Towering accomplishment from wunderkind Welles

Rating: Null/10 (2 February 1999)

Citizen Kane, created by a twenty-six-year-old Orson Welles, is one of the most durable and praiseworthy films in the history of the medium. And quite rightfully so. With its incredible deep-focus photography, fractured narrative, fluid camerawork, and many other superlative aspects of filmmaking, Citizen Kane moved both the industry and the art form into previously uncharted territory. A colossal achievement, the film richly deserves its place among the most revered and respected works of cinema. In much of the critical writing on Kane, Welles often receives the lion's share of credit, but I cannot imagine the film without the contributions of Toland, Mankiewicz, Herrmann, Cotten, Sloane, and so on. Even after multiple viewings, it is easy to discover new, previously overlooked details that are completely astonishing.