Citizen ChiKANEry

Rating: 5/10 (23 June 2007)

In the early '70s Citizen Kane became the darling of some NYU film addict class instructors for reasons that defy logic. They wrote papers and articles and that caused a lot of shallow folks to come aboard on the film. However closely examined the movie is greatly overrated. The script is not really one of Herman J. Mankiewicz's best works, albeit Mankiewicz was a superb screenwriter. (Dinner at Eight, Wizard of Oz, Pride of the Yankees, etc)
The "groundbreaking" camera angles, for example, that are credited to Orson Welles (who was only 25 when he produce-directed it) should really be credited to Gregg Toland the DP on the film. However, Toland, it should be noted, was a student of the early German silent screen where many of the "groundbreaking" camera angles could be seen two decades before Citizen Kane. In fact, before Toland invited Welles over to his home to teach him the camera and how it's used (days before primary shooting) Welles scarcely knew which end of the camera took light.