Why do people love Citizen Kane?

[Bakuryukun]

If you watched the movie "to see what the big deal was" then I think you made a grave mistake. Looking at a movie like that is a sure way to have it not meet the expectations that the people around you have set for it.

I haven't seen Kane yet, but I plan to, and when I do I'm going to keep the era it was made in mind. I'm also not worry about who thought it was awesome or overrated or other such opinions pretending to be facts. That's pretty much how I recommend all movies be watched actually.

 

[KezzieZ]

To be perfectly honest, I think most people that like it tend to respect it because it was innovative cinematography at the time it was made.

Also, just about everybody knows the "it was his sled" thing these days even if they've never seen Citizen Kane (I certainly knew about it before I watched the movie because it's been spoofed dozens of times).

I think it's a decent movie myself, but not "the best." It's not my favorite and "best" is a really subjective term for just about anything.

 

[Jegsimmons]

2 kubrick films followed by fight club?

i'll give you kubrick who was an artist in his purist form, but whats with the love for fight club?
THAT'S the overrated movie here (not bad but not great),
but i digress, Citizen Kane is one hell of a good movie.
(my personal favorite movie is to Kill A Mocking Bird, if anyone cares.)

Not trying to be "that guy", but how many times have you seen Fight Club? I shared the same opinion about it the first time I watched it, but fell in love with it the second time. It is currently in my Top 5. Danny Boyle and David Fincher are truly modern masters of film.

a few times, its not bad, like I said, but it's not great.

 

[Jegsimmons]

2 kubrick films followed by fight club?

i'll give you kubrick who was an artist in his purist form, but whats with the love for fight club?
THAT'S the overrated movie here (not bad but not great),
but i digress, Citizen Kane is one hell of a good movie.
(my personal favorite movie is to Kill A Mocking Bird, if anyone cares.)

Is it as good as the book?

OOOOOOOooooohhhh yes... it has two of the greatest actors ever in it, Robert Duvall as Boo and Gregory Peck as Atticus Finch.

and that speech at the end....just gives you chills.

 

[CthulhuRlyeh]

2 kubrick films followed by fight club?

i'll give you kubrick who was an artist in his purist form, but whats with the love for fight club?
THAT'S the overrated movie here (not bad but not great),
but i digress, Citizen Kane is one hell of a good movie.
(my personal favorite movie is to Kill A Mocking Bird, if anyone cares.)

Not trying to be "that guy", but how many times have you seen Fight Club? I shared the same opinion about it the first time I watched it, but fell in love with it the second time. It is currently in my Top 5. Danny Boyle and David Fincher are truly modern masters of film.

a few times, its not bad, like I said, but it's not great.

OK, just checking.
What are your thoughts on Danny Boyle?
Also, since you like Robert Duvall, check out the Twilight Zone episode with him. It is probably the best acting in the whole series.

 

[KAPTAINmORGANnWo4life]

I don't think giving any work of consumer art a 100% grade is appropriate. Reviewers aren't doing their jobs if they don't find a few holes to poke into something, and if there's even one flaw, mathematically speaking, it shouldn't get 100%.

I think that Citizen Kane was groundbreaking for its technical achievements, but if I were to watch a 1940's vintage film, I'd go for The Great Dictator or The Wizard of Oz. I appreciate the overall package of those films more than Kane, and that's really saying something about The Great Dictator, since it was glorified WWII propaganda.

 

[Tyzamar]

This is merely a guess. But I think it might be because it managed to showcase exactly what cinematography can do. Kind of set the bar for future productions.

 

[lettucethesallad]

I'm not big on Citizen Kane either, and I'm a big movie nut with a passion for old movies. Tried to watch it, got bored and moved on. People always give me this look like I'm insane when I talk about it.

 

[Feste the Jester]

I actually just like it not as a technical masterpiece, but as an honestly entertaining film with an interesting plot twist and some good dialogue.

 

[teebeeohh]

well you know there are very few books that are older than 100 years that people still read? Not because they were really good and/or successful at the time but because they did something new or game changing or just do something with a perfection that will never again be attained. We keep reading those things because they give us an idea of how a medium develops and because at a certain age it's enough to just look at the peaks of something, the same way studying ancient leaders is way more interesting than studying ancient daily life.

Citizen Kane is one of those timeless classics, and i don't mean timeless as in "will still be watched when i am old" but will be watched as long as people watch movies because for someone from the 31. century this is really all they need to see to know something about 20. century films.

 

[Infernai]

Because it has that ever so famous Cane!

....Wait a minute, there's no cane in citizen cane!

 

[Jaime_Wolf]

When people say best, they mean it's one of the most important movies ever made.

You should look at a list of things that were invented for Citizen Kane. The Christmas scenes where the music starts in one and bridges to the other? Citizen Kane was the first one to do that. Deep focus? Citizen Kane was the first major film to do that.

