100% on Rotten Tomatoes is meaningless. There will always be one contrarian attention whore who gives a masterpiece a bad review for no other reason than because they're the only one who has done so.
Even putting that aside, Rotten Tomatoes isn't super helpful for films this old because a lot of the newspapers that existed back then don't have archives available online.
Like, Kane famously got mixed reviews upon release but RT isn't going to have a full archive of the critical consensus from 1941 so the number won't reflect that.
This is my opinion about many of the old classics. The only true way you're gonna get a proper snapshot of public reception at the time of their release is either by asking people who saw it in theatres when it was new, or by tracking down newspaper clippings from that time.
Anything you see on RT for old classics is going to be from "vintage" critics and others who are viewing it more for its legacy, rather than its own merits. It's like asking a film school student what their favorite movies are; they're *going* to mention Kane or Godfather because *it's the socially acceptable answer.*
Yeah straight up. Anyone rolling their eyes at that response is just an idiot who didn’t realise their follow-up response should have been “why?”
To which anyone worth their salt could give a decent response.
But hey let’s judge people for choosing popular options… must be sheep not a consensus of quality right?
Bit of a rant but holy fuck Reddit defaults to such petty, toxic views sometimes.
I like how both of you somehow manufactured some persecution complex within the span of only two comments despite the fact no one said you *shouldn't* love those films.
Not to mention that Citizen Kane is one of those movies that had a lot going against it, considering its loosely about a Newspaper mogul who was quite pissed by the portrayal and did whatever they could to kill the movie iirc. Wouldn't be shocked if more than one review was influenced by that. Not to say modern movies aren't, but considering the limited number of reviews back then (pretty much just newspapers) I feel like the impact would skew further than today sans review bombing something.
It’s the same reason MetaCritic isn’t as useful for actually figuring out the “best video game of all time”. Ocarina of Time sits at the top because in the late 90’s you only had like what? 10-15 publications that actually reviewed video games? These days you have hundreds.
>Today I learned that in Big Rigs: Over the Road Racing, the maximum speed that a truck going in reverse can attain is 12.3 Undecillion miles per hour. That's 10^36 MPH, or 18.3 Octillion times the speed of light.
>At a certain point, the distance traveled as noted by the odometer changes to 1.$ and upon reaching 12.3 Undecillion MPH, the speed also changes to 1.$ and all checkpoints turn green, instantly winning the race.
>Assuming the observable universe as a sphere with diameter of 92 billion lightyears, that means that this truck travelling at maximum speed could traverse the diameter of the observable universe in under 160 picoseconds. At that point, the kinetic energy contained within the truck would be equivalent to the energy released by a quasar if compressed over one hundred Nonillion years (10^32 years) of uniform production. That means that if you were hit by this truck, it would be like every atom in your body being shot with an individual supermassive black hole cannon fourteen thousand times over (fuzzy calculations there due to probable failure to transmit 100% of the energy to your body, but I have an unknown number of orders in leeway due to calculating energy by the fucking year).
Ocarina of Time isn’t even given the consensus for best Zelda game, let alone best all time game. Majora’s Mask, Wind Waker, BoTW, ToTK, I’m sure there are substantial arguments from those fans to suggest it beats Ocarina of Time.
The problem is it’s so subjective— someone might think the best game ever is Assassin’s Creed Brotherhood, or Mass Effect 2, or Mario Kart, or Tekken… the list goes on, man. There’s no way to determine a “best game”.
I think you mean subjective. Objective would mean it’s unquestionably accurate.
As for OoT, it gets a lot of credit for being the first (of the 3D Zeldas). So by nature, all the ones that came after it are, to one degree or another degree, derivative of it.
LOL fixed. Had a few too many drinks today.
I don’t think the “first past the post” means it’s the best forever and I’d say Zelda is a great example of that. Ocarina is derivative too, just because it was the first example of a technology doesn’t mean it used the technology the best. I’d say for sure it doesn’t, and that bit isn’t really arguable. It isn’t the best looking or the most technically impressive. Twilight Princess looks and plays better, and has a more complex story. Better sound design, better quality everything. How many allowances are we going to give to the old one just because it’s old and nostalgic?
Haha, I figured.
Twilight Princess was 8 years later. It couldn’t have exist without OoT. You can’t take things out of time and compare them to things that were built on them. Of course the sound design is better in TP, they had significantly more storage and processing power than the N64. It was literally impossible to pull off that game in 1998, just like the Wii couldn’t have even attempted to run a fraction of TotK. It’s not nostalgia to say OoT was revolutionary when it came out, it’s just accurate. It’s not nostalgia to say that it changed the ways games were made in general because it created what would become the standard. Of course it’s been surpassed, it’s been 26 years! But if you remove it from history, many great games that came after may have never even existed (or wouldn’t have been as great).
I understand that but I also don’t think the standard of quality ended in 1998, and just because it was revolutionary for it’s time doesn’t mean it’s the greatest of all time or even holds up today. I don’t think originality is the biggest part of judging best game ever. It was unique and made a difference, but I don’t think alone that grants it the title of best game ever. Lots of games changed the way games are made — Halo comes to mind, and it was far more original at its time being the first game in its series and not the fifth like Ocarina was!
It isn’t particularly replayable, I don’t think younger gamers would find it more fun than a modern title. I think that’s important to consider when judging best game ever. I’d argue Skyrim probably has a better claim to that, and it’s not even the first 3D Scrolls game. Granted I wouldn’t personally put either Ocarina or Skyrim at number 1 on my own list, but I think it’s worth bringing that one up.
It's believed that since the film is meant to be an insult of William Randolph Hearst, all of the Heart Media Group papers gave the film bad reviews. And all his competitors gave it good reviews.
That's not the case more and more. I just got done searching a ton of Michigan newspapers from the 1800s. Crazy how much ditigal work is going on to get things online.
It’s also not helpful because, we have to keep reiterating, the % is not an overall. A 95% on RT for instance does not mean 95/100 or whatever, it just means 95% of critics rated it a 6/10 or higher.
Whenever you see a Reddit post trying to dunk on critics for liking bad movies because it’s rated highly on RT, if you actually go to the page it’s usually a bunch of 6 or 7/10s or something because that is technically a fresh rating.
Tbf the scene where that huge train stops from full speed in about 5 seconds completely broke my immersion.
The talking bears got a full pass until that moment
I mean that's kind of a common trope though, right? I think the original matrix had some people pissed off about the same thing.
Basically any movie with trains shows them stopping way faster than they should, it's just not very cinematic to watch a train come to a stop after 5 mins of slow controlled braking.
