Is Citizen Kane the greatest American movie ever made?

The film Citizen Kane has been claimed to be the best American film. In our textbook, The Film Experience, by Corrigan & White (2004) it says, "At the top of the AFI list is a film routinely invoked as the best American film, Citizen Kane (1941). Welles's film is by now best known for being voted the best" (p. 396). There are reasons why it should be considered the greatest film and reasons why it should not be considered the greatest film.

One of the reasons why Citizen Kane should be one of the greatest films in American history is that it was Welles's first film and he took an approach to film in a way that contrary to Hollywood, however, it was great. Corrigan & White (2004) said, "To spotlight the filmmaker Orson Welles implies that his personal perspective altered the course of movie history. To designate Citizen Kane as a masterpiece is to claim that it stands above the many more common films made in 1941, or that it highlights the specific issues informing film culture at that time, such as leaps forward in camera technology or the shift to more complex narratives" (p. 342).
One of the ways Welles did not follow Hollywood "rules" was that he used a small amount of reframing. Some of the greater scenes in the movie were because he did not reframe. An example of this is when Kane is talking with some men over a table and there are windows in the background. He walks to the window and then walks back, all while the spoken word is happening at the table. There is no reframing in this shot. The camera also did not change shots to reframe as much as a normal Hollywood film would have. An example of this is the shot that begins with Kane was young and sledding in his yard then the camera either zooms out or goes backward with a dolly to essentially reframe the scene to Kane's mother and father with Thatcher.

Another reason why Citizen Kane would be considered the greatest American film would be because of the special affects and mise en scene, especially for the time period. The film makers only had one room to
use for the film and they changed it around for the different locations they needed to use. They also used a lot of shots outside and were able to integrate that into the film. As for mise en scene, the sets were great--a viewer wouldn't even realize that only one room was used. Also, the make-up used to make Kane older and older throughout the film was an impressive part of the mise en scene.

I think part of Citizen Kane's greatness comes from the storyline following Hearst, a real life rich dominator in that time period...the mere drama that came from the movie made it great. People had a hard time finding places to view it, which made it more interesting. Knowing the controversy behind it makes it more special to watch in the present day.

Going back to my blog about what makes a movie great, the basic elements I wrote about were: Representation/Presentation matching up with full movie, creativity with cinematography, editing matching with plot and rest of movie, casting matching up/good acting, and excellent mise en scene. Citizen Kane had all of these elements minus the one part with the parrot freaking out on screen. However, I have a hard time labeling this film as the greatest American film ever made.

The things that would not make Citizen Kane the greatest film in American history would be based around the fact that it is not timeless. It is very much a period film.

Corrigan & White (2004) explained, "Even a masterpiece like Citizen Kane can be viewed as sharing period standards employed by other films of the early 1940s, such as comic interludes and ominous lighting techniques. However, its radical reworking of those standards through its kaleidoscopic narrative, dramatic editing, and rich pictorial compositions clearly sets it off as exceptional within this period" (p. 353).

If I had not watched the documentary before watching Citizen Kane, or if we hadn't talked about how Kane was supposed to be Hearst, then it wouldn't have been as great. Half the fun was trying to see how they were portraying Kane and knowing things like that the animals in the movie represented the zoo that Hearst had in his "kingdom" and that the power Kane had over the newspaper was a definite correlation to Hearst.

Now, about this whole Kane in relation to Hearst thing...this could be one factor that definitely makes Citizen Kane not great. If I hold to my greatness standard representation or presentation, then I think Welles and the writers of Citizen Kane can be questioned. From our discussion and from the documentary I have come to find out that the way Davies, Hearst's second wife was portrayed by the character Susan Alexander was completely wrong. Davies was actually a very funny/witty person who was fun to be around; however in Citizen Kane she is annoying and not fun to be around. If the filmmakers were trying to represent Hearst, they probably did not do this correctly. If they were trying to present Hearst, maybe they can get away with it a little more, but they might have gone a little too far removed...but who knows really? (Not me.)

From all of this, I think that Citizen Kane should be one of the greatest American films for it's time period. Meaning, each time period in film history should have a list of its greatest films and then from there a comprehensive list can be made according to film time periods. This film could be considered to those who study film because of all of the non-period like traits the cinematography has and also for the regular historic content. If a film viewer does not have somebody to tell them why it's important or why it is great or the history for them to understand the film, then it cannot be the absolute greatest film in American history. A person should be able to watch a film on its own, see the greatness first and then find out the historical content about it to further their understanding of its greatness.

Corrigan & White (2004) said, "...familiar 'greats' such as Citizen Kane do merit places on the registry. Whereas the AFI's list of the nation's cinematic classics is a useful myth of film's past constructed with present-day sentiments such as nostalgia and patriotism, the Library of Congress's registry aims to earn for film a claim to what makes the United States distinctive, as national parks or monuments might do" (p. 397). I think this quote sums up that it is a classic film--it is distinctive in American film, but a historically classic film, but perhaps not the greatest film in American history.