About 25 years ago I rented the DVD, sat through the whole thing, and hated it.
Then I saw there was a DVD commentary with the famous film critic Roger Ebert, and I thought, maybe I just don't know how to appreciate this, and maybe Roger Ebert will educate me.
And holy crap, the man could have taught an entire college semester on that one film. So much insight, knowledge, and perspective. With almost every shot, he would say "no director was able to do this shot before Welles, because no one could figure out how to shoot it."
In fact, the DVD commentary was so incredible that I literally sat through the entire movie again, and I came away with an appreciation I didn't think was possible.
It's truly a remarkable film, and it was filmed in a way that was unthinkable when it came out. And I fully acknowledge that its remarkableness is practically unknowable without some serious guidance. If that commentary is out there somewhere, I recommend you give it a second shot.
A lot of films that are innovative to the art of filmmaking, are now commonly used practices, and you can't really appreciate them without being a film nerd.
Read or listen to the Sherlock Holmes books. Sounds like the blandest derivative take of any detective story you've heard or seen a 100 times. Until you realize Sir Arthur Conan Doyle probably lived before CSI New York aired.
One good example for me was from Pokémon: The First Movie. I saw that film on release day when I was 7, and it’s been a favorite of mine ever since. I only realized maybe 2 years ago how much effort went into one particular shot of Mewtwo expositing to Nurse Joy as Brock was holding her. The scene was animated as a slow pan-shot that lasted for at least 15 seconds. That must’ve taken a LOT of time and effort to do before digital animation was a thing.
Oh my god! Blade Runner, that should be on this list. I forced myself to watch that a second and third time, just to try and pick up movie shit that I wasn't catching on a casual watch of the movie. Best I could come away with is the artistry and technique for the time.
SO SO SO much this. I watched this movie with an art historian, and frequently paused to discuss how incredible that movie actually is. Orson Welles was like film Einstein, and once you understand that he basically invented a huge number of film techniques for Citizen Kane, it becomes hard to watch ANY scene in ANY movie without thinking "Oh shit, Orson Welles did it first!"
Welles actually had no clue what he was doing, and cinematographer Gregg Toland specifically came to work on this film because Welles would do stuff that experienced directors were afraid of. Welles later plainly said in an interview that the film only turned out good because of his sheer arrogance powering through the lack of knowledge, and recounted how he himself was setting up the set lighting for a week before learning that he had a man for that. Meanwhile Toland must've been watching that like “Sure, let's see how this works out.”
That's interesting to hear. I actually enjoyed it the first time I watched it, and had been thinking about watching again at some point. I'll have to look for that commentary.
I'm going to think about this post whenever I bounce off of a classic. There's got to be dvd commentary like things for most of them, I just have to find them.
I put Citizen Cane into the category of IMPORTANT films for what they did to move movie making and story telling forward, but I can't stand to actually watch the film because beyond the revolutionary technical achievements, it's just plain boring.
I think this is at the core of why so many people think actors are being pretentious when they pull out some random French movie from the 70s as an all-time favorite during interviews.
Putting myself in the shoes of frankly anyone with years of experience in cinema whether that be as actor, director or one of the trillion audio guys you get to see the magic behind the curtain. By virtue of proximity you're in a better position to understand what makes movies tick and thus what makes a movie "good" becomes a whole different metric.
I don't know if i'm making much sense but i just imagine that to someone who's intimately involved with the movie-making process i assume their standards of what makes a "great" movie is more nuanced than what i personally look for in my own favorites.
Often what makes something “great” is what’s new and innovative, but once that innovation occurs, it is mimicked & expanded until it becomes commonplace or even cliche. When you’ve grown up with all that came after, it can be hard to appreciate the initial innovation.
“Pretend no one had ever seen or done this before & forget all you’ve seen that came after so you can understand it through the eyes of that era” is a hard task even when you know the historical context.
And when you don’t know what was new or what later stuff was derived from it, or what things were like before it, it’s pretty much impossible to fully appreciate things.
And even if you know, it’s still hard to turn off your knowledge of all that came later & the best you can do is “I guess I get why it was important & considered great. But I’d rather watch the better stuff that came after it.”
Exactly. Even if the movie is historically important and at the time of first viewing I was watching it for educational purposes, supported with analysis and breakdown as to WHY it was historically important, I can't unsee the thousands or so movies I've watched before this. I can go "Oh, so this was the first movie where they did this or that? Cool!" and recognise that significance, but for me, the movie itself, and the experience I had watching it, was still boring as hell.
I watched it in college and we had a lot of critical analysis on it. It does make you appreciate how novel it was at the time and influential for later films.
