Written by Herman J. Mankiewicz, Orson Welles
Producer Orson Welles
Starring Orson Welles, Joseph Cotten, Dorothy Comingore, Everett Sloane, Ray Collins, George Coulouris, Agnes Moorehead, Paul Stewart, Ruth Warrick, Erskine Sanford, William Alland
Music Bernard Herrmann
Cinematography Gregg Toland
Eighty years ago, Orson Welles released his first feature, Citizen Kane. Its main character was widely seen as a thinly veiled portrait of a powerful newspaper magnate, and the controversy hurt it badly. It lost money, won only one of its nine Oscar nominations (Best Original Screenplay), and was largely forgotten for years. Then it was re-released in 1956, critics reappraised it, and it went on to be called the greatest and most influential film ever made. Eighty years on, it’s worth taking another look at the “greatest film ever made.”
Based loosely on media mogul William Randolph Hearst, the film follows reporter Jerry Thompson (William Alland) as he investigates the life of the recently deceased publisher Charles Foster Kane. Kane’s dying word is “Rosebud,” and Thompson interviews the people who knew him, desperate to find out what it means.
Welles made his directorial debut fresh off a celebrated radio career, and he set a precedent for nearly everything that followed. The worst thing about Kane is also the best: you’ve already seen it before. On a first viewing, some people find it generic or even boring, but only because so many later films borrowed from the bar Welles set. Modern filmmaking as we know it owes a huge debt to Citizen Kane and its innovative style.
Start with the acting, especially Welles. Performances in classic films can feel corny by today’s standards, but Welles plays Kane in a way that still holds up eight decades later. His joy, sadness, and anger are all convincing. Sometimes you want to cry for him, and other times you’re afraid of him. It never feels disingenuine, largely thanks to his deeply human portrayal. Joseph Cotten as Jedediah Leland and Dorothy Comingore as Susan Alexander Kane are standouts too, but some of the film’s biggest stars are behind the camera.
Cinematographer Gregg Toland pushed the industry to a new standard. He and Welles used deep-focus shots that keep everything in the frame sharp, so the audience can choose where to look, creating an immersive experience that was rare at the time. Their low angles, which put ceilings in the frame, were just as striking. There’s a popular story that Welles made these bold choices because he didn’t know films weren’t supposed to be shot that way. It’s a fun bit of “blissful ignorance,” though Toland, a seasoned veteran, deserves enormous credit for making it work.
The aging makeup is remarkable too, and it’s still impressive today. Oddly enough, it makes the middle-aged Kane feel more real than the twenty-five-year-old Welles underneath. You can occasionally spot the latex or masks, but those moments are rare and hardly worth being pulled out of the film.
Structurally, Citizen Kane set another new high. The plot is famously nonlinear, told through flashbacks from different characters, and filmmakers have been borrowing that approach ever since. Welles may not have invented it, but he certainly popularized it.
Now for the criticism of the “greatest film ever made.” The plot is somewhat hollow. Aside from Thompson’s search for the meaning of “Rosebud,” there’s no real conflict or antagonist. The characters are believable, the style is impressive, and the structure is lively, but there’s never much to get worked up about beyond debating a dying man’s last word afterward.
Eighty years later, Welles’ debut still holds up. It’s impossible not to credit it with reshaping how we see movies. It may be more a technical and stylistic triumph than a gripping story, but Citizen Kane has more than earned its place among the greatest and most influential films ever made.
