The most innovative film ever

Rating: 10/10 (24 January 2001)

When I first saw this film, I was impressed enough to buy it, and to invest in *The Citizen Kane Book* with the treatise Raising Kane by Pauline Kael, which I would highly recommend. The article goes into great detail on the making of the film, and of the time period it came out of.
This film is great because of the innovations it made. No, it was not the first to use overlapping dialogue, or the first to use flashbacks to tell the story, or the first to use deep focus. But the way that Orson Welles used these innovations was innovative. Not only that, but the script, which is by Herman Mankiewicz and not Orson Welles, as many would believe, is superb, and was better in earlier drafts. Welles clearly deserves credit for his combining of great talent, in Mankiewicz, cinematographer Greg Toland, and his actors, and for his excellent acting as Kane. This is the best film I have seen.