To back up a bit to Bob’s original hypothosis that " the only significant reason that Citizen Kane is rated higher than these other films is because of the hype surrounding auteur theory itself," if you look at the BFI polls as a representative critical opinion of the times, in the 1952 poll (just over a decade after Kane was released), Kane’s not even in the top 10:
1. Bicycle Thieves (De Sica)
2. City Lights (Chaplin)
2. The Gold Rush (Chaplin)
4. Battleship Potemkin (Eisenstein)
5. Intolerance (Griffith)
5. Louisiana Story (Flaherty)
7. Greed (von Stroheim)
7. Le Jour se lève (Carné)
7. The Passion of Joan of Arc (Dreyer)
10. Brief Encounter (Lean)
10. La Règle du jeu (Renoir)
A decade later, in 1962, it’s #1, where it’s been ever since:
1. Citizen Kane (Welles)
2. L’avventura (Antonioni)
3. La Règle du jeu (Renoir)
4. Greed (von Stroheim)
4. Ugetsu Monogatari (Mizoguchi)
6. Battleship Potemkin (Eisenstein)
7. Bicycle Thieves (De Sica)
7. Ivan the Terrible (Eisenstein)
9. La terra trema (Visconti)
10. L’Atalante (Vigo)
Two of the principal exponents in English came to be about this time—Movie Magazine was founded in the UK in 1962, Sarris’s “Notes on the Auteur Theory in 1962” was published the same year in the US. I not sure of exactly what order these events occured, but given that the versions of auteurism presented in these publications were relatively novel at the time of their respective publications, it seems unlikely to me that auteurist theory alone had the kind of traction in 1962 required to displace De Sica, Chaplin, Griffith, and the others from there top spots on the 1952 list. So, I guess I’m saying that I think there had to be something other than/in addition to an auteur fetish on behalf of the voters involved in Kane rising to the top of the list.
I don’t think there really is a greatest film of all time. I believe Citizen Kane is always ranked up among the best for one basic reason. Everything about the film was so drastically different from anything else released at the time. And if one were to discount everything else about the film that is great, the technical aspects still stand out as historically significant. But, I generally hate top ten lists. Great films are great films. Why rank them?
Possibly, but there are a great number of “milestone” films that no longer make the cut in the “greatest of all time” lists (see the 1952 list above), so there’s got to be something beyond mere historical significance. Kane met with only relatively modest success upon its initial US release—some good reviews, losses at the box office, a handful of Oscar noms [it was booed at the awards ceremony] and a win for the screenplay—and wasn’t much known in Europe until it was released there after the war, and didn’t have much of a popular audience here in the US until it started being shown on TV in the ’50s.
Matt: As I have said earlier on this thread and elsewhere relative to Kane and the ‘canon’, I believe a great many factors have led to Kane’s dominance in the film canon. I am not that familiar with the actual history of critical recognition of Kane, but know of no one film that has received so much critical recognition or been written about as much as Kane. GWtW comes close in terms of articles and books written about it, but more as a cultural phenomenon than a critical one – hence the difference. Andre Bazin was certainly a great influence on the develpment of auteur theory, and influenced Sarris. The French critics, under Bazin’s influence, started to re-appraise cinematic history based on auteur theory in the 1950’s, and this led to Kane being singled out as a great example of an auteur driven film. Sarris took up the fight in the US, directly influenced by this same French movement. By the time Pauline Kael, probably the most influential US critic of her day, weighed in with her Citizen Kane Book, Kane was unshakeable on its top spot. To argue against it now, is to argue against a huge weight of critical mass – all weighed heavily in Kane’s favour. Unless another film receives equal critical attention, and gets written about as much as Kane, Kane will stay on top.
To see how this type of critical influence works, take the case of Renoir’s Rules of the Game. I read several years ago an excellent review and re-appraisal of the film in the New Yorker by Terrence Rafferty (June 25, 1990 issue). His article mentioned that the film was getting a renewed appraisal in France, where it has always rated very highly. Occasionally, a well-written, well-argued article comes along, praising a certain film or director, and that starts to effect how others see the film. It certainly altered my own view, and I had to watch the film again. An article such as this causes a buzz around a film – this one certainly did.
