Is "Citizen Kane" always going to be "The Greatest American Movie"?

Cafe Society
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[QUOTE=Dangerosa]
I think it will get knocked down by a newer generation of critics who will just want to “shake the system.” Perhaps by a film like The Godfather.

In other words, it was crowned by people now in their twilight or dead - it will be reevaluated by their successors and found to be “naive” because that’s what successors do.

[/QUOTE]

We’ve seen this happen in the field of rock criticism. It was 20 years ago today that Rolling Stone and other critic generated lists always hailed Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band as the best rock album ever. In 1987, the LA Times ’ Robert Hilburn got tons of hate mail for suggesting it may be overrated. Today, as more post-Boomer Gen X and Y members become rock critics, Pepper is not even regarded as the best Beatles album (usually *Revolver *or Rubber Soul get the nod in such rankings).

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[QUOTE=vibrotronica]
As for Pulp Fiction, I really think that its reputation will only grow over time. And I don’t think it’s mundane or meaningless. I was actually just thinking about this last night as I was watching Kill Bill 2 on late-night cable. Pulp Fiction is about self-destruction. To take only one example, Jules realizes the path he is on will end in his spiritual and physical destruction and changes course. Vincent doesn’t, and he dies stupidly. It actually has a lot to say about America and life in the late 20th century. Maybe that is despite Tarantino rather than because of him, but still I don’t think it’s meaningless.
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I agree that it’s not meaningless, but I disagree that it’s about self-destruction. Self-deceit, maybe. More nearly, I think, it’s about moral relativism: every situation–every single situation–is a result of two people seeing one thing differently: one man’s drug is another woman’s poison; a Quarter Pounder is a Royale with Cheese; bacon is good, bacon is bad; etc. Every single situation in PF illustrates how we choose to define what we believe or know. And how that gets us into trouble.

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[QUOTE=ralph124c]
I totally agree-CK is just so dated-you are talking about a movie made so long ago, the generation that conceived it is long in the cemetary. I doubt anyone (unless they were a US history major) can appreciate the context of the movie. My daugher (19) doesn’t read newspapers-she could not understand the concpet of a newspaper mogul at all!
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I think this is underestimating the youth’s capability of appreciation. Do people today still enjoy reading the Edda, Beowulf and the Three Musketeers? Yes, yes and yes. And to do that you only need the historical context given by the story itself. If you’re unaware of the concept of a media mogul before you see the film, you will certainly have learned by the time you finish it.

Orson Wells directed Citizen Kane at the age of 26 and was born in 1915. That makes him three years older than my grandmother who I understood perfectly well without being a history major.

As for slow pacing and ‘oudated’ feel, I can see that being a problem, though I think the movie is relatively timeless compared to other movies of the same era. It bored me some, but I think that had more to do with being actually knowing all the important details of the plot in before hand. The last thirty minutes were still very exciting to me.

44

Gone with The Wind gets a nod too, at least for scope and a huge story.

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As a professional cameraman for 27 years and a Steadicam Operator for 20, I can say with a fair degree of confidence that Orson Welles didn’t know jack shit about the photographic techniques used in Citizen Kane until a gentleman named Gregg Toland taught them to him. He knew a LOT about theatrical lighting, and some about film set lighting and composition, this is true. He did not bring much in the way of technical advances to this project. Not at all.

Gregg Toland’s Wikipedia cite isn’t bad. It briefly outlines the incredible contributions that this artist made to cinematography, and to Cinema.

From the much-vaunted deep focus photography to complex optical composites to low-angle framing that showed ceilings to elaborate crane work, Mr. Toland was an innovator and a visionary. Not only technically original in his approach and designs, he had a background that gave him a foundation in composition, lighting and the chemistry of film.

If one were to read The Making of Citizen Kane, the degree to which Gregg Toland educated Orson Welles and collabroated with his young protegé is obvious.

Welles was a genius and like many geniuses, a part of his gift was finding the best people and surrounding himself with them. In Gregg Toland, he found a visual mentor and artist whose skills were unparallelled.

I’ve shot stuff on the floor and have sat there looking around wondering how the HELL to light myself out of the corner I’d put myself in by suggesting severe low-angled shots. One things of Toland at these moments.

Deep focus today is much easier to achieve than it was in the era of Citizen Kane. Film emulsion is so much faster and prime lenses are capable of holding a crisp image wide open ( typically T 1.3 or thereabouts on a Cooke or Panavision or Zeiss prime ). Back then, such things were amazing to behold.

Mr. Toland achieved the look by brute force. He lig those sets with a footcandle amount SO much greater than the rule of the day, in order to get the deep focus.

On the other hand, Kubrick got extreme low-light lenses with the capacity for extreme deep focus by doing his homework and being technically brilliant, just as Mr. Toland was. This article on the lenses and cameras highlights the process.

Optics and film stocks had come a long way from 1940 to 1973…

Movie set lens joke:

" What’s the circle of confusion?

Gettin’ bigger ALL the time. "

Cartooniverse

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Greg Toland shot John Ford’s The Grapes of Wrath and The Long Voyage Home, which is why Welles hired him: Welles frequently acknowledged Ford as his favorite director, and a major influence on his work.

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Welles was grateful to Toland: he gave Toland equal size billing with himself, on the same title card, in the Citizen Kane credits.

