Citizen Kane (1941) (Gold Edition Box Set; Includes RKO 281)

Citizen Kane

By Yahoo! Shopping User  Aug 3, 2006

Pros: great movie

Cons: black and white for those who prefer color

one must understand the context in which this film was made to truly appreciate this film for the highly innovative,true work of art that it is.Citizen Kane is an atypical film made in the studio era, of Hollywood, basically studio bosses owned every...thing and everyone in the film and used their stars and matched to their genre,followed a straight narrative and kept the spotlight on their stars.Citizen Kane broke all the rules in more ways than one, the lighting is used thematically,to express betrayal,trust,et cetera.When Kane makes his declaration of priniciples, he steps out the light of good intentions and his face is completely darkened by shadows, so we cannot tell if he was lying,self delusional or merely being idealistic ,but the lighting lets us know it is a lie.This was a big no-no,in the studio era, the stars must be lit at all times.This film is highly innovative for it's time only because Orson Welles had a unique contract that gave him complete creative control of this film,which was unheard of.The story starts with the death of the main character Mr.Kane, a media magnate, his death,goes back to his childhood and makes a full circle,by chronicaling his life and ends where it started at hids death.Welles threw convention out the window and used an entire cast of unknowns from his theatre group, some had never worked in film before,neglecting the established star system of the studio bosses,and the straight predictable start to finish story line. Unlike a typical Hollywood movie from this era, the females in Citizen Kane are far from weak, indeed they are the strongest characters in the movie,the women of Citizen Kane were dominant forces to be reckoned with .One of the best scenes in the movie is the montage of Kanes marriage,that shows years over a couple of minutes, the couple start off close and in bright lighting and as the marriage progresses,the talking evolves into silence,his wife look becomes more severe and the table gets longer,it ends with the wife expressing her disdain by reading the rival newspaper in his face during breakfast.This film was not just innovative because of the film techniques such as deep focus, focusing on three planes of action,chiarascurro lighting,overlapping dialog,using echoes to emphasis coldness, or lighting to emphasis a characters trapped feeling, no this film was innovative for it's time because Welles made his own film and played by his own rules while making it,satirizing the life of media magnate William Randolph Hearst,neglecting to use established stars in stereotypical roles and film techniques and produced a high quality film demonstrating the stifling effect studio bosses exerted in the creative process of motion picture making.It is no wonder this film was the most criticized and blacklisted film in Hollywood duing the studio era.I viewed this film with a greter appreciation,for the second time after gaining a little more understanding of the film's context.This is a great film and worth every penny, I cannot imagine how someone could not enjoy this film. Read more Less