It is called, by some people, the greatest movie ever made.
I scoff at that.
It’s not even close, in my humble opinion. Not even in my Top 10.
But “Citizen Kane” is a damn good movie and last night I watched it for the very first time.
Orson Welles—the movie’s star and director—is without a doubt one of the greatest talents the celluloid scene has ever seen.
You could see what he was trying to do, creativity-wise, and sometimes he succeeded.
At other times, though, not so much. That quite likely though was due to the technology available to him at the time.
Born during a different team, I could see Welles having a career like Quentin Tarrantino or Martin Scorcese.
One of the plot summaries listed on IMDB.com reads, “Following the death of publishing tycoon Charles Foster Kane, reporters scramble to uncover the meaning of his final utterance: ‘Rosebud.’”
Let’s face it.
At this time in life, two of the biggest spoilers from movie history are the answers to “Rosebud” and “Soylent Green.”
So, yes, I knew the ending.
I was intrigued about how the story would get there, so last night I decided in “Oh, what the hell?” fashion to watch the movie for the first time.
I’ll be the first to admit that I’m in escapist mode during these “unprecedented times.”
To paraphrase the beloved penguin Opus, 2020 has “sucked not death” and I’ve been tuning into my Apple TV daily for in-home entertainment; picking it over my cable-TV options every single day.
Netflix. Amazon Prime. HBO Max.
I discovered “Citizen Kane” on HBO Max.
The movie was released in 1941, which in itself is pretty fascinating. Add in the fact that Welles was only 25 years old when he directed, co-wrote and starred in his first-ever feature film makes it even more amazing, I suppose.
One of the more intriguing things I discovered was that Agnes Moorehead, who played the title character’s mother, was starring in her first feature film, as well.
Moorehead, of course, wound up being Elizabeth Montgomery’s mother, Endora, in the television showed “Bewitched”—one of the shows I grew up watching.
Also, in doing some post-movie research, I discovered that the character of Kane was modeled after real-life publishing magnate William Randolph Hearst.
From the American Film Institute website: “Hearst was so angered by the film—and in order to keep it from being released—he accused Orson Welles of being a Communist, an accusation that, at the time, had the potential to destroy Hollywood reputations and garner government investigations.”
Sounds like something a Hearst would do, too.
Sounds like the United States government, too, doesn’t it?
Doesn’t matter if it’s 1941 or 2020, the United States government is a corrupt group of people.
Period.
IMDB.com rates “Citizen Kane” as the sixth-best movie ever made.
As I said above, it’s probably not even in the Top 10.
For its time, though, I can see why “Citizen Kane” changed the way Hollywood probably made movies.
It absolutely deserves its moniker as a legendary and/or classic movie.
Once upon a time, I got on a kick of legendary and classic novels.
I was in my 20s and read “To Kill a Mockingbird”—which remains one of my all-time favorite reads—as well as “1984” and “Animal Farm” amongst others.
HBO Max is full of classic movies from yesteryear, so I’m sure I’ll check out another one sometime soon.
THE OCTOBER WEEKEND 