Citizen Kane: Not the Greatest Movie Ever

Citizen Kane (1941)

Directed by Orson Welles

By Dan Geddes

I don’t think Citizen Kane is the greatest movie of all time. Kane is a solid achievement, from the screenplay, to the cinematography, and the performances. But it carries little emotional impact; it is a kind of satire or roman a clef about William Randolph Hearst. So often in hearing the arguments for Kane’s greatness, you hear about the novelty of its camera angles, of deep focus, of the “prismatic” non-linear narrative structure. These are all great aspects of the movie. But I am never swept away by the story. If I am so conscious of watching a movie while watching Citizen Kane, how can I feel it is the greatest movie of all time? Greater movies will make me forget I am watching movies, and so will engage me directly.

None of these remarks are meant to deny the undeniable greatness of Kane, which may well be the most influential movie of all time. Kane was a powerful influence on the film noir of the forties and fifties, and the myth of Orson Welles as the author of the movie, inspired the French auteur theory of film, whereby the director was the individual most responsible for what we see on screen. And Kane is an enjoyable film to watch, seemingly more enjoyable as one learns of more of the film’s secrets and in-jokes. But is it an enjoyable story?

There is little in the way of plot development in Kane. A critic remarked of Welles’ later Othello that it was evidence that a movie is more than a series of great scenes. I think that criticism applies in least in part to Kane, which is nothing if not a series of great scenes, and purposely eschews chronological development. The movie begins with Kane’s death: we are given a resume of his work through the “News on the March” sequence. And then the reporter Thompson gathers five different perspectives of the great man’s life: from the Thatcher autobiography account, from Mr. Bernstein, from Mr. Leland, from Susan Alexander, and from Raymond the Butler. Each of these focuses on a different aspect of his life: you could say Thatcher equals business, Bernstein equals newspaper career, Leland equals friendship, Susan equals romantic love, and Raymond equals life at Xanadu. Despite this simplification, it shows the “prismatic” structure of Kane that screenwriter Herman Mankiewicz envisioned for it. Such a structure fits an “organic” story model than a conflict-based model. There are certainly conflicts in Kane; Charlie Kane fights with the characters representing all five points of view, as well as others; and yet there is no central plot.

If Citizen Kane is now routinely chosen as the greatest film of all time, it has at least as much to do with the mythology of the film as the experience of watching it. The mythology of the film includes: Welles’ precocity as director (age 25 while shooting the film); the innovations of photography, greatly attributable to photographer Greg Toland; the fact that a cash offer was made by Hollywood mogul Louis B. Mayer to destroy the film’s negative; the intriguing parallels between the movie and the life of William Randolph Heart; the intriguing parallels between the movie and the life of Orson Welles; the movie’s near blackout by Hearst and lack of full national release; the Hollywood establishment’s spurning of the movie and so of Welles at Oscar time; Welles’ subsequent degeneration and relative banishment from Hollywood despite his genius.

All of this subtext makes it impossible to watch Citizen Kane as a movie like others, like Casablanca, a movie from only one year later, also full to the rim with cinematic mythology, and yet so much more moving as a movie. Citizen Kane is more like the canonical work of literature that you are forced to read because it is important, not because you consistently enjoy it. The movie bores us showing how Susan Alexander’s opera singing afflicted everyone involved except Kane himself. Citizen Kane itself is a work of exhibitionism by Orson Welles. It is a great, important work, but too weak as a story to be “the greatest movie of all time.” 

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Dan Geddes

April, 2001

August, 2004