Movie #: 175 Title: Citizen Kane 1941

Rating: 9.00

Director (last): WELLES (first): ORSON

Writer (last): WELLES (first): ORSON

This is the film that becoming known as the best film ever made because it is known as the best film ever made. Kane is a brilliant work. Script, cinematography, acting-- everything is top-knotch, and, indeed, it should make most people's top ten lists. It is, of course, Welle's thinly disguised take on William Randolph Hearst, the scandal-mongering newspaper chain owner, who single-handedly ruined Welles after this film came out, by ensuring that Kane was a financial flop, by denying advertising and promotion in his newspapers. Welle's himself plays Kane with understated glee. He documents Kane's rise from poverty and obscurity to become the most powerful newspaper publisher in America. He also documents the vacuousness and emptiness of his life, his famous indulgences (the castle he left stored with millions of dollars worth of classic European art, which he neither understood nor valued), and his attempts to turn Marion Davis into a legitimate movie actress, which, if anything, hurt her career. The smart thing, of course, would have been to go see the movie and announce to the press that he loved it. Largely because of his response, he remains, in public memory, a snivelling, thin-skinned, nasty old man with bad taste.

Is this movie a "gem"? No

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Added: 1977-01-01 [yyyy-mm-dd]