It seems pretty unimpressive now mostly because it changed film so profoundly that every film since then has been using the same techniques.

 

[Nukey]

It invented most of the techniques used in modern cinema, effectively revolutionizing the industry.

It's also a pretty good movie on its own merits.

 

[Zoe Castillo]

--

 

[DarkRyter]

"I still can't believe you haven't seen Cujo. What is wrong with you?"
"Relax, it's not like it's Citizen Kane."
"Have you ever tried to sit through Citizen Kane?"
"Yeah, I know, it's really boring, but it's like a big deal."

I believe Joey and Rachel sum up the general public's view on Citizen Kane.

 

[The Rockerfly]

snip

Great avatar, brah.

Thank you kindly

 

[The_root_of_all_evil]

Didn't the Space Monkeys cut his balls off on a bus? Then he came back to stop them from detonating their bomb even at the cost of his life knowing that them and Tyler would murder him to achieve their goals? He ended up holding himself at gunpoint before finally getting absolving his split personality and deciding to commit sucicide?

Or did he...remembering what was actually happening? Tyler survives in both.

Unless you mean how Tyler Durden himself gave into the Narrator after he was mentally overpowered and decieved, which I wouldn't say is acceptance.

It is compared to what happened in the book, where Tyler was hospitalized due to his internal struggle.

 

[The_root_of_all_evil]

to clear up the Clockwork Orange argument. The movie was based on the version of the book published in America which for whatever reason did not include the last chapter that was included in the British publication. Kubric read the American book and based the movie on that

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Clockwork_Orange#Omission_of_the_final_chapter

Kubrick was aware of the last chapter, he just decided not to use it.

One of Kubrick's "auter" visions was to give the audience a character arc, but he did so often by ignoring the main protagonist's arc. This made the film more emotionally contesting but weaker overall.

 

[Spade Lead]

The movie is not about the twist. Stop thinking about the twist or Rosebud. It's just a tool to get things moving. Rosebud is not central to the life of Kane, it was just a part of it. Like the reporter at the end says "A piece of the puzzle".

See Kane's life as a whole, and not just the twist. The interesting part is how at the end of the movie, the viewer, the reporter, the people who were part of Kane's life and Charles Foster Kane himself, find out how little they actually knew about the him. Everyone has their own sort of view of who the man was. Every individual flashback, shines Kane in a different light, some view him as an egotistical man, a ladies man, a cynical, an idealist, a rotten bastard, a sell out a lost soul, etc.

The point of Citizen Kane is, you don't get to know who an individual is based on one act or a moment in his life, but the sum of all his acts and moments define and shape the individual. That's why Rosebud in the end is pointless. The reporter was looking for it's meaning cause he believed that was the key to unlock Charles Foster Kane, but in truth it wasn't. It was just another part of Kane's life. Rosebud didn't shape Kane. It was just his sled, a memory of a long lost life.

There are a lot of other things that make Citizen Kane good, and the greatest movie of all time. It was a movie that changed everything about cinema, since the camera work, the editing, narrative and story. It's not exactly an easy movie to fully understand, I recommend watching the movie with the commentary by Roger Ebert, it gives a whole different perspective on the movie. It also shows that there was a lot of silly stuff in it, like Pterodactyls flying in the background of one scene.(Really)


Edit: Orson Welles did better movies by the way. Touch of Evil, F for Fake and The Trial for instance. Though Citizen Kane was a groundbreaking movie and changed everything. The most recent example of a movie that changes the laws of cinema is There Will Be Blood by PT Anderson.(Which funny enough, is considered the Citizen Kane of the new generation)

And here I was thinking no one got it.

It was a great movie, and I am glad I saw it as the last film in my Introduction to Film class. It was truly revolutionary, and I recognized so many techniques from modern movies that were original and well done in that film. And the Special Effects, Oh my God. They were good by modern standards, and that was back in the day when William Randolf Hearst was trying to get the film killed because it was seen by him as a personal attack. I don't remember the exact numbers, but according to my Film Instructor, over 70% of that movie was special effects, mainly the deep-focus shot. You may not have enjoyed it, but it was a revolutionary film that was technically complex and well executed.

Read the Wiki on it, take a film class, understand how movies are made and what went into that film in particular. Welles had a special control over that film that no other director HAD EVER EXPERIENCED before that film. Had that film failed, truly failed, the movies we go to today would be even more bland and uninspiring than most people on here claim they are.

 

[Spade Lead]

Because it has that ever so famous Cane!

....Wait a minute, there's no cane in citizen cane!

But there is, actually, in the final stages of his life, because when I saw that cane, I almost shit myself thinking "LISA WAS WRONG!"

I can't find images, but when his an old man, he uses a cane.