The Greatest Film ever made?

A timeless classic, an unparalleled masterpiece, a visionary pioneer. Though often unheard or casually ignored by many movie fans of today, to almost all directors, critics, journalists unanimously, Citizen Kane is the most valuable piece of cinematic art. Why? Simply because it is Citizen Kane, a film that has single-handedly exerted greater influence in the history of cinema than anything else. Sounds too unreal? Well, by the time you finish reading this, it won’t anymore! (I hope!)

This 1941 black & white movie directed by Orson Welles basically tells the story of world’s biggest media tycoon, Charles Foster Kane (a fictional character very loosely based on William Randolph Hearst)- his background, his rise to fame, his inevitable fall, his melancholic end. It’s very, very tough to squeeze 80 years of a man’s life into 2 hours, especially all the more so if that man never existed in the real world. And Citizen Kane does just that; and that too in a groundbreaking fashion. But it’s not about just what it did; it’s more about how it did that.

Welles and screenwriter Herman Mankiewicz created the script in a unique narrative style that follows a nonlinear structure meaning the events do not occur in chronological order; a script-writing technique that was experimented very limitedly in some silent era films, but wasn’t completely and successfully introduced in any cinema before Citizen Kane. The story is presented through a series of overlapping and timeline-breaking flashbacks at different parts of Kane’s life, offering the viewer a scattered glimpse of his life establishing his character as a complex enigma. The first vocal sound of the movie is Kane’s dying word which ignites the mystery surrounding his life and death at the very beginning; and throughout the whole movie, we see ourselves as the news reporter who is trying to find any clue that solves Kane’s life and the true significance behind his last word. To further the complexity, we get to get to see Charles Kane from different perspectives through the eyes, words & memories of several narrators- a genius stroke of script-writing giving the effect of portraying a jigsaw puzzle that is being slowly pitched together with the final piece ultimately revealed at the end. Even then, the mystery never gets solved by the characters in the film, rather only solved by the viewer. This symbolizes the idea behind the first and last scene of the film where a “No Trespassing” sign is seen at the gate of Mr. Kane’s mansion that tells the viewer that Kane’s life is a dark secret that shouldn’t be told, but perhaps only understood through his own eyes.

If the unconventional narrative style of the film transformed screenwriting, it is the technical detail of Citizen Kane that has overwhelmed the senses of audiences and critics alike for eight decades. Even with the all technological advancement in cinemas of today, it’s extremely difficult to incorporate as many details in a film, and Welles did that at the infancy of sound films, in black & white! Perhaps the finest and most breathtaking instance is the famous breakfast montage (a film editing & selection technique piecing together several short shots to form a continuous whole scene) where almost 16 years of his first marriage is portrayed in 2 minutes! Outrageously Extraordinary!

[From left to right, up to down]

Another great example is these scenes. With these 10 simple black and white shots of newspaper front pages, Kane’s global publicity and the enormous weight of his name are effortlessly cemented in audience’s minds.

Citizen Kane is perhaps most studied for its use of deep-focus photography, wherein the entire frame remains in focus at all-time which requires innovative combinations of camera lenses, lighting and composition. The result, as here, is a single shot that layers Kane, his about-to-be-sacked friend Jed Leland and, waiting in the background, still-loyal employee Bernstein; a magnificent shot that not only captures Kane’s arrogance & Leland’s sadness, but elegantly expresses the vastness of the room as if to remind us of Kane’s absolute dominance.

One of the most celebrated, genuinely unbroken shots in the film is Kane’s first encounter with Thatcher in his childhood that would ultimately decide his fate: Starting outside on young Charles playing in the snow, the camera moves inside the window with his mother checking in on him, tracking all the way across the room, as the deal is done to sign Charles away to banker Mr Thatcher; Charles is ultimately positioned in the background window between his feuding parents, with Thatcher standing on the same side as his mother, who firmly overrules his feckless father. It’s brilliant visual storytelling, with Charles always kept in clear focus using deep-focus technique.

A shining example of cinematographer Gregg Toland’s dazzling chiaroscuro (the use of strong contrasts between light & shadow) lighting. What better way to establish a mystery than by shrouding even the journalists/detectives in secrecy too, with William Alland’s investigator Thompson always shown from behind or in silhouette!

Or how about the overwhelming tracking shot across the deceased Kane’s vast material possessions, a shot today achieved effortlessly, but then a stunning display of technical camera prowess!

And how can u forget this artistic silent shot of an aged and broken Kane who has lived long enough to become history, outliving his power to make it; a shot that settles the question if a man's life can be summed up in one word!

A movie known for being regularly filmed from low angles which requires the innovative use of ceiling sets- ideal for suggesting limit to Kane's rise to power, this post-election defeat section uses the film's lowest angle shot, showing him as isolated and helpless, completely fitted in from top to bottom.

Oh, what Toland doesn't do in Citizen Kane! Hailing the cinematographer as "the greatest gift any director—young or old—could ever, ever have", Welles said, "I was calling for things only a beginner would have been ignorant enough to, to think anybody could ever do, and there he was, doing them."

From a Hollywood genre standpoint, Kane transcends nearly all of them; it’s at once a mystery, a character study, a drama, a political thriller, a newspaper comedy, a romance, a tragedy, a historical epic. But what’s most astonishing is how it overlaps and shifts from one dimension to another so radically, yet so successfully! From the initial gothic Dracula-like horror scenes to surrealist close-up experiment, exuberant newsreel biography to detective-esque thriller, romantic tragedy, dark melodrama, the film takes us through a genre-blending ride throughout the whole time. And it’s all rightly justified because Kane’s life itself was a mystery; we pity him, hate him, maybe even love him, but we can’t judge him; a man whose only conviction was Charles Foster Kane.

When asked where he got the confidence as a first-time director to direct a film so radically different from contemporary cinema, Welles responded, "Ignorance, ignorance, sheer ignorance—you know there's no confidence to equal it. It's only when you know something about a profession, I think, that you're timid or careful." Undoubtedly the most-studied film of all time, Citizen Kane has influenced hundreds of directors including Francis Ford Coppola, John Frankenheimer, Sergio Leone, Michael Mann, Ridley Scott, Martin Scorsese, Steven Spielberg. Without Kane, there would have been no Vertigo. Its cinematography has influenced virtually every movie that follows; its complex biographical plot structure has paved the way for the likes of Lawrence of Arabia, The Godfather, Raging Bull, There Will Be Blood; its non-linear narrative style has been incorporated in Pulp Fiction, The Usual Suspects, Mulholland Drive, The Machinist, Slumdog Millionaire, The Tree of Life, Gone Girl, literally all movies of Christopher Nolan (most famously Memento, Inception, The Prestige) and who knows how many else! You may not like Citizen Kane very much; but rest assured, the films you do love are directly or indirectly indebted to it, one way or another. And for all the people out there who are eager to enter into film-making, this movie is a must, must and must watch; the best 120 minutes (or, much, much more!) of priceless lessons in cinema one can ever get.

Honestly speaking, there are better movies in terms of acting, plot, script, glamour. But with its sheer originality, revolutionary techniques, excellent creativity, impeccable cinematography, unmatched influence- overall, as a cinematic experience yet unsurpassed, Citizen Kane is and perhaps will always remain as the greatest movie of all time.