Rebuttal to The Great Cinema Swindle

Rating: 10/10 (16 March 2008)

When I was about 12 years old, my father a political science professor and amateur film buff called me into the den. He said to me, "I want you to watch this film. It's one of the greatest movies ever made." So, I did. I watched the film with my father, and I was in tears by the end -- genuine, sobbing tears. This was usually an indication, at that age, that I had liked a movie. But my father asked me anyway if I liked it. I was only able to nod my head yes. He asked me why, and my response was, "I don't know. It was just so sad." How can a 12 year old express the great depth of the message and themes of a film like Citizen Kane? Especially when that greatest message of the film is so simple and universal.
From the time this film was first released, it has been immortalized by the critics and panned by the people. It did not do well at the box office overall, despite the erudite, "ground-breaking" praise heaped upon it, and the praise overall has been about the film-making itself - the cinematography, the lighting, the performances, the unique narrative structure. As a professor of film, I teach it in all my classes. There is no way around it. As an example of film-making technique, there are few films that can compare to it on every level, but this has been talked into the ground.
Film theorists, historians and movie buffs from all generations have turned Citizen Kane into the holy grail of film-making. By analyzing the complexities of the film, I believe the most simple and most powerful aspect of this film is often overshadowed, as it is very symbolically within the film  the quest for true love. Not that love is ever simple. This is a film about a man who almost knew love but had it taken away from him before he could really hold on to it, and the rest of his life is spent trying to get it back. It is a tragic story of love lost (and truth be told, the greatest films are almost always about love lost or found). That has always been it's true strength to me.
If you go into this film with the expectation of "the greatest film ever made," then you need to understand the context of that comment. It's not just about story but about the techniques of storytelling and film-making. It means that you will be watching it, for the most part, from a distance. You will be watching it for Toland's cinematography, or Mankiewicz and Welles's parallel narrative structure, or Welles's performance par excellence. And as long as you are watching it from this perspective, you may never be able to connect to the humanity of the film. And that's okay.
Or you can watch it through the eyes of a 12 year old in 1981before MTV and the internet. Simply allow all the separate techniques of film-making to come together as one, and just watch the movie. Let go of expectations...
I have loved this film since I was 12 and unable to articulate why I loved it. I loved this film before I cared about cinematography and lighting, art direction and editing. I loved this film because the story of a man searching for love spoke to me, even at 12.
God, I love this film!