Thoughts on "Citizen Kane"

     Whenever you see a list of the "Greatest Movies Ever Made" that is compiled by film critics or industry experts, there's a decent chance that Citizen Kane is going to be number 1 on that list. If it isn't number 1, it's going to be in the top 5 for sure. Once a decade, "Sight & Sound" magazine, a UK publication, compiles a list of film rankings from critics across the globe. Kane has been number 1 in each of the past five lists...yes, that's five decades, for those keeping score. Casablanca, Gone With the Wind, 2001:A Space Odyssey, and Vertigo, among others, will always have their supporters. But it's safe to say that the general consensus is that Citizen Kane is the single greatest American film ever made. So what do I think?

     I've always been a movie watcher but as a kid I pretty well stuck to things that would interest most kids my age. I was hooked on Star Wars and other fantasy and Sci-Fi. Horror was also a hit with both my sister and I. I stuck with your basic hits that would show up on HBO every month, and that my parents found appropriate to watch. I didn't wander too far outside of your big name movies. My movie repertoire started expanding in the late 80's, when I was in junior high school. During this time, I was reading a LOT of Stephen King and other more mature subject matter and my taste in films was expanding at the same time. I started seeing movies that I had passed on before, either because I wasn't interested in the subject matter, or it wasn't on my parents approved list at a younger age. It was in this time that I saw movies like Scarface, The Godfather, and Apocalypse Now. These films, as well as many others, these are just examples, introduced me to different types of movies. For the first time I started being interested in specific actors and directors. I was introduced to Hitchcock via The Birds and Psycho, and immediately fell in love with his work. Who wouldn't? I met Kevin Costner, simply by accident, while on a family vacation in Washington D.C. He told us they were filming a movie called J.F.K. about the assassination of President Kennedy. Ironically, when that movie was released a year later it immediately became one of my favorite films and to this day, you will find it ranked number 3 of my favorite films list. It also introduced me to the political and courtroom thriller, opening up a whole new wave of films to see. It just all took off from there. I started watching anything and everything I could get my hands on. I was a weekly visitor to the cineplex and when I wasn't there, I was checking out movies by the handful from Blockbuster. I watched everything...with a couple of exceptions.

     For whatever reason, I stayed away from the "classics". Things in black & white, or pre-1960, I tended to avoid like the plague. That was stuff old people watched. I had started becoming interested in film criticism and couldn't understand why so many people thought these were the best films ever. Had they not seen Star Wars?? I mean, seriously. But you can only hear claims so many times, before you finally cave in and start giving some of it a try. I think Gone With the Wind was first and I remember thinking it was ok, but it felt like it lasted for days. I watched a few others here and there, with mixed results, but nothing was blowing my mind. I decided to jump all in and watch the ONE that was considered the best, Citizen Kane. I picked up the old VHS tape at the video store and popped it into the VCR at home. I didn't get it. THIS is the greatest movie ever. Hogwash. I returned the tape and went back to my new movies. Looking back on it, I blame the age mainly. I was your typical teenager and I knew more than everybody else (don't we all at that age). As I matured and became an adult, I did start more of these classics and many of them are truly that. Casablanca, To Kill a Mockingbird, and 12 Angry Men are all personal favorites now. I've seen Gone With the Wind a second time and while I still think it's way too long, I appreciate it's spot in film history. But I never went back and watched Kane, to me it was always the roadblock to film appreciation. That changed this past week.

     Cinemark Theaters is running a program this summer called the Cinemark Classics Series. For one day only, eight classic films are being shown on the big screen, each digitally enhanced. Kane was the selection this week and I took the opportunity to see it. I was so pleasantly surprised and I'm happy I decided to give it another chance. There's something about seeing a movie on the big screen the way it was intended to be seen. I believe in many instances it can alter a film from leaving a positive versus a negative opinion. Kane should be experienced this way if at all possible. Kane is always praised for it's inventive shots, the cinematography is considered some of the best ever because it was the first time anything like it had ever been accomplished. That's part of the problem with appreciating older films. You can get the joy of appreciating some things for the first time. Think about the shower scene from Psycho. In today's standards, we've seen 100 times worse than that. It's tame now. But in 1960, you just didn't see that. The shower and bathtub were taboo places that were very private so that would have been a shocking scene to witness then. Not so much anymore. The techniques utilized in Kane are commonplace now, but to see them for the first time, that's why Citizen Kane will always be praised, as it should. After seeing this, will Kane become one of my favorite films? No. There are many other stories that I have enjoyed a lot more, it's as simple as that. But I do appreciate it's place now and I understand it's significance to film. What has changed is that I do now recommend it. Yes, people should see this movie. At a theater if they can, but I realize that's probably not going to happen again too much. But it is out now on Blu-Ray in a commemorative 70th anniversary edition that was released last year and I intend to pick it up. You should too. Don't be afraid like I was. There are so many great movies out there...and yes some of them were made before we were born. That's hard to fathom sometimes.