A Perfect Film

Rating: 10/10 (20 October 2012)

Citizen Kane, 1941
When I first saw this film, it was back in my 10th grade Journalism class - pretty fitting due to the content of the film. When our teacher asked, "What is considered the number one film in the history of American movies?", different answers floated around, but no one in class had heard of Citizen Kane. Surprised by this, our teacher played us the film and following the showing, 90% of the students in my class hated it. Said it was boring. Said they didn't get it. Said they didn't understand why it was the best film. Personally, at the time, I enjoyed it. I thought it had a good story, a great leading actor in Welles, and some cool tricks of the camera. It wasn't till the fourth or fifth time that I really saw the films true beauty and understood why it was such an iconic, classic movie.
Citizen Kane is a flawless film. Genius director Orson Welles' debut picture was arguably the greatest film in the history of cinema. Given complete freedom to write, direct, and act by major studio RKO, Welles certainly made his mark in Hollywood with this unbelievably beautiful picture. Welles' style and innovative techniques really shine here and completely revolutionized the future of filmmaking for all movies after it.
As an aspiring director and writer, this is a pivotal staple in the history of classic films and one that I could watch endlessly just trying to analyze every shot. It truly is an amazing movie.
Everyone should see this movie if you want to see filmmaking at its best.