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Summary: Brilliant Portrayal of Humanity
Review: Citizen Kane will continue to reap praise for it's well-planned use of cinematography, lighting, and music. But even beyond the superb filmmaking lies the story of a boy growing into a man, and the personal challenges he faces.Charles Foster Kane rises from a meager childhood to become one of the most successful men in America. Yet, even with all of his fabulous wealth and success, he faces the harsh lesson that money cannot buy love, happiness, or health. He goes to extremes in wielding his power and influence in vain attempts to once again feel the happiness he knew as a child. Many people love this movie for the great filmmaking techniques alone, but the sad story laid out before you reminds you of the importance of focusing on what are truly the priorities in your life.
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Summary: YES they did it up Right ...
Review: The print of the film is beautiful. I have been watching it off videotape for years - I wouldn't have guessed that the film image is that crisp and detailed. Stunning. The PBS documentary on the battle over the film, between Welles and William Randolph Hearst, is fascinating entertainment in its own right. A wonderful and truly interesting documentary. Pairing it with the definitive copy of the film, at minimal cost to consumers, is a great idea. The audio commentary by Peter Bogdanovich is reasonably interesting, and the audio commentary by Roger Ebert is especially deep and enjoyable. For those who don't know, the movie itself is brilliant. It exemplifies every element of what can make a film great : psychological depth, skillfully constructed screenplay, real human emotion and depth, great characters, great acting, great cinematography, real level of quality and ambition. This DVD presents it in all its glory as well as supplemental materials that will please any fan and will give anyone new to the film much background as to why this film is frequently listed as the greatest of all time.
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Summary: Here's a headline for the Enquirer: "Movie Boring"
Review: After reading so much about how this was one of the greatest American movies of all time, I decided to try Citizen Kane. Perhaps the hype surrounding the picture raised my expectations too high, but I was very disappointed with Citizen Kane. First of all, I can understand why the movie is so highly regarded. The acting is great, the music is fantastic and the cinematography keeps you involved. However, from my point of view, the underlying story is weak. As a viewer I wasn't enthralled with Charles Kane. I really didn't find his life very interesting and thus the movie that centered around it wasn't interesting to me either. There is essentially no character development due to the story's structure. Mr. Kane is a static character throughout the whole movie. The only interesting moment I found in the movie was the 'rise' of Susan Alexander's opera career. She was in reality a poor singer, but Charles Kane's newspapers lauded her as a great singer. That summarizes my feelings on this film.
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Summary: Brilliant.....
Review: This review will be short becouse there is nothing to say about this movie that has not been said already. Cane is the greatest movie ever. In my listmainia I put it behind Gone With The Wind when it really is 1A. Orsen Wells took directing to a different level and his style is still being used today.
The story if about Charles Foster Cane (Wells) a newspaper tycoon. I will not say more becouse you should see it for yourself. Do yourself a favor and get the DVD with the commintary by Roger Ebert. It gives real insight to this already amazing film....
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Summary: Lays legitimate claim to title of Greatest Film Ever Made
Review: Citizen Kane is rightfully regarded as one of the great films in the history of the cinema, if not the greatest. Orson Welles, the boy wonder of the New York stage, made the greatest screen debut ever in directing and starring in this amazing film. Although some critics have tried to minimize Welles's contribution to the film by pointing out that the movie as filmed by Welles was enormously faithful to the brilliant original screenplay by Herman J. Mankiewicz. No doubt the original script played a major role in the success of the film, though it should also be pointed out that the film was graced by major talents at every point. The score was by Bernard Hermann, considered by many to be the greatest composer for cinema (Pyscho, North by Northwest, and Taxi Driver were just three of his other films), while cinematographer Gregg Toland even before Citizen Kane had already established himself as one of the masters of his discipline, and Robert Wise was a celebrated editor before embarking on a highly successful career as a director. But despite all the talent, Welles managed to outshine them all, and make his mark on this film as few individuals ever have. Although utterly inexperienced in cinema, Welles managed one visually brilliant moment after another. Having a cinematographer of the quality of Toland helped enormously, in that he could help Welles translate his vision into film. The scene where adults decide the future of a young Kane whose playing in the snow is framed by a window in the background is a brilliant but impossible shot, but it packs a visual wallop. Or the scene in which Kane and other characters are filmed from below ground level, with the camera being place in a hole in the floor shows that even in his first film Welles was trying to go beyond his predecessors. Welles was not the only cinematic neophyte working on the film. Many of the key performers in the cast had not worked in film before, but had been members of Welles's Mercury Theater. The cast is impeccable, and because so many went on to long careers in cinema and TV it is hard to remember that at the time they were virtually all unknowns. Yet, despite all its greatness, Citizen Kane is in the end an emotionally unengaging film. The viewer never gets close to Charles Foster Kane, and while our hearts go out to the little boy who is separated from his 'Rosebud,' they don't linger with him. Not just Kane, but all of the characters feel remote from the viewer. Kane strikes us, in the end, more as victimizer than victim, and one feels that whatever bad things have happened to him were more a result of his actions than anything that was done to him. In the end, I find Citizen Kane easier to admire and respect than to love and cherish. The greatest film of all time? Possibly. The most moving? By no means. My favorite moment in the film contains perhaps my favorite line in all cinema. Mr. Bernstein, played by Everett Sloane, is reminded by a reporter that in the early days of Kane's career they made a lot of money, to which he replies, 'Yes, we made a lot of money. But there's no trick to making a lot of money, if all you want to do it make a lot of money.'