This is how it happens – one article or appraisal at a time, and the stocks of a film go up or down. A good critic and writer can create a buzz around any film, director, or movement they put their sights on, and momentum can build. We are all subject to influences and persuasion, both here and elsewhere. You can ignore it or argue against it, but you still need to weigh it against your own judgment – to see if it is valid or not. Critics do this for a living, the rest of us do it for fun. I am just having some fun here, and have no real stake in the argument otherwise. I know where I stand on the question, and that’s what matters to me, but I am always interested in everyone else’s take on it.
My discussion was not so much as how or why this happened, but was it justified. Each individual viewer must answer this question for themself. I think that critics are always influenced by other critical thought – it is impossible to escape it whenever you read about film. Still, in the end, it is just you and the film that matters – unless you are watching with the influence of those other critical eyes or your own. Critics might have a hard time escaping this ‘agony of influence’, but we do not – except when we are being polled, of course!
Bob,
Another random observation:
The 1992 BFI poll ranks Rules of the Game #2 in the critics poll—the slot it’s occupied beneath Kane since the 1972 poll—in the director’s poll, however, it didn’t make the top ten:
1. Citizen Kane (Welles)
2. 8 1/2 (Fellini)
2. Raging Bull (Scorsese)
4. La strada (Fellini)
5. L’Atalante (Vigo)
6. The Godfather (Coppola)
6. Modern Times (Chaplin)
6. Vertigo (Hitchcock)
9. The Godfather Part II (Coppola)
10. The Passion of Joan of Arc (Dreyer)
10. Rashomon (Kurosawa)
10. Seven Samurai (Kurosawa)
Interesting discrepancy . . . or, rather, interesting that there isn’t a discrepancy in what film is #1 in both polls. The only other commonalities in the two polls are Vertigo (which didn’t show up until 1982) and The Passion of Joan of Arc (about the same place in the hierarchy it occupied since the original 1952 poll). By 2002, Dreyer’s film has fallen off the poll and Vertigo has edged out Rules of the Game (with both films ranked higher by the critics than by the directors). It’s interesting that initial when the split the polls between critics and directors there was some significant difference between the two, but a decade later the results have, to a degree, been homogenized.
“My discussion was not so much as how or why this happened, but was it justified”
Depends on what your criteria for justification are. In some respects, the how or why (and probably the who, too) the criticism happened is the justification. You might also ask whether or not the fact of generalized acceptance of Kane as THE film is even relevant to the individual viewer, and if so, how? And vice versa.
Matt: Just to zero in on a small topic here, it is interesting to look at how Vertigo suddenly appeared on the list. Vertigo was one of those Hitchcock films, like Rear Window, that was just buried in a vault until it was resurrected in the 1980’s. I remember watching both of these when they were revived and restored at a double bill at a local repertory theatre. I was amazed how good both films were. They had not been shown on TV or re-released until then – no exposure, no talk, except for a few critical essays. If it is a significant film, the critical buzz starts, and it is re-discovered and placed in the canon. Maybe the fact that Citizen Kane was never really a ‘lost’ film, but had been kept in circulation, in one form or another, led to it being raised to a high point at an earlier period than Vertigo, for example. Therefore, sometimes the emergence of a film on the critical canon has a great deal to do with its re-discovery – as is the case with Vertigo. Also, a more complete print of Passion of Joan of Arc was re-discovered in 1981, leading to its re-evaluation.
The main reason I brought this topic up was to try to evaluate, for each of us, what determines our own picks on any list of ‘significant’ films, which we arbitrarily (and maybe crazily) restrict to 10. How many times are we acting strictly on our own judgment – ie, what we like – and how many times are we influenced by critical discussion, film histories, or even the buzz here or anywhere re a particular film. That is a difficult question to answer, as our own results were not that dissimilar, in total, to the BFI or other critical lists. Of course, each individual list was unique, and many had none of these BFI films on the list. Yet, I am convinced, in some small portion of our own critical psyche, those amassed opinions, from these very polls, do help to steer us in a certain direction. If everyone, for example, has seen all the films that made our own top ten, then their individual choices would be valid. If they have not, then they might raise the odd film in their own estimation.
