Rating: 
Summary: Keep the Camera Moving
Review: When Orson Welles asked for advice when he wanted to make a film, he was told to keep the camera moving. highly regarded as the greatest American film, Citizen Cane creates an undeniably fantastic world which draws the audience in from beginning to finish. Even if you do not want to watch the film and learn about film making, this film is worth seeing over and over. Welles creates a character, and directs other supreme actors into wonderful performances. Not too bad for a first effort. All I can really say is that this film has to be experienced.
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Summary: citizen kane needs reclaiming for the mainstream
Review: there is a great deal of hocus pocus written about citizen kane. i think it is a movie that needs demythologising. it must be cinema's equivalent of tolstoi's novel war and peace - one of the most dissected pieces of art in history. recently i purchased a copy of kane on dvd. it was my first movie on the new format, and i wanted to start as i intended to go on. i want a collection of films that justify dvd's indestructibility, movies that can be enjoyed over and over again. when i brought it home in its over-sized jewel case, it occured to my mother that she had never actually seen the film, so we stuck the disc in the player straightaway. now, i don't think it is being too rude about my mother to describe her as a fairly typical film-goer, albeit one with half a century of cinema experiences to call on. she wouldn't know eisenstein if someone dug him up so she could shake his hand. the name bergman would conjure memories of a majestically beautiful leading lady, not the master of symbolism director. my mother views films primarily as entertainment. she was very much raised on hollywood. she wants plot, she wants strong characters, she wants something attention-grabbing. you are not about to get into a discussion with my mom about deep-focus photography. i had seen kane about six, or seven times on my old vhs copy, and it occured to me halfway through sharing this great film with my mother, that we were watching it from very different perspectives. i was analysing it, breaking down each shot and examining its relevance. my mother was soaking in the story... ... and she was gripped, from the opening news reel to the slightly over-egged end. but here's the rub: when it had finished she didn't say 'that was the greatest movie ever made'. instead she simply said 'that was excellent.' i don't know if she is aware of its reputation amongst cineastes. the tag kane has of being the 'greatest movie ever made' has become something of a millstone. it is a completely meaningless and undefined term. and it is interesting to note that few people claim it as their 'favourite film of all time'. i think the tag gets in the way. it makes kane out to be some artsy little piece that can only be appreciated by students of film and audiences with a rich movie vocabulary. and this is nonsense. most viewers give the details the affeciendos are interested in (editing, structure, clever-clever camera techniques) only a passing thought. the key to any movie is does it work as entertainment, or if not entertainment as an emotional conduit. this is primarily cinema's function. and the answer with kane is yes. it is a brilliant character study, grippingly and vividly told. the script is barbed and witty, the acting strong, the direction as near perfect as you will see. but really, although it does belong in the rarified company of fritz lang's german language films, and battleship potemkin, etc, it also rubs shoulders quite nicely with less intimidating titles, like the big sleep and some like it hot. kane is a great movie, and i think it is better to approach it as such, instead of weighing it down with unnecessary statements about 'the best movie ever made.' make it one of your favourites instead, and it will reward you over and over again. incidentally, there was a caveat to my mother's recommendation. 'that was excellent,' she said, but added 'a bit dark. lots of shadows.'
Rating:
Summary: Yes
Review: Sometimes, a piece of art does what it is supposed to do: make all talk about it irrelevant, as all talk really is anyway. Just see this movie. No one is going to succeed in preparing you for it by telling you anything. Just see it.
Rating:
Summary: For those who love good movies...
Review: people don't watch good movies anymore. they are so brainwashed by the current crop of junk (which they have come to accept as good movies, eg waterboy, mi2, klumps, etc.) that when they DO see a good movie, they'll shuffle it away as "junk". going back to the phrase "they don't make them like they used to" this is one of those happenings. one of my friend (who worships the blockbuster era created by spielberg and lucas and loves current films) constantly nags to me about liking black and white movies... especially ck (citizen kane). the era this film was made in comprised of writers and good story telling. authors that wrote really deep and moving stories to be told visually. gone with the wind, casablanca, etc. authors/storytellers dominated the scene whereas the hollywood of today is dominated by corporations and company manifesto: greed. when first released ck never did well at the box office despite critical acclaim then it was on some dustbin somewhere collecting dirt. not only til the recent decades that we've seen a revival, because of the given amount of junk we have today. if you like movies that will make you change the way you live. this is it. if you want entertainment, go elsewhere, this is not for the light of intellects. the way that the broken childhood of charles foster kane is displayed with such heart wrenching scenes that the symolism of the sled (innocense)is immediately established. the bitterness of the man and the irony of the rules that he full heartily set out to achieve yet breaks. the naivety that came with his youth and the growing pains that came with his lack of love and hiw unwillingness to be close. THAT is citizen kane. it is the everyday man facing the toughest drama of his life: to love or not to love... wanna fight?...
