Staff member. But there are so many scenes where the writer is straining to make sure the audience is keeping up with things, for example giving us first names (and variations on first names) to clue us in on who is who. Its clever stylistic flourishes paint a fascinating portrait of a complex man. Vote Up 20 Vote Down Reply. His inability to accept his own weakness undermines him at this point… and continues undermining him throughout the rest of Citizen Kane. The affair never needs to come to light, but it does because Kane refuses to let anyone have power over him and pretty much dares the blackmailer to release the facts about the affair. Aiding this is the screenplay, with many a witty line and many a dramatic moment. Kane has no one now that Susan is gone, and nothing to hold onto but the past. Orson Welles uses lighting, deep and low angle shots to show Kane’s isolation from the world. I love Dark Souls, but it does not hold the same place in the medium. This scene alone both symbolizes and foreshadows the rest of the Kane story, right down to the visuals, Welles employing a large depth of field to illustrate the growing distance between son and parents. ... CITIZEN FREE PRESS -- HOMEPAGE. The blocking of actors tells a story on its own, such as how the distance between Kane and his increasingly dissatisfied wives is highlighted by their distance in the frame. I wasn't around at the time of its release, but I doubt that the general public liked it much. Citizen Kane is an incredibly well acted and directed film that holds up better than 99.5% of films released before 1960. If the Internet existed back then, you'd probably have a bunch of film elitists telling common moviegoers confused at its brilliance to "go back to watching King Kong.". Learn more about Welles’s life and career. That being said, given the collaborative nature of filmmaking, I must give props to cinematographer Gregg Toland and editor Robert Wise. Audiences had other things on their minds, like Hitler. ... finally reaches two stagehands on a catwalk who hold their noses to show how bad a singer Susan really is. Visible ceilings. This is a big one, the movie considered to be the greatest film ever: ‘Citizen Kane’. Obviously the production side will be dated but as a whole is it still a worthwhile experience ? David Fincher’s new Netflix period film Mank tells the story of Herman Mankiewicz, the screenwriter who penned the original draft of Citizen Kane, but the movie makes some notable divergences from the actual history.Shot in black and white with many of the aesthetic and structural stylings of Orson Welles’s seminal film, Mank pays homage to the Hollywood of the 1930s while also … Youtube channel every frame a painting is stellar do you know any other channels that are as good ? We hold major institutions accountable and expose wrongdoing. And what a tragic and complicated life it is. Citizen Kane (1941) Perhaps the greatest film ever made by technical proficiency and innovation [& done by a 24 year-old wünderkind], O. Welles’ 1941 masterpiece changed the entire construct and history of filmmaking: a plot-eclectic, avant-garde metaphor of power, love, & … The same can be said for a ton of games. (Photo credit: SAUL LOEB/AFP via Getty Images and Silver Screen Collection/Getty Images) Donald Trump accomplished what Citizen Kane could not, despite the similarities in their background, their ability to persevere over early setbacks, and their assault on establishment … One of the best! Hold this picture up a week. Also, the cinematography still stands out as excellent today, although it was a much bigger deal when it came out, when it truly was groundbreaking. Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in: You are commenting using your WordPress.com account. There are plenty of movies older than Citizen Kane that I'd rather watch. Tamara checks out Orson Welles iconic film Citizen Kane. That is a fact that no one can dispute. Does Citizen Kane hold up ? He is then given wealth and opportunity, for a price: the loss of his mother and father. The reason Kane is so important is because a 24-year-old kid with no significant movie experience walked into a studio one day and completely rewrote the book on how movies are made. This is not to say old films are boring or bad. Mank Prep #1 Every time I sit down to write something vaguely related to Citizen Kane, I wind up pondering whether it really 'holds up' as much as all those lists claim that it does. Kane experiences loss and depression despite owning a … Everything is once again coming up Rosebud for the American Film Institute. About Channel Awesome . Though things kinda slow down in the latter portion of the movie, Citizen Kane is a great film and deserves to be called one of the best films ever made. On the papers she wrote "ESTABLISHING SHOT", "MASTER SHOT", "CLOSE-UP" etc. This scene alone both symbolizes and foreshadows the rest of the Kane story, right down to the visuals, Welles employing a large depth of field to illustrate the growing distance between son and parents. That's where you'd see the lights and microphones. In almost all movies before Citizen Kane, you couldn't see the ceilings in rooms because there weren't any.