I have always been interested in the differences in film picks by say, critics and directors, or even our own individual auteurs. Some of us will place high a BFI pick – like Rules of the Game, Vertigo, Citizen Kane, or The Godfather – on our own list. Others wll not put any of these on their list. For those polled by BFI, we can assume they have seen the same films, over all, and some are picking them from a critical aesthetic and some from a director’s point-of-view. Here, we have no way of telling how many films that were picked have been seen by the majority of viewers. Unless we have seen roughly the same films, any evaluation is skewered by just what we have seen. We are like the critics before the re-release of Vertigo – we don’t know how great the film is until we have seen it. So, the only way, for example, to get an accurate poll here would be if we gave everyone on site a list of films that were significant, and then told them, if they haven’t seen them, or have a dim remembrance, then they must see each film and then evaluate. We need a level playing field. If we have not all seen Citizen Kane, for example, we can’t decide where it fits – or Vertigo, or Rules of the Game. We can use the cheat sheet of the BFI lists, if we want, but then we are falling for the fallacy of letting the critical functionaries out there influence our own individual choices.
My point is, I think, human nature being what it is, even critics and directors, or anyone making any kind of list, evaluating and ranking any set number of films, is influenced by what they have heard, read, or seen re any particular important film. This inevitably skewers the results to favour the films that are most talked about (ie, hyped), studied, written on, and analyzed. If a film has not received a criitical ranking, for whatever reasons, it has little chance of recognition. We, as individuals, are still free to follow our own instincts and choices, make our own discoveries, but ranking them in any collective context is probably just an exercise. Which means, whether we think Citizen Kane the greatest or the most boring film ever made, this is still an individual choice – critics and canons be damned, if need be.
That’s my final take on the subject (huge collective sigh of relief). Anyone else is free to add or subtract.
one thing, though is that the way the sight and sound poll is put together, it doesn’t mean that more people think that Kane is the greatest film ever, just that the most people think that it is worthy of the top ten, since the Sight and Sound poll is not weighted.
After almost 70 years, I don’t think it can be hype that sustains Kane’s reputation. Even Max Clifford couldn’t construct a smokescreen that effective over so many years. And I don’t think it’s one of those films that people like to pretend they’ve seen just to appear clever. It actually has a popular appeal and anyone I’ve ever introduced to Citizen Kane has been genuinely impressed by it.
yes. surely that cant be argued against. kane is a well-made, entertaining, artistic, and exciting film to watch.
as previously mentioned, so many people feel that it deserves to be among the best films ever made. i dont think you can disagree with that mass of opinions either. but as also mentioned, these results are not weighted. so does it deserve to be, literally, #1? who knows and who cares. that much cant be quantified. and it doesnt matter. what matters is that it is among the best ever. what’s the number 1 song ever written? #1 painting ever created? #1 book? these are the definitions of wild goose chases.
as to the hype question, i also discount it. what kind of hype is kane getting? i dont see any media blitzes, or other traditional forms of hype. the only hype is what critic-minded folks like us debate and discuss on this site, and other similar forums (online and off) of discourse.
Good point, Jason, I didn’t want to take up the space required to talk about how many ballots it’s actual #1 on, but that’s interesting to look at (it turns out to be not that many).
“How many times are we acting strictly on our own judgment – ie, what we like – and how many times are we influenced by critical discussion, film histories, or even the buzz here or anywhere re a particular film. That is a difficult question to answer, as our own results were not that dissimilar, in total, to the BFI or other critical lists.”
Yes, Bob, I do think that’s one of the fascinating questions that pops up here. I could be argued of course, that we are NEVER really going on solely our own judgement, that, in fact, our own judgment isn’t really wholly ours, but a construct of ideologies, economics, personal psychology, and other things more or less beyond our control.
