Number 1
Citizen Kane
Release date 1st May 1941
Country: USA
Running
time: 119 minutes
Genre
: Drama
Starring Orson Welles
Screenplay by Orson Welles, Herman Mankiewicz
Directed by Orson Welles
A newspaper magnate's life is
recalled by those who knew him but the investigator fails to discover
what is meant by his last word "Rosebud".
This is generally considered by critics and filmmakers as the greatest movie ever made. It regularly tops or features heavily in top 10 lists. What attracts them to this RKO film from the height of the studio system? The first thing to remember is despite it being the greatest film from the studio era it was created in spite of the factory system by an imaginative rebel filmmaker making his first feature.
The screenplay is fascinating in its complexity in developing what is basically a biopic of a fictional press baron into a multi-angled study. No film either before or since has delved into a person so thoroughly.The model for the film was definitely William Randolph Heart, the similarities between his career and that of Charles Foster Kane are too striking to ignore.This made the film a very controversial work in its time. It is certainly true that its portrayal of Heart's mistress the delightful silent comedy actress Marion Davies as no talented opera star Susan Alexander was very unflattering (though Welles insisted this was a different character), probably this enraged Hearst more than anything. The film was widely boycotted and any chance of it winning Best Picture at the 1941 Oscars was ended.
Critics raved about it and have continued to do so. As well as the extraordinary cinematic look to the film, there was the incredible art direction which created Kane's mansion, the many effects shots unusual for the time, the March in Time parody, the use of echoing sound and overlapping dialogue and Bernard Hermann's score. A film that dazzles on so many levels whose message can be boiled down to the idea that power and money corrupts. Welles never made anything as good again and few if any filmmakers have matched its sheer rewatchability as well as the fact that is a true piece of film art which is also great fun.
Orson Welles had sent
the US into a panic with his 1938 War of the Worlds radio broadcast but
knew next to nothing about making films (he had made a short film in
his youth and footage of his black MacBeth survives). This freshness
though wasn't a drawback but a positive benefit. The film's technique
even today is stunning, at the time its innovations were extraordinary.
Some of the film's techniques yes had been used in earlier works, the
deep focus photography, the low angle camera but never had they
been integrated so well into the narrative with breathtaking results.
Welles studied Ford's "Stagecoach" (1939) to become schooled in film
technique then basically threw out the rule book.
