the studio process at its very best

Rating: 10/10 (31 October 2005)

I think that the making of a movie is truly a collaborative process, thus the films of the studio era are without doubt the most fascinating and inventive to date. This does not mean that an independent film cannot be a good movie, it just doesn't have the expertise and resources behind it to make it a truly great movie like Citizen Kane. It also doesn't mean that the big bygone studios didn't turn out their fair share of clunkers, but in my mind, to find the best movies of the last century you have to look to the big studios.
As to Citizen Kane in particular, it is always fascinating to watch. Unfortunately when we think of special effects these days, it's with action films of dubious quality, but Citizen Kane probably used more and to better advantage.The innovations, such as deep focus, sets with ceilings, the mixture of newsreel footage(both real and staged),the effect of overlapping dialogue are amazing. And to think that this was at a time when sound movies were only about a decade old and the movies themselves weren't even a half century old. It's amusing to think that when these techniques were used to create a realism unseen in films up to that time, the audiences were put off, since it was so different than anything else they had seen and they thought it looked phony!
I recently heard a comment from Richard Chow(the editor from Star Wars) on TV that he is still learning things from Citizen Kane, and its great cinematographer Greg Toland, decades later.
So in conclusion to me Citizen Kane stands head and shoulders above any movie before or since.