Tim Almond

The AFI have today voted for Citizen Kane as the greatest American movie ever made.

I saw Citizen Kane some time ago, and whilst it’s a good movie, it didn’t do a great deal for me. I’ve seen a whole heap of classics that I’ve enjoyed more: Casablanca, Double Indemnity, Sunset Boulevard, His Girl Friday.

What I wonder is whether the film is celebrated as much for its innovation as for what’s on the screen. There are things in Citizen Kane that were simply not done before, but today, they are commonplace. To someone seeing this in 1941, it was probably like my experience of Star Wars in 1977.

There’s a documentary movie about Citizen Kane called RKO 281,  that I highly recommend which details much about the making of the film. I’m not sure how much artistic license there is in there, but Orson Welles was certainly an interesting character.

Tags: Movies //