Citizen Kane

When you ask most people what the best movie ever made is, unless they are a film fan, they will probably name off a movie made recently -- Pulp Fiction, or Braveheart, or maybe a slightly older film like Star Wars. Few would think that the greatest film made could be over fifty years old. After all, hasn't the art of moviemaking advanced so much si

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All of the performances are completely convincing, despite the fact that most of them had never acted in a movie before, having only worked with Welles in his Mercury Theatre radio troupe. Then, in his final days, the man who directed the greatest movie of all time was reduced to doing wine commercials. All of them have to give double-sided performances, as their younger selves when Kane was alive, and also as changed people when being interviewed. Even despite a 10-minute newsreel at the start of the movie that gives an overview of Kane's life, included to make the movie easier to understand, most people complained that they couldn't follow the plot at all. This emotional resonance is a culmination of everything in the movie -- the acting, the atmosphere, the camerawork -- all working to touch the audience.

All this would have been for nothing, however, if the more mundane aspects of the movie hadn't also been first-rate. Ostensibly, the plot is about a young newspaper reporter's search for the meaning behind Kane's dying word, "Rosebud," as he interviews people who were close to Kane. His cinematographer had pioneered a technique called deep focus, where everything in a shot from front to back can be in focus at the same time, allowing for visual tricks like the huge window which initially looks normal. In many ways, Welles' life mirrors Kane's.

Even beyond the trick camerawork, the artistry displayed in the making of the film is incredible. The acting, the cornerstone of any movie, is nearly perfect. This was his first movie, having previously just done work giving incidental music to radio shows. When you look back on movies before or since, you see just how much it changed the face of moviemaking. nce then? Yet, that is one of the reasons that Kane is so great.

Common topics in this essay:
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Approximate Word count = 1916
Approximate Pages = 8 (250 words per page double spaced)

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