Rating:
Summary: Helped open my eyes a little wider.
Review: This is not the greatest film of all time. I hope that there never is a greatest film of all time. I realy, realy like this film.
Rating: 
Summary: Important For Its Time, But A Bore
Review: OK, this was an important film for its time -- noone can dispute that. It revloutionised the use of the camera amd the use of space in the mise-en-scene. But the thing is that the story is just unbearably dull! The characters are too hammy and look like they are acting and fail to get the sympathy of the audience at any time. Kane is a jerk who has about as much self-understanding as a two year old kid. How can most people relate to him? if you are really into the history of film or cinematography, this movie is of immeasurable importance and it should be studied. But if you just want to see a good movie with characters that you can relate to and a plot that is interesting, go elsehwere . . . this fiulm is all art and no soul.
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Summary: EMOTION at its rawest and most powerful form
Review: Perhaps the greatest film of all time. A film briming over with emotion- pure emotion, not some canned emotion as in some movies. When you see this film for the first time it is like being hit with a brick against your head- the story, the sound, the camera work, the acting, and the shear genius of Welles emitting off the screen.
Rating:
Summary: The greatest film ever!
Review: You can love this or hate it I don't care but for me it is PERFECT! This film broke down all the barriers and set new standards for that time and for all time! If you don't like it you've either been brought up in crime or politics! Orson Welles is the best director for me anyways. The way the film upset people is good if a film is contrversial it will be the greatest thing ever. Critics focus to much on the Deep Focus this film is much more than that. As ritual I watch this film every month! This is clearly the greatest film of all time
Rating:
Summary: Not a review, but a quick observation
Review: Not a review, but a quick observation. In reading many of the reviews (pro and con) on CITIZEN KANE one element becomes clear. Just about every body is disturbed to some degree by this film. Why? Because Welles cuts to the very center of what is to be a human being. No one, I think, starts out with the premise "I'm going to be a bad person". Kane, is propelled in the beginning by a need to do good and gets done in the end by his obsessive desire for power, wealth, material goods, control, love and adulation. Shaped by events in his early childhood he is incapable of giving or receiving love. In this respect, Orson Welles, has created a tragedy in the classic tradition of the Greeks or of Shakespeare. Charles Foster Kane is specify symbolic for each of us as individuals and in general for an American society, where we have more and more of everything material and less and less of the humanity and love which makes a civilization great. So, CITIZEN KANE is most defiantly NOT a period piece, but a timeless warning to all, on the dangers of losing our very souls!
Rating: 
Summary: Use your ears
Review: I went through my Citizen Kane phase a few years ago. It's over now, so I can, thankfully, read the negative reviews below without feeling threatened. This film worked magic for me at one time, and still could again if I were in the right mood. The key, to me, is the sound and the music. Bernard Herrmann's score evokes feelings that are unique, that no other movie score that I've heard comes close to. This has little to do with its intrinsic qualities as music. It has everything to do with the context in which the music is heard: what's on the screen, what else is being heard, where we've been in the story and where we're going. I'll give one example. After the long, soul-grinding Leland segment we cut to the outside of Susan Alexander's nightclub. The weather is calm (unlike the first visit to the nightclub which took place during a thunderstorm) but there is a chastened, morning-after-a-storm feeling. In order to feel this, we need to have already experienced: a) Susan Alexander's anger during the first visit b) the thunderstorms during the first visit c) the later thunderstorm during the Bernstein segment d) the emotional meat-grinder of the Leland segment. Both the characters and us have been softened up by what's come before, but it is the music at this moment, a quiet back-and-forth figure in the winds, that draws all these threads together to express something for which the best phrase I can come up with is "a feeling of being chastened by life."
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