Monday, August 3, 1998
‘Citizen Kane’ comes back to big screen
FILM: Innovative 1940s fictionalized biography ready for new
audience
By Laura Noguera
Daily Bruin Staff
There is one film that everyone seems to agree about. Ratings,
box offices and historians all recognize "Citizen Kane," a
biography on wealthy journalist William Randolph Hearst, as an
influential, landmark film that dominates charts like the American
Film Institute’s (AFI) Top 100 list. Now in the midst of its hype,
"Citizen Kane" is scheduled for re-release on July 29 in an
exclusive engagement at the Santa Monica Fine Arts Theater.
"Since 1941, (‘Citizen Kane’) has gotten the reputation for
being the most creative film to be made in the Hollywood system,"
said Jonathan Kuntz, UCLA School of Film professor. "So many
quality aspects of filmmaking are used to their fullest."
First-time director Orson Welles’ "Citizen Kane" made several
breakthroughs in cinematography. The film not only delivered an
unprecedented method of story narration, incorporating flashbacks,
but it did so using unexplored camera angles and lighting.
These elements are all complimented with intense sound and an
impressive score (by Bernard Herrmann), both revolutionary aspects
for the 1940s. Most significant is "Citizen Kane’s" uninhibited
dialogue in which characters interrupt or finish lines for each
other, an effect that may have generated from Orson Welles’
experiences in radio.
"(Orson Welles) has overlapping dialogue, which is quite
different from the previous Hollywood style where everyone clearly
says their lines." said Kuntz, who analyzed the picture quarterly
in his film classes.
But "Citizen Kane’s" 1941 release was not as successful as
predicted, resulting from Hearst’s efforts to purchase the film and
influence its reviews. Many people who saw "Citizen Kane" were
unprepared for 25-year-old Orson Welles’ cinematographic
experiments.
"Some people recognized (‘Citizen Kane’) for what it was, but a
lot of people weren’t able to accept all of these innovative
ideas," Kuntz says. "Eventually they did."
"Citizen Kane" did take a Best Screenwriting Oscar for its
portrayal of Kane’s fictional biography. Spanning from childhood
until death, Welles uses three different storylines as narratives.
The film successfully incorporates voice-overs and flashbacks to
develop the story of Kane investing in yellow journalism. The
perennial nature of "Citizen Kane" can be attributed to its complex
structure, in which every shot has multiple meanings.
"It is a film that has stood the test of time," said Seth Oster,
director of communications at the AFI. "It made a historic impact
on our film history."
One of the AFI’s Top 100 list’s primary functions is to remind
the public of the existence of classic films. Accordingly, major
film companies are realizing that their "back catalogue" films are
still money makers. Two films that made AFI’s Top 100 cut, "Gone
With the Wind" and "Vertigo," are classics that are also to be
re-released.
"One of the great benefits of re-releases is that they bring a
new attention to the great film achievements … to an audience
that has probably never seen them," Oster says. "We advocate film
studios to re-release classics because it is a form of
preservation."
"Citizen Kane" gained worldwide acclaim in the 1960s, topping
British film charts and only increasing in popularity among film
critics and audiences.
"It is universally acknowledged by film historians to be the
greatest movie ever made," Oster said. "We hope it will recapture
hearts of movie fans everywhere when it is re-released."