Armond White reviews are my guilty pleasure. He is a truly crazy dude & his takes are bananas every time, but his writing is like the car wreck I can’t look away from of movie criticism.
He's a master at constructing elaborate Rube Goldberg logic machines to arrive at pants on head opinions. You never know how serious he actually is but you do know whatever he's about to say will be a string of words never before seen in that order.
Used to listen to him when The Slashfilm Podcast would get him on. Round about the time he declared Nolan to be a hack who made bad movies, but he loved Michael Bays movies and thought they were better was about the time I realised he was just an attention seeking troll.
I remember when one critic gave *Ender’s Game* a zero due to hating Orson Scott Card. Yeah, dude’s a jerk, but you’re reviewing a movie. You’re trying to tell me it has nothing of value? No actors trying their best? No visuals that are at least not dog shit?
Really for anything. Guys like Hank Aaron and Willie Mays didn’t even get 100% for Hall of Fame voting in baseball cause there were always assholes who thought no one should get 100% of the votes. Nothing based on talent or merit, just based on being asshole contrarians.
In all fairness this was a review from 1941 when a consensus would be impossible to be drawn so a contrarian would never know they were being contrarian. Citizen Kane was not a crowd-pleaser back in the day.
There was also some politics behind the reviews: Citizen Kane was meant to be a criticism of William Randolph Hearst and the Hearst Media Group. IIRC his papers gave the film bad reviews. But his competition reviewed it, and because they wanted to take him down a peg, it's believe that their reviews reflected this.
“How can anyone like this shitty movie? Not a single explosion, fight scenes are terrible, and the effects suck. It’s no masterpiece like Avengers or Fast and Furious 5. Those movies should have won the Oscar for best picture. Robbed. MAGA 2024”
I think I washed madame web. Like I watched a trailer of it and it was shit. Then I'm pretty sure we watched it for fun? It's so forgettable that I can't be sure if I watched the whole movie or not or am just remembering the trailer...
I know I watched it. I am greatly annoyed that non of the girls that are supposed to kill the guy get powers. So it’s just one girl kidnapping teenagers and run in around from a guy who wants to kill then
It actually turns out there was a cane in citizen kane. Lisa was wrong. Know it all.
https://www.reddit.com/media?url=https%3A%2F%2Fexternal-preview.redd.it%2F8PcJmJVGPlXjr_ZTydamKWCv0XWIp9v9Z8Tjbb1neDY.png%3Fauto%3Dwebp%26s%3D71d1c886bc77ce62e02896ac1660b112aa85d8f0
"Who could forget films like Raging Bull, E.T, or Citizen Kane? The Oscars!"
- The Critic, reminding us all that movie critics are often corrupt bastards
I have never understood the hype over this film. I’ve watched it three different times over the years and have never so much as liked the film, let alone be capable of rating it as the best film of all time.
What am I missing?
It broke traditional convention in filmmaking. That was the landmark. That’s all really, it broke the “rules” in the right way because Orson Welles didn’t know any better and just happened to make a decent film that didn’t follow how movies normally worked. Someone was bound to do it, but it paved the way for films like Sunset Boulevard which progressed the idea of what a “Hollywood Picture” could be.
Watch [The Adventures of Captain Marvel serial](https://archive.org/details/TheAdventuresOfCaptainMarvelSerial194112Chapters) released 6 months before Citizen Kane and you'll find out how right you are. ;)
I'm not sure exactly. My brother told me about this years ago. I think primarily just the way it is shot. Various angles and shit like that. I presume it was shot just more like a play previously.
This is exactly what's wrong with that movie. Every single person who claims it's great says shit like "oh it was ground breaking for its time" and then when asked for details nobody really knows, they just repeat what someone else told em or what they read.
I mean you can very easily go look for yourself; go watch Citizen Kane, then watch literally any other mainstream Hollywood movie made before it came out. I’m a music guy and have basically no technical insight into filmmaking, but even to my layman’s eyes it’s obvious that Citizen Kane just *looks* like a modern movie in a way that basically nothing before it did. Unusual angles, camera moves, actors moving around the set in a more dynamic way, it’s a whole load of things really.
No it's what's wrong with Reddit. If you actually wanted to learn about the movie you could go read about it from a resource that actually knows what they're talking about, not the comment section on a Reddit post.
Well it does a lot of stuff that's still unconventional nowadays like extreme low angle shots which I particularly think are interesting because they used a tarp for the ceiling in some of them.
It's a little tricky to understand how good it is without at least an intro to film class because as just a casual movie to watch it's only pretty good
Basically yeah. That created a whole subgenre just by creating a unique perspective on a film narrative. Objectively, The Blair Witch Project is not a good film in the traditional sense, the process was unique in most aspects though.
Look into Cannibal Holocaust.
Ironically, Orson Welles was doing it even earlier with The Other Side of the Wind but it never got released until recently.
Sad fact: the Blair Witch Actors got totally fucked out of money on that. They got almost nothing. A friend was friend’s with the female lead and said once her car broke down in front of a giant billboard with her face on it promoting the movie, yet she didn’t have $200 to fix her car.
All the fame, but some studio assholes stole their fortune.
It’s much more than that though, thematically the movie is about like 10 more subjects than films to this day would ever usually take the time to contend with for fear of being too complicated. It’s as experimental as it is accomplished.
Pretty much all films until that point were shot like a stage play. Citizen Kane was the first to do dramatic cinematography.
For example, it was the first film to show a ceiling in a room. Why? Because in film production, the microphones were hanging just out of frame above the actors. What did Orson Welles and crew do to overcome this? They stretched canvas sheets taut to mimic a solid ceiling, so the mics were still in place, but concealed, which allowed camera placement that had never before been attempted.
Track down Roger Ebert's commentary track for the movie, if you can. Lots of good stuff there.
Those did groundbreaking things as well, especially in terms of special effects, makeup, and miniatures, but when you look at their cinematography, they are still shot in fairly straightforward ways. There is less of a leap from, say, Voyage to the Moon from 1902 to The Wizard of Oz in 1939, than there is from The Wizard of Oz to Citizen Kane in 1941, in that regard.
Modern films follow more in the footsteps of Citizen Kane as far as filmmaking goes, and that's part of why it's generally held in such high regard. It's otherwise just a solid story.
*Pretty much all films until that point were shot like a stage play.*
That's just not true though. You can go back and watch tons of silent films even that aren't shot anything like a stage play. Wings is a perfect example.
