Kane and Very Able

Rating: 9/10 (30 December 2019)

What can you do with a monument like Kane? Well, all I think you can do is just walk around it admiringly, time and again, because undoubtedly you'll see or hear something you've missed before which, at least if you're me, will only deepen your appreciation of Welles's breathtaking daring and genius in bringing it to the screen as his debut feature. Just consider that, his first film.
Of course it's no one-man show, as he has help from numerous gifted collaborators on the movie, from screenwriter Joseph L Mankiewicz's brilliant screenplay, to Gregg Toland's yardstick-setting cinematography, to Bernard Herrman's completely simpatico soundtrack plus of course Welles's own troupe of Mercury Theatre players who bring it to life.
But it's still unmistakably Welles's film from his frequently inspired direction, razor-sharp dialogue contributions and of course his tour-de-force acting performance in the title role. Probably the most dissected, on a scene-by-scene basis, movie ever made, even watching it today you still get the sense of risk involved in the enterprise, from its novel way with even the titles sequence, the dissolves between scenes to suggest the passage of time, low-angle camera set-ups scoping enclosed rooms, ceilings included, the expressionistic lighting, the monumental interiors, the overlapping dialogue, I think I'll stop there or I'll end up running away with myself.
It helps that the story at its heart is so involving and of course credible if you do the read-across from the real life near contemporary William Randolph Hearst and Marion Davies relationship to Kane and Susan although I rather believe Welles's frequently made assertions that it wasn't just based on them. The film just bursts with great lines, dramatic situations and memorable scenes far, far too many to mention, in fact the only real weakness I can discern is that identified by Welles himself in later interviews as the dollar-book Freud pursuit of Kane's enigmatic dying utterance "Rosebud". It just wasn't necessary to add this layer of sentimental mystique to the film.
Otherwise, feel free to watch this movie any way you like, whether as a technical study in camerawork and set-design, as a scabrous attack on the graft-dominated policies of turn of the century American politics, a biopic of a great but deeply flawed man or even as a tragic, misbegotten love story. All the supporting cast are great in Welles's own considerable shadow, but if pushed I think I'd have to give a special best-of-the-rest mention to Dorothy Comingore as the hapless Susan.
It works on all the above levels but most of all it rightly stands as the apex, at that time at least, of what Hollywood cinema could achieve. Some would say it still holds that position today and I think I would struggle myself to put the case against it.
As the poster itself says, people will still be talking about it so long as pictures are made.