May 16: Citizen Kane (1941 -- Orson Welles)

★★★★★

Sight & Sound can arrive at whatever conclusion it wants, Citizen Kane is a masterpiece of the highest creative order.  Lou and I wanted to rewatch the film, and the recent passing of Roger Ebert gave us a good opportunity.  We decided to watch Kane with the Ebert commentary.  We had a little toast to Ebert and settled in for an evening with him and Orson Welles.  It's a very fine way to spend some time with an intelligent, articulate critic and an important American film.  Ebert covers nearly every point I've heard about Kane's technique and then some;  it's like taking a film studies class about the movie.  A few of Ebert's observations:

• the constant position of the lit window in the opening sequence of cuts
• repeated patterns of motion or actions that link scenes in the film
• the low, muslin ceilings that allow even, diffused light
• holes in the floor to allow low-angle shots
• the difficulty of lighting the depth of the frame to let us see action far in the background
• use of lighting on faces to connote mood or morality
• Welles’ triangular compositions
• the regular placement of “witnesses” at the bottom right of the screen
• Welles’ use of visual perspective to increase or diminish a character’s importance, even as the character moves in the scene
• efforts of cinematographer Gregg Toland to create focus from the deep background to the foreground
• people’s dislike of that focus, which didn't tell the audience what to look at
• the use of motion in the frame to focus attention
• use of technology like mattes and the optical printer to reduce the cost of the film
• the low budget of the film
• editing to create crowd scenes
• watching scenes like the warehouse toward the end to see the accumulation of artifacts as a restatement of the film's story

Ebert also drops a few pithy insights.  He compares Kane to Star Wars in its heavy use of special effects.  He also compares Kane to Birth of a Nation by saying that Wells sums up sound film to that moment and points the way to medium's future in the same way that Griffith does with silent film.  It's in that last comment that the importance of Citizen Kane resides.

Ebert talks mostly nonstop for the entire two hours of the movie and engages throughout.  He doesn't have time to talk about the historical or biographical aspects of Kane, and he doesn't talk much about the characters or their psychology as presented in the film.  But the commentary fleshes out the technical achievement of Welles and his team, and the experience of watching the movie is richer for that.  And I'll add to the chorus: We'll miss Roger Ebert.