MoeFOH's Movie of the Week... Week #32...

[MoeFOH]

MoeFOH's Movie of the Week 🎥

Each week we're going to spotlight a movie... be it a classic, new release, hidden gem, or outright turd... and open it for discussion: i.e. post up your favourite quotes, clips, memories... or dive deeper and give us a critique on why you think it's great, overrated, or a complete train wreck... And finally score it for us...  

All contributors go into a monthly prize draw for a 3-cigar sampler! 

PM me with suggestions if there's a movie you want to nominate for next week's discussion. 

 

Week #32: Citizen Kane

Moe says: Often regarded as one of the best films ever made. Landmark technical and artistic achievements... I've always found it a great watch and a fascinating study. Particularly well worth watching with commentary on the making and technical aspects. Also, highly recommend watching David Fincher's recent movie "Mank" about the writer Herman J. Mankiewicz and the development of the screenplay...

Wiki says: 

Citizen Kane is a 1941 American drama film produced by, directed by, and starring Orson Welles. He also co-wrote the screenplay with Herman J. Mankiewicz. The picture was Welles' first feature film. Citizen Kane is frequently cited as the greatest film ever made. For 50 consecutive years, it stood at number 1 in the British Film Institute's Sight & Sound decennial poll of critics, and it topped the American Film Institute's 100 Years ... 100 Movies list in 1998, as well as its 2007 update. The film was nominated for Academy Awards in nine categories and it won for Best Writing (Original Screenplay) by Mankiewicz and Welles. Citizen Kane is praised for Gregg Toland's cinematography, Robert Wise's editing, Bernard Herrmann's music, and its narrative structure, all of which have been considered innovative and precedent-setting.

The quasi-biographical film examines the life and legacy of Charles Foster Kane, played by Welles, a composite character based on American media barons William Randolph Hearst and Joseph Pulitzer, Chicago tycoons Samuel Insull and Harold McCormick, as well as aspects of the screenwriters' own lives. Upon its release, Hearst prohibited the film from being mentioned in his newspapers.

After the Broadway success of Welles's Mercury Theatre and the controversial 1938 radio broadcast "The War of the Worlds" on The Mercury Theatre on the Air, Welles was courted by Hollywood. He signed a contract with RKO Pictures in 1939. Although it was unusual for an untried director, he was given freedom to develop his own story, to use his own cast and crew, and to have final cut privilege. Following two abortive attempts to get a project off the ground, he wrote the screenplay for Citizen Kane, collaborating with Herman J. Mankiewicz. Principal photography took place in 1940, the same year its innovative trailer was shown, and the film was released in 1941.

Although it was a critical success, Citizen Kane failed to recoup its costs at the box office. The film faded from view after its release, but it returned to public attention when it was praised by French critics such as André Bazin and re-released in 1956. In 1958, the film was voted number 9 on the prestigious Brussels 12 list at the 1958 World Expo. Citizen Kane was selected by the Library of Congress as an inductee of the 1989 inaugural group of 25 films for preservation in the United States National Film Registry for being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".

Over to you...

How do you rate it? Favourite scenes?

Best moments?... etc, and so on... post 'em up!!

Give us your score out of 10!

[MoeFOH]

 

[JohnS]

Oh boy, were does one start with this film? Okay, I will try to make this short (and perhaps add more later!).

• Citizen Kane had no publicity upon its release primarily because William Randolph Hearst objected to the content of the film parodying his life so closely. It won only one Oscar despite having nine nominations. The film was booed by those present at the Academy when each nomination was announced.
• Despite William Randolph Hearst's attempts to silence the film and even prevent it been shown in movie theatres, perhaps the ultimate irony that has ensued is that every reference to Mr Hearst after his death includes this story on Citizen Kane.
• Andre Bazin and a number of writers, who went on to be highly successful film directors including Jacques Rivette, Jean-Luc Godard, Claude Chabrol, and François Truffaut, for the French film magazine 'Cahiers du Cinema' (In English: Notebooks on Cinema) re-evaluated this film in the 1950s and its reputation completely turned around.
• The British Film magazine, 'Sight and Sound' voted Citizen Kane the best film of all time from 1962 onwards, for 5 consecutive polls held very ten years, until the 2012 one when Alfred Hitchcock's Vertigo usurped it in the number one spot and Citizen Kane was voted second. (I could discuss Vertigo rise as a modern critical favourite from relative obscurity for almost thirty years after its release, but that's another story.)
• Orson Welles was a creative genius, make no mistake about that, but things never improved for him after this film. His next film for RKO, 'The Magnificent Ambersons' was famously cut by the studio and the footage lost. Even with this scenario this second film is considered a masterpiece of cinema. Welles ended up making films independently in Europe and returned to the United States for one more try in the late fifties. What happened to 'Touch of Evil' is best left for another time but let's just say that despite that film being considered a classic of Hollywood cinema, Welles reputation as a filmmaker never recovered. He was an 'anathema' (i.e Greek for accursed) from that point on to the Hollywood Film studios.
• Citizen Kane revolutionised movie making techniques in the way it was shot, edited, used sound, employed camera angles and in its plot.
• If Orson Welles made films in the sixties he may have had a different career. Stanley Kubrick was similarly his own auteur but he was smart enough to make films from 1960 onwards outside Hollywood but with Hollywood studio backing. Like Alfred Hitchcock, both these great directors never won the Best Director Oscar.

[Chibearsv]

Simply one of the best movies ever made.  Great use of different perspectives. “Rosebud” 

[Chucko8]

Fair to say I've never watched it. Seems like I've been missing out.

[Dozerhead]

Great film. What's amazing to me is Welles was only 25 when this film was made. He also directed and, I believe, co-wrote the screenplay. An incredible feat for any age, much less 25.

[Ken Gargett]

i have often wondered if it was something incredibly special at its time but that it really doesn't look quite so astounding these days (perhaps in the way today's youth probably look at the very first star wars film and are not blown away in the same way we were as youths at the time). but don't get me wrong. terrific film and what an achievement for a 25 year old. but having seen it a few times, i can't imagine bothering again. 

also, once you read james ellroy's 'the cold six thousand' (unless i am mixing my ellory), impossible to look at welles without a large dose of contempt (and i am not pleased at mr ellroy for doing that to me). 

[joeypots]

It’s a 10 alright. I’ve seen it a few times but it’s been a while. The photography is fantastic.

[Doctorossi]

10/10.