I always hear how Citizen Kane is the best movie in the universe yet I have never seen it. I have also never noticed it in anyone’s video cabinet although many people have The Wizard of Oz, Gone With the Wind, and sometimes Casablanca from the same era. The reason I ask is that there is this fad at work to listen to a website that lets you hear the movie soundtrack for many, many movies on demand. I tried Citizen Kane today and couldn’t make it past the first 15 minutes. The narration was so bizarre and over the top it was uncomfortable. It sounded like a recorded track at a $2 haunted house.
Granted, I still have not seen even two seconds of this movie and I am not a huge movie fan in general plus I have a really bad attention span. Is Citizen Kane something that is watchable by the average person or is it just something I should appreciate by proxie?
The first scene, beyond the “Rosebud” opening, is a mock newsreel obituary of the Kane character. As such, the sound is scratchy and the naration jumps around a lot. I’ve never tried to just listen to it, but I imagine it is not the best way to judge the movie.
IMO it is an entertaining movie, but I think the main reason it is so well respected is that it is a very well made movie; the direction, cinematography, lighting, etc. are all quite excellent.
I will leave it to the film people, sure to be along shortly, to further extoll the movie.
I love it, but it isn’t a “fun” movie like Casablanca. It’s amazingly well-made, but that doesn’t mean everyone enjoys watching it many times over. I recommend you try sitting through it once if you consider yourself a film maven, at least so you can say you’ve seen it. The reputation is deserved, so you ought to see it for yourself.
I have ADD and fully expected to find Kane boring. It wasn’t. It kept my attention and kept me involved in the action despite being mostly scenes of people just talking.
It’s not fun the same way Casablanca is fun, not much humor and none of the characters are particularly likeable. But its a good drama, makes you think and deserves its reputation.
I own Citizen Kane and Casablanca and have never been able to sit through an entire screening of either Wizard of Oz or GWTW. If you aren’t really a movie fan there is a good chance you won’t like it unless you are a history buff or such. First it is in B/W which most people today cannot tolerate and second, you may not recognize a single actor in the entire film, which makes it less enjoyable for some.
Be that as it may it would not surprise me if you did like it, given that you have some interest, for it is extremely well-written, well-acted and innovative. It is also an entertaining story. I never expected to enjoy it but liked it so much I bought it. If you limit yourself to Adam Sandler, Ben Stiller and Bruce Willis movies, skip it. If you prefer movies that are a little more innovative, say like Pulp Fiction (though there are no similarities between the two) you ought to give it a try.
For the record I couldn’t sit through GWTW. MY attention often wandered during Casablanca. But I sat through Kane with no problem. For me, it lived up to its reputation.
I first saw Citizen Kane in high school over 30 years ago. I expected to see a boring movie but was pleasantly surprised to see a technically brilliant movie that actually had an interesting plot. See it. You won’t regret it.
Not to sound like a snob, but Citizen Kane is a movie to watch when you’ve had a few serious years of film watching under your belt. It’s hypnotic. I wouldn’t go showing this to high school sophomores and expect them to understand it wholly.
That said, I think Casablanca doesn’t belong in the pantheon. It’s a very good movie. But Christ, #3 on the AFI Best Ever List? I wouldn’t even list it in the Top 100.
Gone With the Wind never fails to drive me from the room, but I like Kane.
At the very least, if you sit through it about 500 Simpsons jokes will suddenly make sense. If your tastes run more toward Family Guy (Peter once described Kane as “two boring boobless hours”), then it may not be for you.
FWIW, I’ve never seen Citizen Kane, but as a modern film buff, what makes me hate most old movies is not the lack of color, but the horrible hoity-toity style taught by the Hollywood acting schools of the day, and encouraged throughout America. It was just completely unnatural, unwatchable, and it made me wonder who on Earth ever thought that it was a good idea.
I’ve seen foreign films from the same era that I enjoyed immensely.
I hate it and to sit through it is to suffer. You won’t get to many responses like this, because the people that don’t like it normally don’t even open a thread with the title. You asked for an opinion, so I’m posting, otherwise I say don’t shit on a thread you don’t like the subject of. It’s Something more people would prefer to not watch, than watch. Every movie has it’s fans.
I have no idea of what you’re talking about. Jimmy Cagney was hoity-toidy? Edward G. Robinson? Humphrey Bogart? Mae West? W. C. Fields? The Marx Brothers? Charles Lane? Ginger Rogers? Ruby Keeler? Dick Powell? Jean Harlow? Marie Dressler? Wallace Beery?
Some films (notably from Paramount) show the upper class, so the actors acted like upper class people of the day. How is that unnatural?
And Kane has extremely naturalistic acting.
Back to the OP, Kane is a very fun film. Much like Casablanca, it has good drama, great characters, and excellent dialogue.
BTW, the opening newsreel is not “over the top.” It was how newsreels sounded in the 1940s. In other words, it is perfectly naturalistic.
I’m basing it on the most popular films of that time. Really, do the actors in The Wizard of Oz seem natural to you? To me, it all just sounds artificially snooty (for lack of a better word).
A co-worker, who’s practically encyclopedic when it comes to pre-1970s films, agrees with me about the acting schools back then, even though he likes the movies.
I’m willing to give CK a shot, but damn, the acting of that era just doesn’t seem real.
DEFINITELY not fair to judge it on the soundtrack as the cinematography is amazing. It’s an important film that you should at least try to watch it. All the great stuff has been imitated and parodied ad nauseum so unless you’re really into films you probably wouldn’t appreciate it that much.
I think it’s an interesting story, however.
True. It’s very stylized. I think we’re seeing a resurgence of stylized acting nowadays. Today’s films are stylized in a different way. 50 years from now people will probably be watching a Quentin Tarantino film and think wonder what the hell we were thinking. Come to think of it, people today have that often have that reaction.
It must be something you have to learn to like because I saw it once, found it incredibly boring, and will never watch again. I’m sure it was groundbreaking at the time but now it doesn’t seem all that special to me.
It may make it a more enjoyable experience if you don’t go into it thinking, “OK, this is supposed to be the best movie ever made. I better really pay attention and see what I can pick out that’s so innovative and great.” That’s just being too analytical about it.
The first time through, just watch it like you would any movie. Is the story of interest? What about the characters? It it doesn’t appeal to you on those most basic levels, you’re never going to care about the technological advances it represented (you may not notice them anyway unless you are ready to compare it to other movies of the time) or the cinematography. If, on the other hand, you enjoy it, watch it a little more closely the next time and pay more attention to the actual craft that went into making the movie.
