When it comes to film, everyone has his or her own favorites, and--as we've seen in your Top Ten lists--no two people will agree about what films should be at the top of the "Best Films of All Time" list.Nevertheless, few films have made it to the top of such lists more often than Citizen Kane, by the famous director and actor Orson Welles. The prestigious American Film Institute put Citizen Kane at #1 on its list of the best American films of the past 100 years. And when the British Film Institute polled critics and film directors, both groups voted Citizen Kane to the top of the list.
As we watch the film in class this week, I hope you'll notice lots of things about it, including the striking cinematography of the film. But you might also keep in mind the question, Why do so many film lovers rate this film so highly? At some point this week, post your response here--and note that you should respond not only with your own evaluation of the film but with some thoughts on the question I asked: Why do you think so many others rate this film so highly?
Well let's see even though this is an old film I can certainly see how people like it. It is very well written and have great camera work. The characters play their roles quite well and the story of Mr. Kane was well written. It's a classic American film. Some of the greatest known movies are the black and white ones that are definitely older. I also liked how it showed all prospectives of Mr. Kanes life. It's diversity is absolutely a plus!
ReplyDeleteI heard is said that this is the greatest film of all time. In my mind I thought that this film was the complete opposite. This movie's plot was semi confusing and annoying with no great meaning besides trying to find out what rosebud meant. Some of the film shots that they did in this movie were really new in its time, but now a days the shots done are very basic. I also thought that the plot to this film had no meaning. It kept going back and forth in Kanes life, which seemed to have no meaning. Overall I thought that this movie wasn't very good and it is not on my bottom ten list.
ReplyDeleteI liked how this movie is set up. The story of this movie is to find the meaning of rosebud and by finding it, the movie shows Kane's life. Some people would say that Kane's life is successful. However I feel sorry for his life. I mean, he is succeeded with his job and his work. But he is not succeeded with his family and himself. It is a good movie that shows a man's life, but I don't think it is the greatest film of all time.
ReplyDeleteI think that film viewers rate this film so high because of the way they tell his life. Its based around one idea but in the quest to find out the meaning of rosebud they show his entire life in the eyes of many people. Its a interesting way of showing a movie and it showed many different side of Mr. Kane. Also the screen shots for the time were new and improved. Personally i didn't think that the movie was anything special. Im use to a lot better filming and better story lines but i can see that for the people that lived when it was released that it was a good movie in that time.
ReplyDeleteI know that this movie is supposedly the greatest film of all time but i guess i am not a good enough film critic to agree with that yet. I know that this movie mastered all of the camera angles and the techniques of the film, but it just never captured my attention that greatly. The whole rosebud thing I felt just kind of dragged on throughout the movie. Even though i did think rosebud got dragged on i was impressed that they were able to make to make a whole movie based on it. I think that what the director was trying to say by interviewing all of Mr. Kane's close friends was that no one truely knew Mr. Kane. Only Mr. Kane could really tell his life story and explain what the famous word "Rosebud" truely meant to him. I think that Kane's dying words rosebud in a way do help tell something very significant about his life. It really showed that what he really loved in life was not wealth or money but yet it was love itself.
ReplyDeleteIn my opinion, Citizen Kane was not a very good movie. I thought that it moved pretty slow. The director did a good job as far as technique and camera angles but I thought that the plot of the story was not very important. The plot was not very well explained. I thought that the ending was very bad because I didn't know what was going on. The famous last words of Kane, "rosebud" had to have meant something significant because it was the only thing on his mind at the time of his death. The point of the movie was to say that money cannot buy happiness. Kane wanted to feel loved but found out that no matter the amount, you cannot buy love.
ReplyDeleteI thought that this film was awesome, but I don't really know if anyone can label any movie as one of the greatest movie of all time. Don't get me wrong, I think it was one of the greatest movies I have ever seen. I especially loved how the story was told by different points of view, so instead of it telling you what he is like, it shows you and you are supposed to decipher him by yourself. It adds a lot of curiosity to the story and character, which I have said before and I think that is one of the best qualities in a film. I think that the significance of rosebud on the sled is that it was the last time he knew he was loved. All the rest of his life he is yearning for love and never actually gets the right kind. It makes me wonder how life would be different with so much "success".
