Simply the best

Rating: 10/10 (2 October 2000)

I have never found anything wrong with Citizen Kane, nor have I tried hard to do so. A sour note of dialogue badly read, or an auteur quirk taken too far; both are so ostentatious in a film that they cannot be overlooked. So instead I compare Citizen Kane to itself -- a privilege I hold for very few films. Orson Welles and Joseph Cotten give excellent performances, but the character that I cannot resist is Everett Sloane's Bernstein. Bernstein is so consistent as a character I forget he isn't real. He is the source of humble wisdom as the manager of the New York Inquirer -- it is he who first suggests the most correct interpretation of 'Rosebud'.
Then there is the camera work, the innovations that appear only in this one-film wonder. It doesn't take a trained eye to hold in awe the beginning of the film. Fades, montage, and actions reflected in a glass ball.

Incredible stuff!