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[QUOTE=vibrotronica]
So what is The Godfather about?
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I mentioned that up thread. It is a story of how immigrants become successful in a capitalistic society, among other things. It’s just that more people can relate to Vito Corleone trying to make a living for his children than what was present in Pulp Fiction. I’m not even sure that many people noticed the perception aspect of Pulp Fiction that **lissener **talked about.

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Re: GF and CK: I see both films as following the themes of human corruption. kane becomes a vindictive old man, who reverts to childish behavior. His wealth buys him no real happiness. The GF story is similar-the patriarch (Don Corleone) wants his son Michael to be uncorrupted-but the 'family" drags Michael into degradation and depravity. By following the “family”, Michael becomes more evil than his father, and dooms the family line.
AS I say, I have no problem relating to the GF story (spanning the years 1946-1958); that’s recent enough . But CK is set in a much earlier era.

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[QUOTE=ralph124c]
Re: GF and CK: I see both films as following the themes of human corruption. kane becomes a vindictive old man, who reverts to childish behavior. His wealth buys him no real happiness. The GF story is similar-the patriarch (Don Corleone) wants his son Michael to be uncorrupted-but the 'family" drags Michael into degradation and depravity. By following the “family”, Michael becomes more evil than his father, and dooms the family line.
AS I say, I have no problem relating to the GF story (spanning the years 1946-1958); that’s recent enough . But CK is set in a much earlier era.
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Your not the only one who’s seen similarities in **Citizen Kane ** and the three Godfather movies (although, since we are talking about “The Greatest American Movie” in this thread, I’m going to limit my discussion to Godfather I and II). The reason I think these films are frequently mentioned in discussions about great “American” movies is, at their core, they’re about the both sides of the “American Dream”. Kane’s inpoverished family becomes rich overnight from a mine that their son, Charles, in turn builds upon as the foundation of his corporate multimedia empire. Vito Corleone arrives in America sickly and penniless but ends up building a fortune from mostly-illicit means that his son Michael further expands upon. Yet, Kane’s greed, lust for power, and descent into corruption alienates the people around him so much that he dies a near-recluse in his mansion. Likewise, in his cold and ruthless efforts to protect “the family”, Michael ends up either driving away or murdering those around him so that, by the end of Godfather II, he’s also alone in his mansion.

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I saw Citizen Kane for the first time this week (inspired by this thread, actually). I saw the movie as a classic psychodynamic thesis regarding the relationship of mother and child. Immediatly after Kane is left by his second wife, he yearns for Rosebud, Rosebud being a transition object after his touch with his mother is cut off.
When the sled is tossed into the fire, the final material remnance between mother and son is destroyed.
I am quite sure this is not an original theory, but that was my take on it anyway.

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The night Kane meets Susan Alexander, he says he had been “on my way to the Western Manhattan Warehouses — in search of my youth,” where his mother’s belongings had recently been transferred. No doubt including the Rosebud sled. Also seen incidentally in Susan’s apartment is the snow globe.

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I noticed the snow globe in Susan’s apartment before, and that’s a perfect example of the little traesures I keep finding to this day in the film.

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[QUOTE=cactus waltz]
I saw Citizen Kane for the first time this week (inspired by this thread, actually). I saw the movie as a classic psychodynamic thesis regarding the relationship of mother and child. Immediatly after Kane is left by his second wife, he yearns for Rosebud, Rosebud being a transition object after his touch with his mother is cut off.
When the sled is tossed into the fire, the final material remnance between mother and son is destroyed.
I am quite sure this is not an original theory, but that was my take on it anyway.
[/QUOTE]

The joke being, of course, that “Rosebud” is said to have been Hearst’s nickname for Marion Davies’s, um, as my three-year-old niece would say, “buh-jyna.”

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As has been mentioned, the cast were virtually unknown. I love the movie, but apart from Orson Welles and Joseph Cotten, I couldn’t name any others.

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Surely you remember Agnes Moorehead, “Endora” on Bewitched. She plays Kane’s mother.

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[QUOTE=Walloon]
Surely you remember Agnes Moorehead, “Endora” on Bewitched. She plays Kane’s mother.
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I emember her for Bewitched (and her career) - but if you asked who was in the movie I wouldn’t have recalled her. :slight_smile:

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[QUOTE=Walloon]
Welles was grateful to Toland: he gave Toland equal size billing with himself, on the same title card, in the Citizen Kane credits.
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Um. I was saying that in this thread, the posters seem to be giving Welles credit for the visually stunning presentation.

I never said that Welles was not up-front with his props to Toland, did I ? Clearly, he was as Walloon pointed out.

OTOH, he tried to take sole credit for the screenplay and have Mankiewicz (sp?)'s name removed from the Academy nomination. There is no arguing that he was possessed of an enormous ego…

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The Godfather has either already passed Citizen Kane or is very close to passing it on most polls of either the greatest American films or just the greatest films from anywhere. The Godfather continues to move upward on those sorts of polls, while Citizen Kane either just barely hangs on to its position or has already been passed by The Godfather. This is true of various polls, regardless of whether they are asking the opinions of critics, filmmakers, or film viewers. My guess is that in 2017, nearly all polls of that sort will list The Godfather as the greatest film, while Citizen Kane will be in second place on most of them, perhaps slightly lower in film viewers’ polls than in critics’ polls. It certainly won’t drop from the top ten.

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[QUOTE=Wendell Wagner]
The Godfather has either already passed Citizen Kane or is very close to passing it on most polls of either the greatest American films or just the greatest films from anywhere.
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Such as . . . which polls?