I don’t know what the other posts on this thread say because I don’t have the patience or time to read them, so I hope I’m not interrupting some debate. My opinion of Citizen Kane is that it’s an extremely entertaining film. To say it doesn’t deserve the hype it’s been given would be a flat out lie. Orson Welles did an incredible job with the Film and it’s one of the only American made films of the 40’s that I’ve really thoroughly enjoyed. When it comes to the question of it being the greatest Film ever made, I think that all comes down to personal opinion. In mine; no, it’s not the greatest Film ever made.
There is no greatest movie. I agree it all comes down to opinion. I love Citizen Kane and many other films. My favorite films are those that I find highly entertaining, have a compelling story and are well-made from the standpoint of visual aesthetics. I certainly think Kane fits the bill.
“There is no greatest movie. I agree it all comes down to opinion”
wellllllll…..there are many great movies….and Citizen Kane is one of them….amongst a list of over 2000 great films!!!
and possibly more….
if we were to trust subjectivity and personal opinion most of the times,then we’d be having only 20 great films as a whole….lame!!!
Dimitris: Francis’ point was that there are so many great films that make it impossible for there to be just one.
‘if we were to trust subjectivity and personal opinion most of the times,then we’d be having only 20 great films as a whole….lame!!!’
How would there be only 20 films? With everyone who loves films there would probably be several hundred choices alone for ‘the greatest film ever made’! :D
oh,i do understand the point but…here we come to my subsequent summarization…
“With everyone who loves films there would probably be several hundred choices alone for ‘the greatest film ever made’!”
unfortunately,while am hopeful about this issue…it’s not as variant as it sounds…the fact and only most people act like a Sight and Sound poll when they’re mentioning films is what i fear in the future….that cinema will be like books and theater and music etc etc…
yes,Citizen Kane is essential viewing but so is Hypothesis of the Stolen painting and Life of O-Haru…if one person has seen these films but NOT Kane…..will that really affect the established academia?
Dimitris: How do most people act like a Sight and Sound poll? While I’ll personally admit any films I’d consider great are primarily if not completely ones all cinephiles have heard of, there are many many others who know of other films that they consider masterpieces as well that are not necessarily on the polls.
While there are many films that get ‘swept under the rug’, so to speak, well-known films aren’t well-known without reason. As someone mentioned before, films like Kane and the others brought up are so ‘cause they’re among the most widely available of older/art/whatever films and are enjoyed by many people, critics, directors, and numerous ‘film people’.
I don’t think it was ever the intention of these lists to state them as essential viewing.
most people = the ones who don’t really belong to the majority of Titanic average viewers ;)
i totally respect this feeling which comes along “fame”,so to speak…and of course polls don’t matter but even in a 100 film poll,it is extremely possible that a huge number of people (who know their cinema) that they have half of those 100 films on their personal favorite must-sees…
it’s not bad,i’ll be the first one to admit that am a sucker for classic “tentacles” and the sort of film theory knowledge,of the university type,still….
if a person who adores this 50 number of films for the next say…30 years didn’t have any stimulation by watching a Glauber Rocha or an Ousmane Sembene film(directors that will never reach as high in some lists as the Renoirs and Hitchcocks)…then i can hardly say this person is a researcher :)
One thing I find interesting is that as I see more films, my opinion on certain films that I liked in the past changes, usually for the worse. When I first saw Carlito’s Way I really liked it. After the first viewing, I would have given it 4 stars out of 5. Two thousand films later and I recently watched it again. Now I would give it a 2. Kane is still a 5 for me.
Some films don’t age very well and others don’t stand up well when viewed against the entire canon of film. The interesting thing about the music of Beethoven or the art of the Renaissance masters is that it never ages. At least for me, Kane doesn’t seem to age either.
Fundamental aesthetic differences are irreconcilable.
Dimitris: When I said ‘many many others’ I was referring to cinephiles or anyone who really loves films, even among selective people like us you’re not going to have a finite selection of ‘great’ films. Everyone’s got different tastes.
