August 6, 2010

Citizen Kane

The Top 63 Marathon, part 31



Data
Title: Citizen Kane
Year: 1941
Length: 119 minutes
Director: Orson Welles
Writers: Herman J. Mankiewicz & Orson Welles
Starring: Orson Welles, Joseph Cotten, Dorothy Comingore, Everett Sloane, William Alland, George Coulouris
Music: Bernard Herrmann
Distinctions: Oscar for Best Original Screenplay; Oscar nominations for Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor (Welles), Best Score (dramatic), Best Cinematography (black-and-white), Best Art Direction/Interior Decoration (black-and-white), Best Editing and Best Sound Recording; currently #36 on the IMDb's Top 250



My reaction
Synopsis: the life of a newspaper tycoon who can't love
How I saw it: on video a couple times, most recently yesterday (rented from Netflix)
Concept: Bad.
Story: Indifferent.
Characters: Good. Kane is horribly unlikable and unsympathetic, but he's also convincing and thoroughly realized.
Dialog: Great.
Pacing: Good. Not as boring as I remembered it being.
Cinematography: Great. The only good thing to come out of the recent 3D nonsense is the accidental revival of this movie's "universal focus."
Special effects/design: Great.
Acting: Good.
Music: Great.
Subjective Rating: 6/10 (Okay). It's nice to look at, but I just don't know why I'm supposed to care about this guy.
Objective Rating: 3.0/4 (Good).

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