Citizen Kane

Orson Welles’ masterpiece of power and loss,Citizen Kane is spoken of in reverent tones not just because it’s visually striking and thematically rich, but also because it’s so damned entertaining. Welles approached the film with a showman’s instinct and—with the help of screenwriter Herman Mankiewicz, cinematographer Gregg Toland, composer Bernard Herrmann, and editor Robert Wise—created a shadow American history play, replacing William Randolph Hearst with fictional newspaper magnate Charles Foster Kane. While tracing the transition of the American character from rural self-determinism to urban communality, Welles and company simultaneously poke around the circumstance and contradiction that go into the making of a great man. The deep-focus photography, witty montages, overlapping dialogue, and Welles’ proto-Method acting have all been frequently imitated, but little has matched the original. 

Updated 10/30/2011