Wow. What a stellar film. This is probably the best directed film I’ve ever seen, and probably the best cinematography as well. Every scene is an artistic creation.
This movie reminds me of one of my criticisms of The Two Towers. On this forum I said that that movie was a series of closeups… talking heads. People here responded to me by saying “that’s the way they do it”. They said “Acting is about facial expressions”.
Well, that’s not the way Citizen Kane did it. There were VERY few closeups in the entire film. And because of this, the actors don’t have to emote everything, as they did in TTT. They can act with their bodies and with their voice. And what facial expressions existed on the actors’ faces were minimalistic. Everything was subtle and artistically rendered. My kind of film.
The quality of the acting was remarkable. Orson Welles himself only had the third or fourth best performance.
I had never seen any of this film before tonight, and all I had heard about it was “Rosebud is the sled”.
If anything demonstrates the idiocy of humanity, the fact that those were the words I heard about the film does.
Rosebud is a symbol of Kane’s stolen childhood. Its a symbol of rebirth, renewal, youth, and in Kane’s case… idealism and strength.
The sled became important to Kane in direct proportion to the degree in which he was losing himself. As Kane became increasingly unsatisfied and unfulfilled his desperation resulted in tyranny, and his final lust turned to the one thing he could never attain again.
The fact that it is a SLED is completely irrelevant.
Rosebud is the unattainable for a man who thought he had everything else.
I think both films have their merits. Classics in their own right.
As for the word Rosebud, I always thought of it as a symbolism for the innocence in his childhood that he had to leave behind. He no longer had the closeness and comfort of flesh and blood parenting.
Word on the streets (DVD extra) is that Rosebud is the pet name that William Randolph Hertz (sp?) gave to his lover’s crotch. In fact, the whole movie is supposedly a lashing out at Hertz. Almost didn’t make it to theaters.
Welles making the greatest movie ever to stick it to a car rental company is a great idea for a movie. Now if there’s just some way to include that fish sticks thing…
The whole thing was regarded at the time as a thinly veiled (critical) biography of Hearst. Hearst was the Rupert Murdoch of his day (though not as powerful) and did pretty much everything within his power to prevent Welles’ film from being released etc. to the extent that it wasn’t acknowledged as the masterpiece that it is for a long time and Welles found it extremely difficult to make another film afterwards.
So this…‘Citizen Caine’ movie did you say? Was a good movie? Has anyone alerted the Oscar people?
And what’s all this buzz around this ‘horseless carriage’ thing I’ve been hearing lately? Is it as bad a sin contraption as the infernal ‘Hula Hoop’ contrabulation?
Sometimes you see movies listed on these all time best lists and wonder how they got there. Some people regard Fellini’s 8 1/2 that wany. Citizen Kane is one of those that absolutely belongs on those lists. It’s beautiful.
Definitely check out The Third Man to see Orson and Joseph Cotton teamed up again. I thought the cinematography in The Third Man puts just about everything to shame (sometimes even Citizen Kane).
