BP’s Top 100 Challenge #1: Citizen Kane, by Sarah Brinks
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I decided to undertake a movie challenge in 2017. This seemed like a good way to see some classic movies that I have unfortunately never seen. The Battleship Pretension Top 100 list provided such a challenge.
Citizen Kane is often at the top of any list of the best films of all time. And here it is at the top of the Battleship Pretension Top 100 list and it deserves to be there. The film is masterfully crafted with wonderful usage of extreme close-ups, deep focus, rear projection and much more. I think it is important to keep the time Citizen Kane was in made when discussing its importance. While re-watching the film, it struck me how familiar a story it is, as are the film-making techniques used. But that is because so many filmmakers who came after Orson Wells stole the best techniques. That being said, it is a film that stands the test of time and is still very interesting to watch today.
I love how, at its core, Citizen Kane is a very simple story. It is about a group of men trying to unwrap the puzzle of a rich and powerful man, who in his heart is the same as any man, rich or poor. He wanted to happy, he wanted to be as happy as he was living in a small home with his parents with a sled and a snowman to keep him occupied. Charles Foster Kane was rich enough to try and buy his happiness, but no matter how many sculptures, furniture, or elaborate mansions he bought, he was never happier than with his little wooden sled and his family.
Orson Welles made his feature film debut with Citizen Kane. Nominated for 3 Oscar’s and winning best original screenplay. I thought Welles’ performance as Kane was brave. We only see him young and handsome in one scene basically. All his other scenes were of him older, sometime bald or even in a wheelchair. He clearly wasn’t playing into his sense of vanity from that perspective. Welles also made a believable transition as Kane. He starts off starry-eyed, fighting for the working man, and as he grows older and richer and as he loses more and more, he loses that perspective and becomes frivolous.
I have to give a shout out to the make-up team on Citizen Kane led by the make-up supervisor Mel Burns. Nearly all of the characters that we meet from Kane’s life undergo some sort of aging. Some characters like Kane and Leland are seen at multiple times in their lives and the make-up goes a long way to telling you where you are in the timeline. Even though the film is in black and white the make-up is very effective and adds a great deal to the film.
I particularly like the structure of the film, especially the use of the news reel footage and the newspaper headlines to move the plot forward. We learn exactly what kind of man Charles Foster Kane grew to be before we see him speak more than one word. The newspaper headlines also tell us a lot as the film progresses. It made me think about modern filmmaking and how text messages are often used in the same way now.
I can’t write about Citizen Kane without addressing “rosebud.” Rosebud is the films’ McGuffin, it doesn’t really matter what it is, just that no one knows, so we can keep learning about Kane. But I like that it is a sled. I feel like the punch of that realization has been lost since everyone knows what it is now. In fact, I knew “rosebud” was a sled before I even knew what Citizen Kane was. The second to last shot of the film is a beautiful pan over piles and piles of treasures and art and sculptures to finally land on the little wooden sled. The shot goes on for so long that you finally realize for the first time exactly how rich Kane was and how desperate he was to buy his happiness. But the revelation that rosebud was the sled he had a poor child adds to the depth of his character and his loneliness as the sixth richest man in the world.
Citizen Kane is a wonderful film deserving of all of its accolades over the years and a great way to finish the Battleship Pretension Top 100 challenge.
I’ve decided to rate each film using an arbitrary scale based on the board game Battleship (lowest:Destroyer, Submarine, Cruiser, Battleship, highest: Carrier
Citizen Kane ranking: Carrier
Sarah’s ranking of the Top 100 movies:
1 IN THE MOOD FOR LOVE
2 12 ANGRY MEN
3 CASABLANCA
4 SINGIN’ IN THE RAIN
5 AMELIE
6 THE LIVES OF OTHERS
7 PERSONA
8 THE GOOD, THE BAD, AND THE UGLY
9 PSYCHO
10 STAR WARS: THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK
11 SCHINDLER’S LIST
12 GROUNDHOG DAY
13 CHINATOWN
14 M
15 THE WIZARD OF OZ
16 JAWS
17 FINDING NEMO
18 EYES WIDE SHUT
19 THE LORD OF THE RINGS: THE FELLOWSHIP OF THE RING
20 GHOSTBUSTERS
21 IT’S A WONDERFUL LIFE
22 STRANGELOVE or: HOW I LEARNED TO STOP WORRYING AND LOVE THE BOMB
Congratulations on watching and reviewing all 100 movies, Sarah! Quite an impressive endeavor.