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Summary: The Greatest Movie of All Time!!
Review: Every time this movie is rerun on Television, I stop the remote and see it over again to pick out some of the incredible and innovative visuals and details Wells made. The bedroom tantrum scene was years ahead of it time. This is the greatest movie ever made!!
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Summary: Masterpiece of American cinema, but greatest of all time?
Review: I thought I'd just contribute my two cents in the ongoing Citizen Kane controversy. Having seen the film a couple of times, I understand why it recieves such accolades. I also understand why it recieves negative reviews. I will be counted among those who believe Citizen Kane to be a truly great film. Even beyond its "Greatest-American-Movie" status, it's a remarkable viewing experience. On my first viewing, several years ago, indeed, I had trouble staying awake. However, I watched it again last year, and I was completely engrossed until the very last frame. I loved it. Every bit of it, from the story to the acting to the photography. However, its easy to understand why other such movies as Casablanca and Gone With The Wind are bigger crowd pleasers while Citizen Kane is pretty much revered solely among film buffs and critics. Those two movies are closer to the typical Hollywood formula. While they don't exactly have happy endings, romance is a big part of their storylines. Citizen Kane is not a romance. It's more about the man himself than his relationship with his wife. Those films also contain more obvious, straightforward narratives than Citizen Kane. Kane is more like a montage than a narrative. Most people seem to prefer a conventional narrative in movies. That could be two reasons why Citizen Kane isn't more highly regarded among the casual moviegoer. I will say this also. The people who make the claim that Citizen Kane is the greatest American movie are people who are generally a lot more familiar with the overall scope of American film than I or most of the reviewers here. They are film scholars, not just casual movie viewers. People who see Citizen Kane in its historical context and not just as an old movie. People who see Citizen Kane in relation to the grand scope of film history. I cannot make the claim that Citizen Kane is the greatest movie of all time. For one thing, I have not seen every movie ever made and I'm not familiar enough with the world of cinema (especially the early half of the 20th century) to even begin to make that claim. However, the people that do make this claim are people that truly know the world of film and study every aspect of it. I'm not saying that you should agree just because movie scholars say so, but I'm saying that those who make this claim generally know a lot more about movies than the rest of us. I wouldn't even begin to know what movie to deify as the greatest of all time. I don't know enough about cinema history to even think of making such a claim about any movie. However, if Citizen Kane is not the greatest, then it certainly belongs at least in the Top 10.
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Summary: Is this really the best? They must be kidding!
Review: It is so funny to think that this film is the greatest. What a joke! When movielovers can speak out their minds, the result is "the truth about it." I'm not surprised why this film got so many negative comments. I hate this film since the first time I saw it on Video tape 10 years ago. It is so pointless and boring. The character is not what we care for. You can't make a good film with a poor script. Citizen Kane is a good example of how a film fails to entertain people by its storytelling. No doubt it's not the best. It is not even a good film. I give 2 stars due to the effort that they tried hard to make it good. Sorry, "it doesn't work."
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Summary: Many other movies are much better
Review: This movie just isn't all that interesting and isn't very fun to watch. If you want to see a gret old movie see High Noon or Night of the Hunter.
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Summary: Welles' Masterpiece Gets A Definitive Deluxe Edition
Review: It's no secret and no wonder why Citizen Kane continues to captivate audiences 50 years after its initial release. By now everyone knows of, or has heard about, the epic battle to have the film boycotted and destroyed. William Randolph Hearst was not a happy camper when this fictionalized bio, that strangely paralleled his own life, hit the big screen. But there was little he could do to stop audiences from taking to it like moths to a flame. Welles directed, produced and stars as Charles Foster Kane, a man so encapsulated in his own wanton revelries that he gradually collapses under the weight of his own debauchery.
Warner Home Video has at last given this American classic a stunning digital transfer. The film elements rarely show signs of their age. Contrast and shadow delineation is remarkable. The audio has also been nicely restored. Included on a separate disc, "The Battle For Citizen Kane" a revealing look inside Welle's creative process and the driving force of a newspaper tycoon that almost stopped the film dead in its tracks. This is a must have.
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