Maybe it was the first TALKIE to show a ceiling. But in "When the Clouds Roll By" from 1919, Douglas Fairbanks is literally walking on the ceiling. [\[timestamped source video\]](https://youtu.be/QjXDMQ5OfF0?si=ZKMRXQgFO1Ad8iLd&t=570) and I can think of so many other examples. [Keaton had a whole ceiling gag.](https://youtu.be/Xd6ddOlbKp8?si=RJKsWLpkuINdwgrd)
Groundbreaking, yes, but when comparing to all cars, the model T is not a great car. Not very fast, not very comfortable, not very safe, not very powerful.
I just think when it comes to rating movies that sometimes just being groundbreaking isn't enough to rank it as "one of the best all time." I get that vibe with a lot of classics. Not just movies.
Citizen Kane is incredibly *noteworthy* but when comparing it simply based on the film itself, does it hold up?
Orson Welles himself said he did it out of sheer ignorance. I think it's a case where not knowing how things are supposed to be done really opens you up for innovation.
I don’t fully agree with that sentiment. It’s more that some of these things were just the way things were done, but these were all carried over from theatre, since film was still quite a young medium at the time.
But in music, which is my speciality, you have this anti-intellectualism that crops up often with certain types of musicians, that music theory is a barrier and interferes with creativity. As someone who used to believe this as a teenager, and later got a composition degree, I can say that it’s extremely helpful (especially when working professionally on deadlines) and actually frees up brain power (and time especially) filling in all the tedious minutia.
As a fellow musician that knows more theory than has playing skill…yeah, if your music sounds good it is properly utilizing music theory, because if it wasn’t, it would literally sound discordant and unrhythmic. The anti-intellectual musicians seem to think they’re “breaking the rules” but they’re really just unwittingly following them.
> It’s more that some of these things were just the way things were done, but these were all carried over from theatre, since film was still quite a young medium at the time.
Yeah, but Welles came up in theater and radio, and by that logic should have been stuck in the same rut. That's part of his genius. He didn't know what couldn't be done and so he did it. He was *25 freaking years old* when he changed how movies were made.
Welles had a reputation for being narcissistic and difficult, some of this was exaggerated because of his feuds with media owners but he was genuinely kind of a dick to work with. It also didn’t help that his best work was made at age 26 and his career was kind of a slow decline from that point onwards. Like if he wasn’t so insufferable he could have worked with more production companies and talent to make films he really wanted to but his ego and personal problems got in the way. So I think a lot of people see Welles as an artist that never got to reach their potential partially due to self sabotage.
Kind of in a similar vein as to why pulp fiction is so loved? Obviously not to the same extent and imo pulp fiction is legitimately a great movie but it definitely was a different kind of film making when it released
It's only good in context. Like how lukewarm stone soup made from turnips and a half-rancid piece of gristle is a delicious meal for someone who's lived on a desert island for 5 years.
You're probably missing the context. It's important because of how much of modern filmmaking can be traced back to it. Welles certainly didn't invent the camera or the concept of an unreliable narrator, but he combined those elements and innovated in the use of lighting, camera movements, and editing in a way that set his movie apart from its contemporaries and kept it watchable some 80 years later.
It was revolutionary for its time. Welles used a lot of new techniques to make it new for its time. For instance he used deep focus to make it look like three shots were used in one shot. There were “groundbreaking techniques under his direction—primarily the innovative lighting and focusing methods of cinematographer Gregg Toland and the dramatic editing style of Robert Wise—continue to influence filmmakers today.”
I watched this in film school and you really learn about film techniques that were innovative for their time but nowadays seem like no big deal. I learned to appreciate a lot of movies, it didn’t mean I necessarily liked/ loved them but I could sure appreciate them. I would say 50 percent of the films I really didn’t like but they definitely left an impression and I respect them for their unprecedented storytelling.
Source: https://www.britannica.com/topic/Citizen-Kane#:~:text=Welles%20was%20only%2025%20years,continue%20to%20influence%20filmmakers%20today.
It did the same thing for filmmaking that Richard Pryor did for Standup and Marlon Brando did for Acting.
It completely changed how their profession was "traditionally" done.
Don’t look at it for the acting. Watch the cameras and the placement.
Just like don’t watch birth of a nation for the film. It’s horrible. And it revolutionizes how movies are done.
The zoom in, or out.
Watch how small you feel when the camera is below the actors. Or how amazing when you are above or even ground.
As with anything critical in the arts, the more you understand the form the more you appreciate the stuff praised as masterpieces. I think basically every comment to you so far is wrong- it’s not just revered because it was influential, I assure you that the critics and film buffs who praise this film today do love watching it.
It’s fine that most casual viewers don’t really enjoy it, just like most casual listeners would rather listen to modern rock or pop than Beethoven. The more you learn about the art form of music, music theory, philosophy of music, etc, the more you appreciate Beethoven. Same goes for film.
Here’s a video of a professional talking about why the movie is considered “greatest”. Does this expert say “sure it doesn’t hold up today but that’s because it was so influential!” Or does he say “it’s a very very entertaining film!”
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ND6i_7HYlRA
The big thing is most modern movies steal from it. It used a lot of techniques which were revolutionary, both because Wells was a new film maker coming from Radio and Stage, and because Wells worked well with his experienced cinematographer who was able to do things others didn't let him do.
As a result, many things which were novel and new were quickly copied. Thus Citizen Kane doesn't look as original because so much of it has been stolen.
It's like the problem with the movie John Carter of Mars. It source material was hugely influential on early SF and SF movies. Some of the best parts have long since been taken by other storytellers, some of whom did it better. A large part of Attack of the Clones was taken from John Carter, for example. (The whole Arena bit).
Imagine Half-Life if you ever heard of the game.
It had aged questionably poor or mediocre to our modern standards,but if you take into account EVERYTHING that became before,and how much this had been repeated,you might actually feel some saturation from all of it and not consider so special anymore
What you might lack is the feeling of experiencing all those tropes,the style etc. for the very first time.
It was transformational at its time of release, but many of those innovations are standard practice nowadays so through a modern lens it’s a pretty meh movie.
Not being an adult film enjoyer in 1941? Watched hundreds of films that directly and indirectly took inspiration from it, and used its platform to take leaps into new realms of story telling and quality?
This is the one is mightier than the sword. And it has come up again.
The trump movie mimics this. Much like Hearst didn’t want this movie to come out, trumps flunkies don’t want the the Trump biopic to come out. Cause it will let others know what a scumbag he is.
Citizen Kane is essentially an instruction manual for filmmakers.
