An important aspect of the art of film appreciation is knowing when to watch a film. Not the time of day or year, but the time in your life when you are ready for the film.
It is sort of like making love to (what Aldous Huxley in Brave New World called) a “pneumatic” person. While you as a virgin may have an enjoyable enough time spending the night with this very sexy beast, imagine how much more pleasurable the night would be if you were a participant who could bring some experience to the experience, if you get my meaning.
Likewise, Citizen Kane is best appreciated by the knowledgeable filmgoer. A neophyte will likely not fully appreciate the phenomenal achievement this movie represents; the breakthrough techniques of cinematography and narrative structure, the subversive nature of the subject matter, and the audacity of the auteur, all require some history of film-going to glean full meaning. In fact, to continue the analogy, Citizen Kane offers so many moments of cinematic polymorphous perversity, is so exciting at so many levels, that the intense pleasure it offers to the dedicated cineaste is nearly orgasmic.
Yet, even without this background, the novice can find Orson Welles’ Citizen Kane a great entertainment. Beginning at the end and then hopping around in a stream of consciousness achronological narrative dance, the film follows the rise of the title character (played with aplomb by Welles) from humble beginnings to greatness, and then to his tragic fall. The film moves effortlessly from scene to scene, even when they are forty years apart in ‘real time’; there is never a sense of artifice – every leap fits. There are no false steps in this journey.
Yet, this is no love letter to the central character, based loosely on media magnate William Randolph Hearst. A compelling figure, Kane is able to get people to do things they later regret. He builds a great newspaper empire on the most idealistic of principles, only to betray them at the height of his powers. It is a film about hubris, but more importantly, it is a film about the corrupting influence of unchecked power. And it is about regrets, as the solution to the story’s central mystery (who or what is Rosebud? And when we learn the answer, what does that tell us, if anything?) clearly proves.
Welles, whose collaboration with cinematographer Gregg Toland, while proving prescient and legendary, is key to his ability to use the camera in radical ways in order to create these moments of grandeur, somehow combines apparently antithetical approaches to storytelling. Welles creates poetic and trenchant imagery while making use of the best of Eisensteinian montage techniques as he skips from decade to decade in the (literal) blink of an eye. It is Welles’ cinematic innovation, however, to graft these strobing moments around scenes that often last several minutes without an edit, showing off his great talents with mis-en-scene, deep focus and stage management.
Because of the technical bravura of Citizen Kane, the actors’ work is often overlooked. The Mercury Players are indeed uniformly superb, with the performances of Agnes Moorhead as Kane’s mother, Joseph Cotten as his best friend, and Welles himself as Kane, standing out.
Looking for flaws in a film as phantasmagorical as Citizen Kane is a little like examining Michelangelo’s David for imperfections. If you find any, you may feel like a smarty-pants, but in the end, the glorious work of art will still stand as testament to the remarkable genius who conceived and delivered it to us. And you, by contrast, will just look churlish.
Offers so many moments of cinematic polymorphous perversity, that the intense pleasure it offers to the dedicated cineaste is nearly orgasmic.- Dan Jardine
