Great picture but heavily influenced

Rating: Null/10 (24 November 2004)

"Citizen Kane" is awesome, but it tied together a lot of stuff that was used in bits and pieces previously in other great films.
If you view "Stagecoach", "Rebecca" and even "The Grapes of Wrath", you'll see little things in them that Welles borrows and expands on (both in terms of technique and performance). He obviously spent a lot of time screening great flicks prior to making CK.
I read somewhere that he was especially influenced by John Ford's "Stagecoach" and if you take a look at that film, which by the way was shot in 1939, you'll see stuff like great low angle snap shots of actors, similar claustrophobic set design, deeper focus then normal due wide angle lenses rather then lighting/depth of field and some little bits where Ford used sparse sets/props and shafts of window light to convey atmosphere (very theatrical).
Light and shadow play is even more dominant in Alfred Hitchcock's "Rebecca" and watching a pristine print of Rebecca you can't help but be reminded of the lighting, art direction and framing techniques used in "Citizen Kane".
Not to put Welles and CK down in anyway -- CK deserves all the praise it gets and more, but I hate to see great films prior to it get ignored.
So, if you enjoyed the atmosphere and quality of "Citizen Kane", do yourself a favour and see the other pics I mentioned. The decade of 1939-1949 produced some incredibly moody, marvelous b&w cinema including "A Portrait of Jenny" and of course the crowning jewel, "Citizen Kane".