ReplyDeleteCitizen Kane is a pretty good movie in my opinion. It does a great job of showing how one man lived his life without following him directly from birth to death, and although it wasn't a particularly interesting life, it is still shown in an interesting way. There are many stories of rich people finding love cannot be bought with money, but not very many can do it like Citizen Kane. I think that his saying the word "Rosebud" was him realizing that the only thing in the world that ever seemed to love him was his childhood sled. his mother sold him away, and his father seems to have beaten him, but as soon as he left he was thrown into a world of gold mines, oil wells, shipping and real estate. Wealth became his new life, and he lost the simple pleasures of things like sledding and snowball fights with snowdrifts. His imagination was filled with how to earn money, and how to waste just as much. he could give money to people because he knew he would never run out. I like that this movie shows what is lost with the love of money, not just what cannot be gained.
ReplyDeletei wonder why it is called CITIZEN Kane. to the best of my knowledge he is never called that in the movie...on the contrary, he is the one that is "saving the people" being the voice of the people. you dont see him as a common citizen...that is just one thought question i had.
ReplyDeleteon a completely different note: i see how it is a famous film. I enjoyed it somewhat but not a great deal but i "respected" it and it was relatively interesting. way it was set up completely after his death was quite clever and capture me from the beginning. There were a few transitions and short scences that i did not get. one was the cockatoo transition and another was way at the end when the camera fell on the no tresspassing sign. it was quite deliberate but i did not get its reason...
I would agree that this would be one of the greatest films of all time. I wouldn't say this because of the storyline, or any kind of moral behind the story though. I think this is a great film because the cinematography was very revolutionary for its time, because they used camera and editing techniques that hadn't ever been used yet.
ReplyDeleteI thought that the movie was very well filmed and had some very modern camera angles but i did not like the movie as much as i liked Casablanca but i think the film had great editing and great cinematography.
ReplyDeleteCitizen Kane is such a great movie for many reasons. One being the Unique characters in the movie and how they develop as the movie goes on. All the main characters were acted so incredibly well. Orson Wells is just as good as an actor as he is a director. The story line is another reason why this movie is so loved. It tells a story of one mans life, and in life they are good times and bad times and that is shown very well in the movie and how a human would react to those situations. Another key thing this movie has is a very well written script. The cinematography in this movie I though was very well done. All the angle and scenes and cuts, go very well with the movie and they are some really great scenes. But the main reason is the message that its in the movie. Life may be great with money and wealth and popularity, and people thought that's what Mr. Kane loved most, and his last words Rosebud, wasn't a girl or a place, or a secret password, it was Love, Love most important thing in his life and its a more powerful movie when you watch it more times you see it in the film and in his acting and everything. Its a genius film that will remembered for a long, long time. I think its the greatest movie of all time, but that's what I say about all my favorite movies.
ReplyDeleteI really don't know why this film was rated so high it might have been good for those more simpler times but I really didn't find it the least bit interesting in fact I found it more confusing than anything else. I really didn't get were it was going it switched back and forth so many times that I found it hard to follow. But I think that it kinda had a good lesson at least what I got out of it was that the movie showed how money,fame,power etc..... Can change people Mr.Kane was all for tell the people what they needed to hear in the beginning then when he started to get older and richer he turned into a guy that it was more about what he needed to make himself happy and how he could keep people he thought loved him around, when he had pushed away a lot of the people that really did love him and helped him get his success. At the end he was a man you really had everything in the beginning then ended with nothing
ReplyDeleteI can see why people call this the best movie ever. It broke the molds of its time and set a lot of standards for movies that we still use today. Even in movies where the plot is not even close to this movies plot it still showed a new way to do things. Like the bird that just randomly appears that was a flop but it hadn't been done before and they still went out on a limb to try it.
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