“even among selective people like us you’re not going to have a finite selection of ‘great’ films”
that is debatable…i AM inside the ones who adore 8 1/2 or Alien,however….
am i inside a LOT of individuals who love Camille Claudel or Ladykillers??? :) that’s my point ;)
I don’t think it’s that debatable. You think everyone’s or most of our Top 10 Greatest films lists would look like the S&S poll? There’s gotta be an extremely large number of people on this site [I don’t even want to estimate], I’m very skeptical to think that everyone would completely or generally agree. And since I assume the people who vote on polls pretty much equate their greatest and favorite films as one and the same [this is only an assumption] that if we did the same here, the results would be even more diverse.
‘am i inside a LOT of individuals who love Camille Claudel or Ladykillers??? :) that’s my point ;)’
I don’t understand, how is that your point? :|
Citizen Kane is an innovative film, but it doesn´t compare to the artistic visions behind films like Andrei Rublev or Sansho the Bailiff, and it´s thanks to people being afraid of questioning its established high ranking that it still appears as the No. 1 in most lists. It has been a very influential film though and some people seem to confuse this with greatness, among the films made in that period would I personally rank it right behind The Rules of the Game, The Story of Late Chrysanthemums and The Children of Paradise.
Josh, I do think there is a difference between greatest and favorite. I think L’Avventura is better than some of my favorites. But I’d rather watch my favorites. I think Mozart is better than the Grateful Dead, but I’d rather listen to the Dead. However, I think you’re right in that there are plenty of subjective and rather ignorant fanboys out there that pile on the ratings for certain films, hence the high IMDb scores for Dark Knight and Pulp Fiction. I was a fan of Batman long before the current crop of fanboys, but I’m not foolish enough to call it a masterpiece.
In order for critics to stay relevant, they must focus on elements like film history, technique, conventions, and so on. This means that film critics must negate the significance of PATHOS in a cinematic work, and that is one of the crucial reasons why Citizen Kane has become the critical darling that it is and still remains that way. It is also why a work like Bicycle Thieves hasn’t fared so well.
Any reasonably intelligent, patient, and literate person can be moved by the overwhelming pathos of The Bicycle Thieves, while one needs a fair amount of knowledge of film history to appreciate the technical innovations of Citizen Kane. Simply put, the livelihood and the survival of the critic are contingent upon elevating technique and innovation while simultaneously devaluing the pathos that can be found in the more emotionally compelling works. This is why even when valuing the works by the same filmmaker, the highbrow critics almost always rate Renoir’s Rules of the Game above his Grand Illusion and Max Ophuls’ Earring of Madame de… over Letter from an Unknown Woman.
And I said this in another similar thread, but imagine a hypothetical experiment in which intelligent young people yet unexposed to cinema were isolated for years and made to watch, say 1,000 or so of the generally best-received films. And imagine that they were not exposed to other people’s reviews and articles featuring critical consensus. And if these people—now adults—were to participate in a poll similar to that of S&S, does anyone sane really think that the results would be as homogeneous, stale, unimaginative, staid and butt-fucking-boring as they always are?
The emperor ain’t exactly naked, but his mantle is certainly made of many smokes and mirrors.
Blue K is the winner. I don’t think anyone could have put it better.
Francis: I think there is a difference too, but I was thinking more in regards to the lists of films the directors and critics submit. Also I don’t think I meant to say anything about ‘fanboys’ either.
You’re right. That was my own thought. I do think the directors have a different perspective so its cool to have more than one list.
Francis: What I’m curious though is whether they simply think these are the best they’ve seen or if they consider them their ultimate favorites too?
J Switchcock
It is the greatest, most influential and impressive debut film feature of all time (would any young novice be given the time and money to create an opus such as this). The next Sight & Sound top 10 of all time is in 3 years (2012) does anyone think it will be there at the top of the tree or will Renoir, Godard, Kubrick, Kurosawa, Hitchcock or a new pretender knock Kane off his perch?