A Film-Study Exercise

Rating: 2/10 (23 April 2010)

A technical masterpiece, making it a must see at least once in one's life. Watch it as a film-study exercise, but not as the great film it is claimed to be.
We follow the life of Charles Foster Kane, a fictionalized character based on the life of William Randolph Hurst. There are strong performances in the film, magnificent use of shadows, angles, sets, as well as the fact that Orson Welles wrote, directed, starred in and had complete control over editing it. (This was unheard of at the time. But this was not really the first independent film production. Look to Howard Hughes and John Ford for this.)
Good or great film-making is ultimately about story telling. For me, a film that moves me emotionally and/or intellectually, employs subtlety rather than insulting my intelligence, has true-to-life characters, presents believable situations, can be enjoyed over and over again, and stands the test of time, earns such praise. I confess that I do prefer to have a strong reaction to the main character, be it empathy, hatred, love or disgust, and some understanding and sympathy of motives. I am well aware that there are people whom are extremely difficult to completely understand, (John Ford, for example), but they are not a complete mystery.
I originally saw this film about 25 years ago. As a college student, I was very quick to parrot traditional perceptions and said, "Great flick!" rather than form my own opinion. I recently re-watched it, and am quite content to wait another 25 or more years before doing so again. When the audience has to don deep-sea diving gear to attempt to understand something about the character via interpretation rather than subtlety, then the film missed the mark. The only character I found evoking any emotion, empathy or real comprehension was Kane's second wife. The film ended without any real understanding of Kane or his why his final words are what they are, nor do you care.
Study the cinematography once in you life. But that's quite sufficient.