How to watch a movie like Citizen Kane? To the film itself!

Rating: 9/10 (8 March 2013)

How to watch a movie like Citizen Kane? It's supposed to be the best film ever made according to the most prestigious poll in the world, for decades in a row, only recently being surpassed by Vertigo. It seems to me that there are potentially two major factors related to this fact, that might bias and distort our judgment of the film itself, our naked experience of it so to speak. The first one is the most obvious: either a fear of being excluded from the cinema in-crowd, or otherwise just being overwhelmed by all those respectable opinions of all those respectable critics who surely must know what they're talking about, or just plain unintelligent herd-mentality, might cause you to think that this film is much better than it actually is. There is also a less obvious possibility: the fact that this film is so highly revered might cause you to think that you are only bullied into thinking that it is so great, and that you start to think that the only way of preserving your authenticity is to denounce it or to greet it with a lukewarm response. Personally, I know I'm susceptible to both distortions, both based upon the a priori fact of 'Kane' being canonized as it is. A fact that, in these cases of distortion, will determine your opinion of the film, regardless of whether or not you have actually seen it. A fact that may very well blind you completely to "die Sache selbst". I think that a phenomenological reduction is in order here. A commitment to completely shut out the knowledge of Kane having the reputation that it has, while watching it. Only then are you perhaps able to actually see the film, let alone judge it. But this is no easy task. In fact it is an impossible task. Therefore, it would seem to follow that it is impossible to watch it. That may be true strictly speaking, but of course not all things are as black and white as the film itself. It is all a matter of degree and a matter of at least trying, or perhaps not of trying, but of letting go, much like 'trying' to sleep cannot be successful when it is literally a matter of trying. But if that is what you shouldn't do, then what should you do? I think that you should let yourself be immersed by the film, let it touch you if it gives itself to you and let it fail to touch you if it tries too hard, if it pulls on your heart like it were only a puppet on a string. All in all, it is your heart that provides you with the most reliable compass. That is not to say that your heart should be opposed to your mind and that if it would 'merely' blow your mind it wouldn't be good enough. Again, things aren't as black and white.
But enough about all the preparations. To the film itself! Was I touched by the film? Yes I was. In fact at times I was touched deeply by it, more than I remembered from the last time. Especially by some of the scenes with Kane's wife in the opera house and the scenes in Xanadu, where the true nature of their relationship was revealed. But is Kane a manipulative film? Yes it is. I think that Orson Welles perhaps suffered from many of the same faults as Kane himself, like Leland said: "You don't care about anything except you. You just want to persuade people that you love 'em so much that they ought to love you back. Only you want love on your own terms. Something to be played your way, according to your rules." Citizen Kane is a film that self-consciously wants to be loved. No, it demands to be loved, to be taken before anything else. Very, very hard work went into the making of it to ensure this. It avoids extremities and one-sidedness so as not to exclude any viewers. It includes beautiful and innovative shots in order to appeal to critics and formalist, but mostly not so obvious as to become elitist. It tries to be deep, profound and mysterious and takes itself dead-serious. There was one scene that didn't touch me as much this time, even if it did before, and that was the Rosebud scene at the beginning: it was so intensely self-serious that for a fraction of a second it went over the top for me and became almost comical, like a self-parody (and the fake mustache didn't really help there). But mostly the film is absolutely perfect in terms of editing, narrative and dramatic development, composition, cinematography and an undefinable feel of greatness and precision permeating almost every shot that can only be the product of extremely hard labor and loads of talent. There were also less than perfect qualities, such as the somewhat slower development of the middle part, the acting that varied from great to constructed, even from Welles himself. Also the atmosphere is strange: mostly the film smells like newspapers, money and power-grabbing. Of course that is what the film is about, but as an atmosphere that is normally not really a virtue. Still, this dry and somewhat suffocating atmosphere becomes part of the tragedy of the film, just like the fact that the film is just as manipulative as Citizen Kane himself, becomes part of that tragedy and actually deepens it. Just by not succeeding to create a beautiful atmosphere, the film tragically makes us wish to be released from it and makes us yearn for something lost. Just by the fact that it tries to manipulate us, tries to pull our strings too hard, and fails to touch our hearts because of it, the film becomes the very deadness and emptiness that sends chills down our spine, from the top of our heads, straight to our hearts. 10/10