelf. This film consistently ranks at the top of people's lists of greatest films of all time. Sometimes you hear Casablanca instead, but mostly, you hear about Kane.
I know this film is good, but I like a lot of films more. I don't think The Big Lebowski is the greatest film of all time. Neither is Almost Famous. But those films are #1 and #2 on my list, respectively.
I do love me some Orson Welles. YouTube is littered with clips of Maurice Lamarche doing unflattering impressions of latter-day Welles, when Welles was reduced to schilling California wines and frozen foods to make a buck. I admit laughing. Welles became a caricature in his old age as folks joked about his weight, his lifestyle, his ego, and his failures. Welles even played a giant, planet-eating robot in Transformers: The Movie.
But you know what else is on YouTube? The Magnificent Ambersons, perhaps Welles' second-best film, the one RKO Pictures took from him and butchered -- the one that got away. That haunted him the rest of his life.
Kane is another film that, by turns, makes me want to just give up and makes me want to write more. Like Chrystal, the previous entry, Citizen Kane is a little miracle. Welles was given an unheard-of level of control: lead role, director, producer, and final cut. The results are powerful.
He did all that when he was 24. Miraculous, really.
Yes, it's easy to forget, with all the talk about the historical status of the movie and the downfall of the man, that this is a virtuoso piece of filmmaking. One of my favorite weeks of the academic year is when I show CK to my Film History I class, after they've seen German Expressionism, Soviet Montage, Classical Hollywood, and all points in between. It's the perfect way for someone to see CK for the first time, because he merges all those influences with other styles no one had seen in the movies (ever see paparazzi-style footage in a pre-Kane film?), into a structure that re-wrote Hollywood screenplay rules. And he was only slightly older than my students when he made it!
ReplyDeleteGotta give much notice to cinematographer Gregg Toland on CK and Ambersons. While Welles was re-writing the storytelling rules, Toland was re-making cinematography.