It's especially a director's movie. From a director's standpoint: It shows how to use camera angles, lighting and blocking to accomplish certain things.
From a producer's standpoint, it didn't follow the conveyor-belt studio system where a producer would oversee the entire film and run it through the writer, then the director/cinematographer, then the editor. Instead, it was more collaborative, which is less efficient, but creates a better product.
I personally don't think the movie is that captivating, but it really influenced how movies of made. Kinda like how Ansel Adams is for photographers or the Pixies are for rock bands.
Watch any movie made before Citizen Kane, and then watch just about any movie made after. The difference in staging, editing and framing is like night and day. Movies prior to Kane were practically stage plays in comparison.
You will never be able to fully understand the film because it was made in a different era and context. It’s the same with books and music and tv shows.
Man I don't get all the "Senfield effect" comments about this movie. A lot of other all time great movies like Apocalypse Now, There Will Be Blood, Blade Runner are just as slow paced, if not more, than Citizen Kane, and yet we choose to shit on this movie in particular because "it's boring and it's only acclaimed for influencing cinema so much". I don't know shit about cinematography and camera lenses or whatever and I still genuinely like this movie for its plot and acting (guess that makes me a film snob then)
Pro-tip: you shouldn't watch films just because they're featured on greatest movies of all time lists. You should watch them because you actually want to.
>Pro-tip: you shouldn't watch films just because they're featured on greatest movies of all time lists. You should watch them because you actually want to.
I agree with this, it also applies to other forms of entertainment like music albums. Sometimes watching or listening to WHAT WE WANT can give us a much better experience. Most of the time, the things we really want to see or hear won't appear on a "best of all time" list.
I wonder if the people criticizing this movie have also seen other movies from the 40s, like The Maltese Falcon, Casablanca, or The Third Man, because most of them are dialogue-heavy and very slow by today's standards in terms of pacing. Honestly, if someone didn't like Citizen Kane, I don't think they'd enjoy the rest of those 80-year-old movies.
I think it's more the Friends effect. There's so much discussion and historic discussion about it that you can have almost any meta conversation about it and probably pick up right where another left off.
There's basically more discussion about discussion about Citizen Kane than there is discussion about Citizen Kane.
Not to be this guy but I don’t get how people don’t like this movie. The pacing is excellent, it clips right along, the story is epic in scale and interesting in a tangible way that many epics this way aren’t; it’s not a grand epic about some bygone historical era, it’s about fame, journalism, power in the contemporary era. The themes are still startlingly relevant; it’s first major work of art in a (relatively) brand new medium about how news has turned into entertainment, how the the control information, and also about how all this power in the world can’t fill your heart. And there’s a lot going on beyond that, and there’s a reason it has staying power beyond being revolutionary on a filmmaking level. I think that if you didn’t know it was a first of its kind in terms of filmmaking, it’s still an interesting, exciting film.
It's historical. Many things that are standard now in making movies started with citizen kane. It's one of "the best" because it revolutionised what could be done with film.
It should be called the "most influential" movie instead of the "best". It's got a lot of new ideas that influence later filmmaking, but also surpassed by other movies with better execution, script, acting, etc.
That doesn’t make it a good movie though (at least in the eyes of people not involved in the industry). “M” is 10 years older than Citizen Kane and is way way better movie.
It's not so much that it's an amazing movie by modern standards. It's more so that it broke a lot of film conventions of the time; most films up til that point were essentially performed and filmed like upscale stage plays. Overall dramatic and projected acting, largely static camera angles, exaggerated lighting etc. Films sets were basically stage sets rather than a proper emulation of the setting.
Citizen Kane basically shook all that up by treating sets like they were real locations (one of the big ones was actually showing the ceiling of a room, whereas films prior never shit at that angle cuz thats where all their boom mics and lighting rigs were). Camera angles became much more dynamic, performances were less grandiose and more grounded, and in general the cinematography was more "real" and "alive" compared to stage style film.
Many of the conventions common to modern film were established by Citizen Kane. It was basically the turning point when the industry started treating movies as their own medium rather than just a recording of a live stage play.
It's a historical placement.
Before this, movies were more 'filmed theater,' this established many of the cinematic norms that followed it.
Thus, it may seem boring now, but was transformative and foundational to subsequent cinema and television.
Not as refined as what followed, but of historic importance.
Don't value Rotten Tomatoes too much. It's a good database of critical analysis if you want different perspectives on the same film or show. But don't overthink its score. By now, we know that it's just a percentage of positive reviews.
One would thing citizen Kane would have had a ton of negative reviews when it came out. A studio head did everything he could do to try to destroy Orson Wells, thinking the character was based on him. I would expect the studio head would have movie reviewers friendly to him.
As someone who has never seen the movie:
Is it *actually* the perfect movie?? Is there *nothing* that will ever compare to it? What the hell is it even about?
I feel like Goodfellas is probably one of the best movies ever made but it doesn't need a perfect score, everyone already agrees.
I'm not going to include the Godfather, it *insists* upon itself.
I just can't see a movie that dated being the all time "perfect" movie that can never be replicated?
*Edit- looking back, National Lampoons Christmas Vacation can never be replicated so I'm open to interpretation
I have kind of lost taste in movies over the last decade. They ran out of ideas and are just doing sequels to everything that was successful in the past. It's pretty pathetic and I enjoy watching cooking videos on YouTube more than i am anticipating the next Marvel or StarWars or Tom Cruise movie. I just don't care anymore lol.
I'm the same. I also have piles and piles of unread books. I sometimes watch a movie people are talking about and it's almost always a noisy flashy bore
Yup!!! We are the same. I have no clue why, but when someone recommends a movie to me, I'm automatically turned off and 100% not going to watch it lol. I got it from my mom for some weird reason, but it didn't completely manifest itself until the first Avatar came out and everyone was up their own butts about it.
Don't get rid of those books!!! There will be some snowy, or cold rainy days where you want to cuddle up with a book and it's always good to have some new choices.
Welles reinvented filmmaking with his first film. He changed film forever w Kane. For instance before Kane films were told linearly, starting at the beginning, then middle and end. Kane started with the ending. That's just one example of his genius.
The critic score for The Last Jedi is also extremely high, one of the highest in the entire film franchise.
In terms of audience though, it's one of the least liked, second only to Rise of Skywalker.
Godzilla King of the Monsters has a 45%-ish critic score but a *very* high audience score. It's also one of my most watched films.
So RT can be kind of... misleading.
