Hmm. This opinion seems to be popping up lately, I went to a screening of Citizen Kane recently where a few people took that stance. So relax, you may not be alone.
On the other hand, I think you’re absolutely insane. I can’t fathom how someone wouldn’t like Kane, or Touch of Evil. To each their own, I suppose.
Actually, yes — he’s really not THAT great. To me, he’s just one of those personalities or films that you’re not allowed to say bad things about, lest you incur the wrath of the public, who’s either brainwashed or fearful to go against established and traditional public opinions.Anyhoo, most of those who say he’s good probably haven’t even seen any of his work except for “Citizen Kane.”
Actually I’ll agree that Welles did a good job on Touch of Evil – the casting of Heston is the thing that bugs me about that film.
Kane is not bad, just grotesquely over-rated. It’s probably a good film for students to learn from, but I don’t think I’ll ever watch it again.
Does anyone know what I’m talking about with the delivery and editing – what is it that’s so off-kilter and unmusical about it? It’s like he’s trying to catch up with himself. Is there a term for it?
Bergman is on your side Nathan :P
Bergman on Welles
“For me he’s just a hoax. It’s empty. It’s not interesting. It’s dead. Citizen Kane, which I have a copy of – is all the critics’ darling, always at the top of every poll taken, but I think it’s a total bore. Above all, the performances are worthless. The amount of respect that movie’s got is absolutely unbelievable. Aghed: How about The Magnificent Ambersons? Bergman: Nah. Also terribly boring. And I’ve never liked Welles as an actor, because he’s not really an actor. In Hollywood you have two categories, you talk about actors and personalities. Welles was an enormous personality, but when he plays Othello, everything goes down the drain, you see, that’s when he’s croaks. In my eyes he’s an infinitely overrated filmmaker.”
- Jan Aghed, “När Bergman går på bio”, Sydsvenska Dagbladet, 12 maj 2002.
I think it’s the greatest American film ever made, and I’ve watched it many, many, many times. In sheer inventiveness and narrative style, there aren’t many films that can even touch it, and every time I see it, it always feels fresh. The great thing about Kane, and why it continues to inspire so many filmmakers, is that every single shot has an idea to it. He approached every scene thinking — what’s the best, most creative way we can do this, and he never seemed to run out of ideas, so many of which have become a grab-bag for other filmmakers. i love the structure of it, those five narrators, and I love the camera movement, as well as Welles performance. It isn’t all Welles, though — the script by Herman Mankiewicz is a masterpiece of film writing. Truffaut used to listen to a tape-recording of the dialogue every morning while he shaved just to help him get in the creative spirit. Anyone who filmed that script would have made a good film, I think, but it took Welles (who added to the script to some indefinable degree) to make it the masterpiece it is.
Having said that, hate it all you want. To me, though, saying Welles is not very good is like saying Da Vinci can’t draw or Catherine Deneuve isn’t beautiful. It raises more questions about you than it does Welles.
Olivier Bélanger – That is awesome, thanks!
I hope more people come out on the other side of the debate, otherwise the title of this thread might be innacurate – how embarrassing!
I think the fact that Citizen Kane is universally lauded as “the greatest film ever” by critics has turned many people off of Kane and Welles. I can understand the feeling of Welles being overrated, but if you look closer at his work and personal history, I think a greater appreciation can be attained. Kane was the only film Welles had complete control over, as he was essentially blackballed by Hollywood. His innovative techniques inspired a whole generation of filmmakers and were like nothing seen before. Plus, his films are remarkable to look at and a feast for the eyes. He tells the story of Citizen Kane in just under two hours that encapsulates one man’s life, comments on the American dream and materialism, and is both whimsical and tragic. Welles was truly one of the first auteurs of cinema.
I think the fact that Citizen Kane is universally lauded as “the greatest film ever” by critics has turned many people off of Kane and Welles. I can understand the feeling of Welles being overrated, but if you look closer at his work and personal history, I think a greater appreciation can be attained. Kane was the only film Welles had complete control over, as he was essentially blackballed by Hollywood. His innovative techniques inspired a whole generation of filmmakers and were like nothing seen before. Plus, his films are remarkable to look at and a feast for the eyes. He tells the story of Citizen Kane in just under two hours that encapsulates one man’s life, comments on the American dream and materialism, and is both whimsical and tragic. Welles was truly one of the first auteurs of cinema.
I saw Citizen Kane today and I find his approach to compositions great. I especially enjoyed the transitions from scenes as all having a steady rhythm, as if it’s one long take.
To me saying Welles isn’t very good is more like saying Steeley Dan isn’t very good – they’ve got a lot of creative, complex ideas that they carry out with great skill, but it’s still some of the worst music I’ve ever heard.
I think Citizen Kane is terribly undeserving of the title “Best Film Ever”, but it is an important one. In fact the only films by him that I can say I actually loved from what I’ve seen were: F FOR FAKE and THE MAGNIFICENT AMBERSONS. The Magnificent Ambersons has got to be one of my favorite movies, even if it has a horribly pasted ending. The other films that I’ve seen by him, Touch of Evil I thought met just below my bar of expectations. It deserves another watch. Mr. Arkadin I kinda liked, but that was the second Welles film I’d ever seen the first being Kane, and I didn’t find him a very attractive film maker.
This topic is certainly going to be the most thumbed of the week!
Personnaly, I hate everybody except:
Bergman, Bresson, cassavettes,Fellini; Tarkovsky, Tarr, Bunuel, Kielozsky,Desplechin,Brault and the director of the return wich have a very complicated name. Then I’m probably too snob to argument…
p.s. I hate all the other filmakers but I may love some of their films e.×.: The conformist
I’m familiar with Bergman’s comments, but I think he was just jealous, really, if only because as long as there’s an Orson Welles there’s something of a question as to whether Bergman — whom I respect enormously — really is the greatest director of all time. At any rate, the idea of Citizen Kane as boring is an opinion I just find unfathomably dense and stupid. Then again, this is the same man who made The Passion of Anna, so our definitions of “boring” may vary widely.
