NOT the greatest of all time...I never bonded emotionally with this coldly clinical film...

Rating: 5/10 (2 May 2001)

Many times I've been tempted to watch 'Citizen Kane' just to analyze why so many consider it the greatest film of all time. No more than twenty minutes go by and I find myself BORED by this so-called classic. I have to admit I am not a fan of Orson Welles and always thought there was a bit of the smokehouse ham about all his larger than life performances--be it 'Macbeth' or Rochester in 'Jane Eyre' or the attorney in 'Compulsion'. But it is much more than just not liking Welles. I find there is a pretentiousness, an artificiality about the whole film. It's trying so hard to be symbolic about the "true meaning of life", much the way 'American Beauty' attempted to show us that there is beauty in a plastic bag floating in the wind. 'Rosebud' is just as simplistic--quite a letdown, in my opinion, to discover that a child's sled is at the seat of the mystery surrounding Kane. Frankly, I just don't get it. What is so profound about this film that historians say it should be shown to young filmmakers as an example of great story-telling? I would rather succumb to the charms of 'How Green Was My Valley' (also in 1941) which took prize as the Best Film of 1941 than have to view this depressing piece of cinema that is supposed to be a thinly disguised portrait of William Randolph Hearst. Intellectuals may love 'Citizen Kane' and AFI must have a number of them on their voting board--but it does not deserve the high ranking they've given it. In my humble opinion, it fails to be even credible. The direction is self-consciously arty (see those unusual camera angles) and the acting sometimes borders on the ludicrous. Does not stand the test of time.