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'Citizen Kane' at 70: The Legacy of the Film and Its Director
The Atlantic ^ | 05/03/11 | D.B. Grady

Posted on 05/04/2011 8:41:44 AM PDT by Borges

On the film's debut in 1941, the New York Times acknowledged that Citizen Kane was "one of the great (if not the greatest) motion pictures of all time." The paper hedged its bets, however, adding that "it was riding the crest of perhaps the most provocative publicity wave ever to float a motion picture," and that this "pre-ordered a mental attitude." The whirlwind surrounding the making of Citizen Kane is well known. Orson Welles, the brash prodigy of stage and radio, earned the envy and scorn of Hollywood veterans by striding onto the RKO lot with an unprecedented contract awarding him a three-picture deal, a massive budget, and the final cut of his first film—the Holy Grail of filmmaking. The controversial subject of his cinematic debut riled one of the most powerful men in the world, and upset the delicate balance of the studio system. Orson Welles earned every drop of ink written about his impending career in film.

Seventy years later, however, it's clear that the New York Times need not have qualified its glowing review. As Times film critic A.O. Scott recently remarked, "Citizen Kane shows Welles to be a master of genre. It's a newspaper comedy, a domestic melodrama, a gothic romance, and a historical epic." And it is still considered the best film ever made. In 1998, the American Film Institute polled 1,500 film professionals. The result was "100 Years... 100 Movies," and Orson Welles's masterpiece lorded over the list. Ten years later, the AFI commissioned another poll. Citizen Kane retained the top spot. As noted by the late, influential critic Kenneth Tynan, "Nobody who saw Citizen Kane at an impressionable age will ever forget the experience; overnight, the American cinema had acquired an adult vocabulary, a dictionary instead of a phrase book for illiterates."

(Excerpt) Read more at theatlantic.com ...


TOPICS: TV/Movies
KEYWORDS: cinema; citizenkane; film; movies; orsonwelles
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To: GOPsterinMA


"Mother of Mercy.....is this the end of Rico?"
41 posted on 05/04/2011 1:27:40 PM PDT by Emperor Palpatine (One of these days, Alice....one of these days.....POW!! Right in the kisser!!!!)
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To: Borges

Yes, I really like “The Magnificent Seven.”

I also can’t sit through “Yojimbo”, yet I really like “A Fistful of Dollars.”


42 posted on 05/04/2011 1:37:07 PM PDT by 04-Bravo
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To: Emperor Palpatine

Thank you Emperor P.!


43 posted on 05/04/2011 1:55:55 PM PDT by GOPsterinMA (Some men DO just want to watch the world burn.)
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To: Borges
What elements of greatness is it missing?

1. An interesting plot
2. "Something" that says "Watch me again!" I've watched "The Godfather" - my choice for the best movie of all time - at least 20 times. Same with "Silence of the Lambs" and "The Rocky Horror Picture Show" All for different reasons, but the same "Watch me again!" call.

CK ia a totally forgetable waste of time. The socialist/progressive agenda made it repulsive.

Mere innovation in technique is worthless if it does not make a movie enjoyable. Doing something for the first time does not make it great, important or noteworthy.

44 posted on 05/04/2011 3:09:19 PM PDT by FatherofFive (Islam is evil and must be eradicated)
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To: fieldmarshaldj; GOPsterinMA

I think I saw it as a little kid and it went over my head.


45 posted on 05/04/2011 6:00:07 PM PDT by Impy (Don't call me red.)
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To: FatherofFive

What socialist/progressive agenda? It’s about a left wing power hungry media mogul. He gets his start by pimping for unions and his lack of any feelings of warmth for other human beings other than how he can use them eats away at his soul. It’s no more socialist/progressive than Dickens’s ‘A Christmas Carol’.

The plot is how a man’s life can be taken apart like an onion and how different people view the same events differently. It’s the cinematic equivalent of the Modernist fiction of Conrad and Faulkner.

It actually shares themes with The Godfathe. How a dynamic and talented man can lose his soul and end up a walking self parody in his self created “paradise”. It predicted the careers of Elvis Presley, Marlon Branado, Michael Jackson and a just a bit...Welles himself (though Welles never lost his soul).


46 posted on 05/04/2011 7:40:12 PM PDT by Borges
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To: Borges
OK.

I watched it once and hated it. Completly un-memorable, except for that stupid dancing scene and the burning sled. It made WaterWorld look good.

I still have the DVD. I'll try again in another 20 years to see if I change my mind.

47 posted on 05/04/2011 8:38:02 PM PDT by FatherofFive (Islam is evil and must be eradicated)
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