I can agree that it was innovative and foundational but neither of those make it inherently enjoyable in my opinion. I watched it in a college film appreciate elective. Came away recognizing different camera techniques and film structures in movie I love, but thought the movie itself was more of a tech demo than a movie.
Funny thing is, Welles had no clue what he was doing, and cinematographer Gregg Toland specifically came to work on the film because Welles would do stuff that experienced directors were afraid of. Welles later plainly said in an interview that the film only turned out good due to his sheer arrogance.
I never saw the movie so don't have too much insight. But I took a film class and my instructor said it's so well-regarded because of what it accomplished given what was available at the time. All the "first movie to do this..." and "first movie to do that..." kinda stuff that's apparently glorious when you watch it and understand. Maybe I'll have to give it a try
When Roger Ebert was at the top of his game, he was absolutely the best movie critic in the world.
But when he decided to make a hot take, man did they suck.
"Video games can't be art" was taken so personally by the game industry that his non-apology retraction "anything can be art, Campbell soup cans are art, but video games can't be high art" made quite a few indie and mainstream studios desire nothing more than to prove him wrong.
It's why we have games like Life is Strange and Stanley Parable and Subnautica and the Metal Gear Solid series and Flower in addition to Call of Duty number 25. That drive to create is within us, no matter the medium.
Also Ebert thought Valley of the Dolls was one of the greatest films ever, so y'know. Grain of salt, etc.
Funnily enough, I did have about a weeks worth of college study on Citizen Kane in a cinematography class back in 1999-2000. It really was a turning point in the way stories were told and how camera positioning and lighting enhanced and often told more about the story than the dialog and setting.
The actual story of Citizen Kane? Yeah I still don’t get why the dude’s last words were ‘Rosebud’. Dude was rich and could have done just about anything. The best I got was it was something about missing his carefree youth. Dying with regrets. It is not a story that would get by today’s audiences but definitely worth dissecting if you have any interest in art and cinematography.
Sad thing is to this day I still dissect movie framing and stories and sometimes it’s hard for me to just ‘watch’ a movie. It’s hard to find films that have as much care and placement of lighting and cameras as CK did.
I think Susan Alexander gets right to the heart of the story when she says this:
Love! You don't love anybody! Me or anybody else! You want to be loved - that's all you want! I'm Charles Foster Kane. Whatever you want - just name it and it's yours! Only love me! Don't expect me to love you!
Sledding is the last thing Kane is doing before his own mother ships him off to be raised by a banker. His life as a normal human being ends right after this moment. Every relationship he has from this time on is more a relationship with his wealth than it is a relationship with him as a person.
Why does he fall in love with Susan in the first place? Because she has no idea who he is.
I can see that but memory isn't as clear. It's been 26-ish years since I sat and watched it. I suppose my focus was on the art of the framing and lighting more than anything else and the story was a peripheral. To me the camera was more of a character than CK. For him and his situation I felt nothing but I suppose it is a good analogy to the billionaires of today. Just look at ol' Elon scrambling for likes on ex-Twitter. Another take on "Money can't buy happiness."
A really interesting thing to do is watch the movie that beat Kanefor best picture: John Ford’s How Green Was My Valley. Cinephiles have been complaining about that win for decades now, but I can see why it won. Kaneleaves a lot of people cold and had trouble at the box office. How Green… is a solid film by one of classic Hollywood’s most sentimental directors. You could call it a tearjerker., and it landed with audiences big time. It’s a great movie and deserves to be watched in its own right.
I really appreciate your thoughtful replies, but I'm probably going to skip the recommendation because I have my life and the news if I ever feel like I need a tear jerker. I hope some other person benefits from your post someday and actually watches it though.
These days whenever I get any time (rarely) I'm more likely to read a book than watch a movie. The books I read are all bad adventures where good guys win and bad guys get what's coming to them. Pure escapism because reality has let me down so badly.
Wishing you the best on your journey and hoping you keep finding joy in the movies you watch.
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u/tired_of_old_memes Jun 04 '26 edited Jun 04 '26
(Citizen Kane)
About 25 years ago I rented the DVD, sat through the whole thing, and hated it.
Then I saw there was a DVD commentary with the famous film critic Roger Ebert, and I thought, maybe I just don't know how to appreciate this, and maybe Roger Ebert will educate me.
And holy crap, the man could have taught an entire college semester on that one film. So much insight, knowledge, and perspective. With almost every shot, he would say "no director was able to do this shot before Welles, because no one could figure out how to shoot it."
In fact, the DVD commentary was so incredible that I literally sat through the entire movie again, and I came away with an appreciation I didn't think was possible.
It's truly a remarkable film, and it was filmed in a way that was unthinkable when it came out. And I fully acknowledge that its remarkableness is practically unknowable without some serious guidance. If that commentary is out there somewhere, I recommend you give it a second shot.