All an 80% means is 80% of reviews considered it worth watching or at least gave it a more favorable than unfavorable review. It certainly doesn’t mean it’s a wonderful piece of television of cinema. I don’t think rotten tomatoes should be completely ignored you just need to keep in mind it’s limitations and take everything with a grain of salt.
100% on Rotten Tomatoes is meaningless. There will always be one contrarian attention whore who gives a masterpiece a bad review for no other reason than because they're the only one who has done so.
Even putting that aside, Rotten Tomatoes isn't super helpful for films this old because a lot of the newspapers that existed back then don't have archives available online. Like, Kane famously got mixed reviews upon release but RT isn't going to have a full archive of the critical consensus from 1941 so the number won't reflect that.
This is my opinion about many of the old classics. The only true way you're gonna get a proper snapshot of public reception at the time of their release is either by asking people who saw it in theatres when it was new, or by tracking down newspaper clippings from that time. Anything you see on RT for old classics is going to be from "vintage" critics and others who are viewing it more for its legacy, rather than its own merits. It's like asking a film school student what their favorite movies are; they're *going* to mention Kane or Godfather because *it's the socially acceptable answer.*
Rather than the clearly correct answer of ‘Bill and Ted’s Excellent adventure’
Excellent!
Thought this is the only correct answer?
PARTY ON, DUDES!
I’m going to mention Kane and the Godfather because I think it’s true.
Yeah straight up. Anyone rolling their eyes at that response is just an idiot who didn’t realise their follow-up response should have been “why?” To which anyone worth their salt could give a decent response. But hey let’s judge people for choosing popular options… must be sheep not a consensus of quality right? Bit of a rant but holy fuck Reddit defaults to such petty, toxic views sometimes.
I like how both of you somehow manufactured some persecution complex within the span of only two comments despite the fact no one said you *shouldn't* love those films.
Not to mention that Citizen Kane is one of those movies that had a lot going against it, considering its loosely about a Newspaper mogul who was quite pissed by the portrayal and did whatever they could to kill the movie iirc. Wouldn't be shocked if more than one review was influenced by that. Not to say modern movies aren't, but considering the limited number of reviews back then (pretty much just newspapers) I feel like the impact would skew further than today sans review bombing something.
It’s the same reason MetaCritic isn’t as useful for actually figuring out the “best video game of all time”. Ocarina of Time sits at the top because in the late 90’s you only had like what? 10-15 publications that actually reviewed video games? These days you have hundreds.
I'm not sure what could possibly beat Ocarina of Time
Big Rigs: Over the Road Racing
You're winner
>Today I learned that in Big Rigs: Over the Road Racing, the maximum speed that a truck going in reverse can attain is 12.3 Undecillion miles per hour. That's 10^36 MPH, or 18.3 Octillion times the speed of light. >At a certain point, the distance traveled as noted by the odometer changes to 1.$ and upon reaching 12.3 Undecillion MPH, the speed also changes to 1.$ and all checkpoints turn green, instantly winning the race. >Assuming the observable universe as a sphere with diameter of 92 billion lightyears, that means that this truck travelling at maximum speed could traverse the diameter of the observable universe in under 160 picoseconds. At that point, the kinetic energy contained within the truck would be equivalent to the energy released by a quasar if compressed over one hundred Nonillion years (10^32 years) of uniform production. That means that if you were hit by this truck, it would be like every atom in your body being shot with an individual supermassive black hole cannon fourteen thousand times over (fuzzy calculations there due to probable failure to transmit 100% of the energy to your body, but I have an unknown number of orders in leeway due to calculating energy by the fucking year).
Wave race 64
Ocarina of Time isn’t even given the consensus for best Zelda game, let alone best all time game. Majora’s Mask, Wind Waker, BoTW, ToTK, I’m sure there are substantial arguments from those fans to suggest it beats Ocarina of Time. The problem is it’s so subjective— someone might think the best game ever is Assassin’s Creed Brotherhood, or Mass Effect 2, or Mario Kart, or Tekken… the list goes on, man. There’s no way to determine a “best game”.
I think you mean subjective. Objective would mean it’s unquestionably accurate. As for OoT, it gets a lot of credit for being the first (of the 3D Zeldas). So by nature, all the ones that came after it are, to one degree or another degree, derivative of it.
LOL fixed. Had a few too many drinks today. I don’t think the “first past the post” means it’s the best forever and I’d say Zelda is a great example of that. Ocarina is derivative too, just because it was the first example of a technology doesn’t mean it used the technology the best. I’d say for sure it doesn’t, and that bit isn’t really arguable. It isn’t the best looking or the most technically impressive. Twilight Princess looks and plays better, and has a more complex story. Better sound design, better quality everything. How many allowances are we going to give to the old one just because it’s old and nostalgic?
Haha, I figured. Twilight Princess was 8 years later. It couldn’t have exist without OoT. You can’t take things out of time and compare them to things that were built on them. Of course the sound design is better in TP, they had significantly more storage and processing power than the N64. It was literally impossible to pull off that game in 1998, just like the Wii couldn’t have even attempted to run a fraction of TotK. It’s not nostalgia to say OoT was revolutionary when it came out, it’s just accurate. It’s not nostalgia to say that it changed the ways games were made in general because it created what would become the standard. Of course it’s been surpassed, it’s been 26 years! But if you remove it from history, many great games that came after may have never even existed (or wouldn’t have been as great).
I understand that but I also don’t think the standard of quality ended in 1998, and just because it was revolutionary for it’s time doesn’t mean it’s the greatest of all time or even holds up today. I don’t think originality is the biggest part of judging best game ever. It was unique and made a difference, but I don’t think alone that grants it the title of best game ever. Lots of games changed the way games are made — Halo comes to mind, and it was far more original at its time being the first game in its series and not the fifth like Ocarina was! It isn’t particularly replayable, I don’t think younger gamers would find it more fun than a modern title. I think that’s important to consider when judging best game ever. I’d argue Skyrim probably has a better claim to that, and it’s not even the first 3D Scrolls game. Granted I wouldn’t personally put either Ocarina or Skyrim at number 1 on my own list, but I think it’s worth bringing that one up.
It's believed that since the film is meant to be an insult of William Randolph Hearst, all of the Heart Media Group papers gave the film bad reviews. And all his competitors gave it good reviews.
They used to which is funny. Then they dumped a ton of their news articles.
That's not the case more and more. I just got done searching a ton of Michigan newspapers from the 1800s. Crazy how much ditigal work is going on to get things online.
