`Eh' at first, now my favorite.

Rating: Null/10 (28 October 2003)

Or at least one of my favorites. The very first viewing of Citizen Kane I didn't much care for. I didn't hate the movie, and it had its originality and it was definitely different than anything than I was used to. Maybe it's because at the time, I wasn't as into older films and the dramatic difference in film styles came as too much of a shock. Who knows. But a film widely considered by critics as one of the greatest films of all time had to have something going for it. I gave it a second chance and really liked it. In fact, I liked it enough to sit through both commentaries on the DVD.
What I love most about Kane is its simplicity and it's relaxed pace: a story about one person who never did anything too terribly exciting in terms of fighting in a war or some grand action scene(s). By the end of the movie, a lot of modern film goers would argue that nothing happened throughout the length of its running time, but in reality, quite a bit has happened in the carefully planned and arranged narrative as we explore Charles Foster Kane's history and personality. The film spares no detail in addressing Charles as he grew up and matured--what he was and what he became, and yet it never lingers on any one era of his life too long. Mankiewicz and Welles spent just enough time in key places to communicate necessary points and move on, reaching each keypoint at its own comfortable pace . . . and, again, having grown up in a generation of epileptic cutting it did take me one full viewing to get used to entire scenes shot from one camera angle.

I could go into detail on other landmark aspects that other reviewers, no doubt, have already covered - however, I don't see it necessary to repeat it all. Besides, if anyone is interested the DVD features two commentaries by authoritative sources, Peter Bogdanovich and Roger Ebert, both of whom do a better job than I could. I will, however, say that like other `old' films such as Hitchcock, I thoroughly enjoy seeing films like Kane because in the craft I can see the cornerstone of generations of films that followed. It's like reminiscing over an old photo-album.
And being a film-music fan, I have to comment on Bernard Herrmann's first film score. While not my favorite, it deserved the Oscar nomination that it received. Very few composers have come onto the film-scoring world as strongly as Herrmann did with Kane, and very very few scores have the heart of Herrmann's Citizen Kane. From poking fun to at 'cliché' Opera to the depths of its leitmotif surrounding rosebud, this is a beautifully crafted score with one of the greatest ranges of sounds to contrast with the film's narrow subject matter.
All in all, I love Citizen Kane because it utilizes all the techniques of its day (and even inventing quite a few) as tools to tell a story, but never does Kane lean on those tools to compensate for anything. It doesn't hide behind hours of boring Kung Fu or hundreds of CGI droids, it doesn't invent some unwelcomed quirkiness to be `artistic', nor does it spill blood and guts like there's no tomorrow. It tells its story, and the film is judged by the story it tells *like all films should be*