Citizen Kane

(1941)

Some films are difficult to separate from their standing and reputation in film history. For decades after its release, CITIZEN KANE was often canonized as the greatest American film of all time and perhaps still would be, if the system of value for such rankings had not shifted from artistic to political achievements. It is not the best cinema the nation has ever produced. It might not even be the best film Orson Welles has ever made. The film deserves continued recognition because Welles mastered an art form on his debut as director. His creative approach to harness and exploit the distinctive qualities of any medium he is working in meant that he was able to do for cinema what he did with radio and the stage, without looking like the multitudes of imports who seem completely at sea when given control of the camera. The missing piece of the puzzle to why Welles was able to do this instantly is, by his own admission, the ignorance of and naivety towards the unwritten rules of filmmaking that allowed him to say, “why not?” when faced with each technical and creative conundrum. As medium-specific a film as it is, it represents an ultimate convergence of broadcast, print, electronic, theatrical, musical, and photographic media both on and off the screen. It retains an American storyline of politics and business that not only refuses to go away but continues to embody the country’s understanding of itself at the highest levels of those institutions.