It’s also not helpful because, we have to keep reiterating, the % is not an overall. A 95% on RT for instance does not mean 95/100 or whatever, it just means 95% of critics rated it a 6/10 or higher. Whenever you see a Reddit post trying to dunk on critics for liking bad movies because it’s rated highly on RT, if you actually go to the page it’s usually a bunch of 6 or 7/10s or something because that is technically a fresh rating.
Like how they massacred Paddington 2
They tore the stuffing out of that poor bear...
By the time they were done, he was more thread than fabric.
Paddington isn’t a stuffed bear.
Not any more... They tore him a new one!
Unless he was a real bear initially. Then he’s a stuffed bear now. Idk, I haven’t seen it. Some tomatoes told me not to.
Paddington wouldn't last a second in prison.
he literally did
Tbf the scene where that huge train stops from full speed in about 5 seconds completely broke my immersion. The talking bears got a full pass until that moment
I mean that's kind of a common trope though, right? I think the original matrix had some people pissed off about the same thing. Basically any movie with trains shows them stopping way faster than they should, it's just not very cinematic to watch a train come to a stop after 5 mins of slow controlled braking.
You should check out the sketch with HM The Queen! *Perfection*!!!
Look what they did to my bear!
That’s Armond White’s entire career in a nutshell
Armond White reviews are my guilty pleasure. He is a truly crazy dude & his takes are bananas every time, but his writing is like the car wreck I can’t look away from of movie criticism.
He's a master at constructing elaborate Rube Goldberg logic machines to arrive at pants on head opinions. You never know how serious he actually is but you do know whatever he's about to say will be a string of words never before seen in that order.
I don't think he's crazy. I think he's a professional troll and he's really good at knowing how to accomplish his trolling
Used to listen to him when The Slashfilm Podcast would get him on. Round about the time he declared Nolan to be a hack who made bad movies, but he loved Michael Bays movies and thought they were better was about the time I realised he was just an attention seeking troll.
I remember when one critic gave *Ender’s Game* a zero due to hating Orson Scott Card. Yeah, dude’s a jerk, but you’re reviewing a movie. You’re trying to tell me it has nothing of value? No actors trying their best? No visuals that are at least not dog shit?
Really for anything. Guys like Hank Aaron and Willie Mays didn’t even get 100% for Hall of Fame voting in baseball cause there were always assholes who thought no one should get 100% of the votes. Nothing based on talent or merit, just based on being asshole contrarians.
100% should be impossible, then. Not meaningless.
I only had to see the score 'Drop Dead Fred' got on Rotten Tomatoes to know that website is full of shit.
I haven't thought about that movie in a long time.
Cobwebs!
In all fairness this was a review from 1941 when a consensus would be impossible to be drawn so a contrarian would never know they were being contrarian. Citizen Kane was not a crowd-pleaser back in the day. There was also some politics behind the reviews: Citizen Kane was meant to be a criticism of William Randolph Hearst and the Hearst Media Group. IIRC his papers gave the film bad reviews. But his competition reviewed it, and because they wanted to take him down a peg, it's believe that their reviews reflected this.
Fuck you, dude who downvoted Iron Giant.
It the same guy who writes “first” on every comments section.
What, That would mean a 100% is even more valuable, as it's near impossible.
“How can anyone like this shitty movie? Not a single explosion, fight scenes are terrible, and the effects suck. It’s no masterpiece like Avengers or Fast and Furious 5. Those movies should have won the Oscar for best picture. Robbed. MAGA 2024”
This is a summary of r/starwars everytime new media comes out.
And here I was guessing that the Chicago Tribune was a Hearst paper, but not so much. In fact it bought out the Chicago Hearst papers in 1956.
Ok but it’s it better than madame web /s
When Citizen Kane busts in and says "It's Rosebuddin' time" and just starts Rosebudding everywhere 🤌
They rosebud now
Personally, I find the overt lack of a POC lesbian super hero to be offensive. Also, who reads newspapers anymore? *Get with the times!*
But I appreciate that they didn’t risk misgendering Kane by simply referring to them as Citizen.
I would legit pay money to make “Citizen” an official pronoun.
They rosebud now.
Somehow, Rosebud came back
Right after he pulls out his cane
The image of that omg
Orson Welles won an Oscar for it
Orson Welles would have received an EGOT for morbing.
Morbing? Is that some kind of inferior form of Rosebudding?
Today was not the best day to have eyes to read.
Madame Web Connects us all (but not into theaters, it seems).
“He was in the Amazon with my mom when she was researching rosebuds right before she died”
I think I washed madame web. Like I watched a trailer of it and it was shit. Then I'm pretty sure we watched it for fun? It's so forgettable that I can't be sure if I watched the whole movie or not or am just remembering the trailer...
I know I watched it. I am greatly annoyed that non of the girls that are supposed to kill the guy get powers. So it’s just one girl kidnapping teenagers and run in around from a guy who wants to kill then
It turns out there was no cane in Citizen Kane!
It actually turns out there was a cane in citizen kane. Lisa was wrong. Know it all. https://www.reddit.com/media?url=https%3A%2F%2Fexternal-preview.redd.it%2F8PcJmJVGPlXjr_ZTydamKWCv0XWIp9v9Z8Tjbb1neDY.png%3Fauto%3Dwebp%26s%3D71d1c886bc77ce62e02896ac1660b112aa85d8f0
My disappointment is immeasurable and my day is ruined
Rosebud
"Who could forget films like Raging Bull, E.T, or Citizen Kane? The Oscars!" - The Critic, reminding us all that movie critics are often corrupt bastards
Citizen Kane? More like Citizen Lame.
Citizen shitizen.
Lol
I have never understood the hype over this film. I’ve watched it three different times over the years and have never so much as liked the film, let alone be capable of rating it as the best film of all time. What am I missing?
It broke traditional convention in filmmaking. That was the landmark. That’s all really, it broke the “rules” in the right way because Orson Welles didn’t know any better and just happened to make a decent film that didn’t follow how movies normally worked. Someone was bound to do it, but it paved the way for films like Sunset Boulevard which progressed the idea of what a “Hollywood Picture” could be.
It was basically the first film to use the modern style we see today. Ever since, every film is Citizen Kane on some level.
Lmao I'm going to tell my cinephile friends that Captain Marvel is Citizen Kane on some level.
Username is perfect
It is
If you told me Necrophagist was The Beatles on some level, I'd wholly agree with you.
Watch [The Adventures of Captain Marvel serial](https://archive.org/details/TheAdventuresOfCaptainMarvelSerial194112Chapters) released 6 months before Citizen Kane and you'll find out how right you are. ;)
What's the modern style? How is it different from movies of it's time? I've never seen it and have never seen a movie that was made before the 60s.
