Give Welles due credit as actor

Rating: 10/10 (1 February 2005)

Enough has been said in the comments about the use of lighting, directorial and editing techniques, etc. I love this movie and each time watch it enthralled. The plot moves along brilliantly, and while many of the techniques have been applied by countless filmmakers since, there's still something about seeing the trailblazer in all its glory - especially as it still holds up. But I just want to give Welles due credit for his acting. I think part of the absolute magic and impact of this film is Welles' ability to transmit a sense of someone larger than life in every way. When he's caught up in the chase of a great story - or the creation of it - his intelligence and vision and sheer conniving brilliance emanate from his every gesture and word. He is expansive and dynamic, he was incredibly handsome, and he seemed to burst from the screen when playing the young Kane. The figure of Welles himself creates a powerful internal tension within the film because he lights up an otherwise dark, morose palette. In many ways, his character has nothing to do with Hearst - Welles himself was a force of nature, and in some ways Citizen Kane is a prophetic vision of his own fate in Hollywood. Welles was a great actor, as was his co-star, Joseph Cotton, one of the great understated actors of the screen. Cotton is a perfect foil for Welles - as he is in that other absolute masterpiece (not directed by Orson), "The Third Man" - because he hints at his own uneasy depths which are always being stirred up by Welles, whether as Kane or Harry Lime. I also see the end of Apocalypse Now, with Brando's dark, isolated, ruminating semi-madman as an homage of sorts to Welles alone in Kane's castle at the end of Citizen Kane. The two greatest burn-out male geniuses of the American silver screen, both gorgeous in their time and both expanding into bloated ruins, their "potential" often seen as unrealized - but both perhaps having transcended even those expectations of themselves.