I agree that a lot of people who really like Welles haven’t seen a lot of his films, it’s hard to have a discussion that only includes Citizen Kane. However, I’ve seen the breadth of his work, and I can say that he is probably the greatest American director, in my opinion. The opinion that Welles is a creative genius comes from his scope. He made Citizen Kane when he had full access to studio resources, Ambersons which remains a classic despite it’s butchered state, and then made Chimes At Midnight, in my opinion his best film, with little assistance in funding whatsoever. He’s an inspiration because he was always working, it was never a choice for him. He needed to make films, and they just happened to be wonderful, imaginative, and altogether brilliant pieces of art.
Angel P. – I’ll grant the point about the compositions, but that’s not really something I care about much. Film can do so much more than pretty pictures. The bare minumum a film should do is not jolt you out of its reality, which is what happens for me every time he talks, and it seems to happen pretty frequently for me when he cuts. Maybe his shots are too well-composed, so it’s jarring when he cuts? We seem to have exactly opposite reactions to it!
When I think of Ctizen Kane, the movie that always comes to mind is Tarkovsky’s Ivan’s Childhood. Ivan’s Childhood is a great film, and it’s near perfect but there is something about it that just feels like a directors first movie. It is not the masterpiece that Andrei Rublev, the Mirror, or Stalker is but it is damn near close, and it’s an important piece of film history. Citizen Kane pretty much fits in the same category. There’s a lot of great experimental stuff he was trying out that was groundbreaking, but it doesn’t feel perfect to me. It’s almost as if he’s trying too hard. It’s a Directors first film, I thought he was a lot more fluid in The Magnificent Ambersons. I’ll have to try out Chimes at Midnight next. I bet that’s a good one.
Composition is fundamental to good film-making and it’s especially so in the case of Citizen Kane, since so much of the placement within the scene tells the story, particularly when he’s taken from his Colorado home, for example, and also when Susan attempts suicide. One of the, to me, particularly interesting aspects of Kane is that it’s a textbook example of both composition and cutting, and it can be used (and has be used, often) by people arguing that film is all about one over the other, mise-en-scene versus rhythmic editing, because it has both.
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I agree, generally, Neh, but I tend to think Godard was more influential on the editing of music videos than Welles, with all the jump-cuts, etc.
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I’ve always believed that Welles and Brando were very much alike, two larger-than-life talents cursed with starting their careers at the top. When you blaze so brightly from Day One, your fall from grace seems that much more spectacular, that much more sad. Whatever disappointments and tabled projects litter Welles’ career – the fascinating failure of “The Trial” and the unfulfilled potential of “It’s All True” – we’ll always have “Chimes at Midnight,” “The Lady From Shanghai,” one of the most original adaptations of “MacBeth” ever and, yup, the far-from boring “Kane.” I’ll defend the dissonant voices in this most subjective of arenas, but I’ll just as strenuously champion this imperfect giant. And as an actor, before he became a bloated parody phoning in swill like “Butterfly” (I’m thinking of “A Man for All Seasons” and “The Long Hot Summer,” in addition to “Touch of Evil”), was he ever truly uninteresting?
Just because Welles’ cutting is influential doesn’t mean it’s good. Does anyone here like the MTV-style quick-cut editing? Can you defend it as anything but a device to shift units? To me it detracts from the ‘humanity’ of a film, for lack of a better word. Give me characters over story any day.
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People used to like The MTV style cuts until everything about it proved to be phony. Aronofsky’s Requiem for a Dream is pretty cool and it blew young teenagers minds, but after awhile it begins to wear on some. It’s not the editing technique, it’s who’s reponsible. The style in F FOR FAKE is great.
Compositions are unimportant and influential editing is not good editing. So glad we have you on hand to straighten us out on these matters, Nathan.
Citizen Kane does not have “MTV-style quick-cut editing,” and it does not lack humanity or rich characterization. What’s it about anyway? Lust, power, greed, ambition — the story of a man who wants everything and actually is nothing, who affects everyone around him in myriad ways but whose essence is a mystery. It’s the story of a search for character, and everyone who tells the story sees him in a different way. It’s a complex film about a man who is both more and less than he thinks he is.
I don’t know how to respond to that comment about quality – not sure how relevant it is, nor am I sure what you mean by quality being defined by staying power and not being defined by influence. That’s not to disagree with you per se, I just think there’s a lot you’re packing into that, and it’s not clear to me what your point is.
His films are high-quality, sure, I just don’t think they’re very good. Maybe if I took some film classes I’d be able to appreciate all his innovation and technical whatever, but I’ve been a human being all my life, and as such his films don’t appeal to me. See Steeley Dan. The production is amazing and there’s a lot of talent and songwriting chops, but for all that it’s still unlistenable.
That YouTube clip hits all the marks for something that should be poignant or touching, but for some reason it just isn’t. Sorry I can’t offer an argument at the moment, there’s just a gut feeling or intuition I have about it. I’ll think about it some more and see if I can give something arguable. In the meantime, does anyone who feels what I’m getting at want to take a stab at it?
Did you not see the opening of Touch Of Evil. Not many filmmakers can create such a well crafted choreagraphed sequence that carries so much of information in one single take!
Nathan W
There’s something about his timing I just can’t stand – his delivery as an actor and the way he cuts his films together always seems really unnatural and hard to watch for some reason.