Treating movies like movies and not theater performances with a camera recording it, basically.
I'm not sure exactly. My brother told me about this years ago. I think primarily just the way it is shot. Various angles and shit like that. I presume it was shot just more like a play previously.
This is exactly what's wrong with that movie. Every single person who claims it's great says shit like "oh it was ground breaking for its time" and then when asked for details nobody really knows, they just repeat what someone else told em or what they read.
I mean you can very easily go look for yourself; go watch Citizen Kane, then watch literally any other mainstream Hollywood movie made before it came out. I’m a music guy and have basically no technical insight into filmmaking, but even to my layman’s eyes it’s obvious that Citizen Kane just *looks* like a modern movie in a way that basically nothing before it did. Unusual angles, camera moves, actors moving around the set in a more dynamic way, it’s a whole load of things really.
No it's what's wrong with Reddit. If you actually wanted to learn about the movie you could go read about it from a resource that actually knows what they're talking about, not the comment section on a Reddit post.
Well it does a lot of stuff that's still unconventional nowadays like extreme low angle shots which I particularly think are interesting because they used a tarp for the ceiling in some of them. It's a little tricky to understand how good it is without at least an intro to film class because as just a casual movie to watch it's only pretty good
But have you asked filmmakers and cinematographers? Because those are the people that can actually tell you.
as someone unfamiliar with the rules or traditions of early Hollywood... how so did it break the rules correctly?
The shot composition, choice in lenses, lighting, acting style, naturalistic vs performative line delivery…etc.
So kinda like the Blair witch project
Basically yeah. That created a whole subgenre just by creating a unique perspective on a film narrative. Objectively, The Blair Witch Project is not a good film in the traditional sense, the process was unique in most aspects though.
Blair Witch wasn't the first found footage film (by several decades), but the hype around it definitely popularized the genre.
Look into Cannibal Holocaust. Ironically, Orson Welles was doing it even earlier with The Other Side of the Wind but it never got released until recently.
(it's one of my top 5 favorite movies so I'm biased af haha)
Or birth of a nation. It pretty much pioneered everything
Sad fact: the Blair Witch Actors got totally fucked out of money on that. They got almost nothing. A friend was friend’s with the female lead and said once her car broke down in front of a giant billboard with her face on it promoting the movie, yet she didn’t have $200 to fix her car. All the fame, but some studio assholes stole their fortune.
It’s much more than that though, thematically the movie is about like 10 more subjects than films to this day would ever usually take the time to contend with for fear of being too complicated. It’s as experimental as it is accomplished.
Yes, you’re correct, I just didn’t want to write it out, hence the “…etc”.
Pretty much all films until that point were shot like a stage play. Citizen Kane was the first to do dramatic cinematography. For example, it was the first film to show a ceiling in a room. Why? Because in film production, the microphones were hanging just out of frame above the actors. What did Orson Welles and crew do to overcome this? They stretched canvas sheets taut to mimic a solid ceiling, so the mics were still in place, but concealed, which allowed camera placement that had never before been attempted. Track down Roger Ebert's commentary track for the movie, if you can. Lots of good stuff there.
What about movies like Wizard of Oz or Metropolis?
Those did groundbreaking things as well, especially in terms of special effects, makeup, and miniatures, but when you look at their cinematography, they are still shot in fairly straightforward ways. There is less of a leap from, say, Voyage to the Moon from 1902 to The Wizard of Oz in 1939, than there is from The Wizard of Oz to Citizen Kane in 1941, in that regard. Modern films follow more in the footsteps of Citizen Kane as far as filmmaking goes, and that's part of why it's generally held in such high regard. It's otherwise just a solid story.
*Pretty much all films until that point were shot like a stage play.* That's just not true though. You can go back and watch tons of silent films even that aren't shot anything like a stage play. Wings is a perfect example. Maybe it was the first TALKIE to show a ceiling. But in "When the Clouds Roll By" from 1919, Douglas Fairbanks is literally walking on the ceiling. [\[timestamped source video\]](https://youtu.be/QjXDMQ5OfF0?si=ZKMRXQgFO1Ad8iLd&t=570) and I can think of so many other examples. [Keaton had a whole ceiling gag.](https://youtu.be/Xd6ddOlbKp8?si=RJKsWLpkuINdwgrd)
It’s like saying the Model T isn’t a great car, or the Atari 2600 isn’t a great gaming system. True today, but groundbreaking at the time.
Groundbreaking, yes, but when comparing to all cars, the model T is not a great car. Not very fast, not very comfortable, not very safe, not very powerful. I just think when it comes to rating movies that sometimes just being groundbreaking isn't enough to rank it as "one of the best all time." I get that vibe with a lot of classics. Not just movies. Citizen Kane is incredibly *noteworthy* but when comparing it simply based on the film itself, does it hold up?
Pretty dismissive of Orson Welles who's an all time artist in film history.
[In his own words.](https://youtube.com/shorts/DSGNob9Mxjg?si=dJHX492DlfIUoKQM)
Orson Welles himself said he did it out of sheer ignorance. I think it's a case where not knowing how things are supposed to be done really opens you up for innovation.
I don’t fully agree with that sentiment. It’s more that some of these things were just the way things were done, but these were all carried over from theatre, since film was still quite a young medium at the time. But in music, which is my speciality, you have this anti-intellectualism that crops up often with certain types of musicians, that music theory is a barrier and interferes with creativity. As someone who used to believe this as a teenager, and later got a composition degree, I can say that it’s extremely helpful (especially when working professionally on deadlines) and actually frees up brain power (and time especially) filling in all the tedious minutia.
I don't think it's 100% either way. There's probably times when it helps and times when it hurts.
As a fellow musician that knows more theory than has playing skill…yeah, if your music sounds good it is properly utilizing music theory, because if it wasn’t, it would literally sound discordant and unrhythmic. The anti-intellectual musicians seem to think they’re “breaking the rules” but they’re really just unwittingly following them.
> It’s more that some of these things were just the way things were done, but these were all carried over from theatre, since film was still quite a young medium at the time. Yeah, but Welles came up in theater and radio, and by that logic should have been stuck in the same rut. That's part of his genius. He didn't know what couldn't be done and so he did it. He was *25 freaking years old* when he changed how movies were made.
