I  JUST "KANE" STAND IT!!!



Recently, Entertainment Weekly put out a list of its Top 100 Movies of All Time and, besides drumming up a lot of discussion amongst movie aficionados, it also was thoroughly ridiculed by yours truly.

The most glaring omission from the list is my personal favorite film of all time which is:  STAR WARS!!!

With the omission of this all-time classic movie the list is completely invalid IMHO.

And like the AFI list of a few years ago, the EW list puts a movie at #1 that I simply do not get. 

Yep, once again, its Citizen Kane as the best movie of all time and once again

I JUST DON'T GET IT!!!

So, in fairness and with a completely open mind, I watched Citizen Kane the other night and I gotta say,

I JUST DON'T GET IT!!!

This so-called masterpiece of a movie is nothing of the kind.  To me, it is an utterly forgettable movie.  It doesn't move me, it doesn't inspire me, it doesn't thrill me, it doesn't do anything for me.  I sat there after it was over just scratching my head trying to see the genius and

I JUST DIDN'T SEE IT ON THE SCREEN!!!

Now, I've read about all the technical innovations of photography that went into this movie such as the deep focus, wipes/fades, cameras set up below the floor boards so that the ceiling can be filmed and all that stuff.  I even read Roger Ebert's essay on Citizen Kane from his Greatest Movies book.

But,

 I STILL JUST DON'T GET IT!!!

Welles' performance is interesting but its not monumental when compared with other bravura performances such as Peter O'Toole in Lawrence of Arabia, or George C. Scott in Patton, or even Ben Kingsley in Gandhi.  Those are great performances of monumental characters (not too mention they were all based on real figures, whereas Kane is a fictional character based on a real-life figure - William Randolph Hearst). 

And I have to say something about the score of this movie.  Bernard Hermann provided a competent score but its not a great one, especially compared to his later work with Hitchcock.  And it is my contention (and I will repeat this over and over) that you cannot have a great movie, and certainly not the greatest movie of all time, without a great score.

The greatest movie of all time should represent the pinnacle of film-making in every facet of production.  Everything should be at the highest level and no movie should be able to compare to it in every category.  Some movies may be great in some categories but lack in other areas.

Citizen Kane lacks in just about every category.  I can't say that anything about the movie is the pinnacle of the film-making process.  Nothing.

So, why does it keep popping up on these lists as the #1 movie of all time?  I, frankly, don't have an answer to this question.  I think that someone, somewhere declared this movie the greatest and everyone just jumped on the bandwagon and now if you don't say that Citizen Kane is the best movie ever, you are looked upon as intellectually inferior or just plain ignorant of film.  

Well, I'll admit that I don't get this film and that I don't see the greatness of it but that doesn't make my opinion any less valid because even though I'm still only in my 40's I've seen my fair share of films and studied film for many years (especially from the music aspect of film-making) and I know a good film when I see one and Kane ain't one of those films.  So if that makes me intellectually backward or ignorant of films, well so be it.

I could name a hundred films better than Citizen Kane as it wouldn't even be in my Top 100 Films of All Time List (if I ever made one, that is).

IF YOU "KANE" STAND THE HEAT, GET OUT OF THE INCREDIBLY OVER SIZED FIREPLACE.