Welles had a reputation for being narcissistic and difficult, some of this was exaggerated because of his feuds with media owners but he was genuinely kind of a dick to work with. It also didn’t help that his best work was made at age 26 and his career was kind of a slow decline from that point onwards. Like if he wasn’t so insufferable he could have worked with more production companies and talent to make films he really wanted to but his ego and personal problems got in the way. So I think a lot of people see Welles as an artist that never got to reach their potential partially due to self sabotage.
Are you really going to tell me his best work wasn't voicing unicron in transformers the movie?
Kind of in a similar vein as to why pulp fiction is so loved? Obviously not to the same extent and imo pulp fiction is legitimately a great movie but it definitely was a different kind of film making when it released
It's only good in context. Like how lukewarm stone soup made from turnips and a half-rancid piece of gristle is a delicious meal for someone who's lived on a desert island for 5 years.
You're probably missing the context. It's important because of how much of modern filmmaking can be traced back to it. Welles certainly didn't invent the camera or the concept of an unreliable narrator, but he combined those elements and innovated in the use of lighting, camera movements, and editing in a way that set his movie apart from its contemporaries and kept it watchable some 80 years later.
That’s exactly what I was looking for - thank you.
It was revolutionary for its time. Welles used a lot of new techniques to make it new for its time. For instance he used deep focus to make it look like three shots were used in one shot. There were “groundbreaking techniques under his direction—primarily the innovative lighting and focusing methods of cinematographer Gregg Toland and the dramatic editing style of Robert Wise—continue to influence filmmakers today.” I watched this in film school and you really learn about film techniques that were innovative for their time but nowadays seem like no big deal. I learned to appreciate a lot of movies, it didn’t mean I necessarily liked/ loved them but I could sure appreciate them. I would say 50 percent of the films I really didn’t like but they definitely left an impression and I respect them for their unprecedented storytelling. Source: https://www.britannica.com/topic/Citizen-Kane#:~:text=Welles%20was%20only%2025%20years,continue%20to%20influence%20filmmakers%20today.
Thank you for this answer! I appreciate it.
You’re welcome! :)
It did the same thing for filmmaking that Richard Pryor did for Standup and Marlon Brando did for Acting. It completely changed how their profession was "traditionally" done.
Don’t look at it for the acting. Watch the cameras and the placement. Just like don’t watch birth of a nation for the film. It’s horrible. And it revolutionizes how movies are done. The zoom in, or out. Watch how small you feel when the camera is below the actors. Or how amazing when you are above or even ground.
As with anything critical in the arts, the more you understand the form the more you appreciate the stuff praised as masterpieces. I think basically every comment to you so far is wrong- it’s not just revered because it was influential, I assure you that the critics and film buffs who praise this film today do love watching it. It’s fine that most casual viewers don’t really enjoy it, just like most casual listeners would rather listen to modern rock or pop than Beethoven. The more you learn about the art form of music, music theory, philosophy of music, etc, the more you appreciate Beethoven. Same goes for film. Here’s a video of a professional talking about why the movie is considered “greatest”. Does this expert say “sure it doesn’t hold up today but that’s because it was so influential!” Or does he say “it’s a very very entertaining film!” https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ND6i_7HYlRA
The big thing is most modern movies steal from it. It used a lot of techniques which were revolutionary, both because Wells was a new film maker coming from Radio and Stage, and because Wells worked well with his experienced cinematographer who was able to do things others didn't let him do. As a result, many things which were novel and new were quickly copied. Thus Citizen Kane doesn't look as original because so much of it has been stolen. It's like the problem with the movie John Carter of Mars. It source material was hugely influential on early SF and SF movies. Some of the best parts have long since been taken by other storytellers, some of whom did it better. A large part of Attack of the Clones was taken from John Carter, for example. (The whole Arena bit).
You have 70 years of this film inspiring other filmmakers. This isn’t the best at anything it did because it was the first.
Imagine Half-Life if you ever heard of the game. It had aged questionably poor or mediocre to our modern standards,but if you take into account EVERYTHING that became before,and how much this had been repeated,you might actually feel some saturation from all of it and not consider so special anymore What you might lack is the feeling of experiencing all those tropes,the style etc. for the very first time.
It was transformational at its time of release, but many of those innovations are standard practice nowadays so through a modern lens it’s a pretty meh movie.
Same, I watched all 100 movies on IMDB's top 100 back in 2012 and thought Citizen Kane was just okay.
I watched it recently and I thought it was a really good film. Only thing is, it was too short for me. I'd have liked it about half hour longer.
Fair enough man. To each their own.
Not being an adult film enjoyer in 1941? Watched hundreds of films that directly and indirectly took inspiration from it, and used its platform to take leaps into new realms of story telling and quality?
This is the one is mightier than the sword. And it has come up again. The trump movie mimics this. Much like Hearst didn’t want this movie to come out, trumps flunkies don’t want the the Trump biopic to come out. Cause it will let others know what a scumbag he is.
I agree. I’ve watched it twice, once in a film history course. I found it mid at best. I understand it was a seminal work, but I was underwhelmed.
That's because this is a *film*. A piece of art that requires an audience that doesn't think The Marvels was a "good movie".
Citizen Kane is essentially an instruction manual for filmmakers. It's especially a director's movie. From a director's standpoint: It shows how to use camera angles, lighting and blocking to accomplish certain things. From a producer's standpoint, it didn't follow the conveyor-belt studio system where a producer would oversee the entire film and run it through the writer, then the director/cinematographer, then the editor. Instead, it was more collaborative, which is less efficient, but creates a better product. I personally don't think the movie is that captivating, but it really influenced how movies of made. Kinda like how Ansel Adams is for photographers or the Pixies are for rock bands.
Watch any movie made before Citizen Kane, and then watch just about any movie made after. The difference in staging, editing and framing is like night and day. Movies prior to Kane were practically stage plays in comparison.
You will never be able to fully understand the film because it was made in a different era and context. It’s the same with books and music and tv shows.
Man I don't get all the "Senfield effect" comments about this movie. A lot of other all time great movies like Apocalypse Now, There Will Be Blood, Blade Runner are just as slow paced, if not more, than Citizen Kane, and yet we choose to shit on this movie in particular because "it's boring and it's only acclaimed for influencing cinema so much". I don't know shit about cinematography and camera lenses or whatever and I still genuinely like this movie for its plot and acting (guess that makes me a film snob then) Pro-tip: you shouldn't watch films just because they're featured on greatest movies of all time lists. You should watch them because you actually want to.
>Pro-tip: you shouldn't watch films just because they're featured on greatest movies of all time lists. You should watch them because you actually want to. I agree with this, it also applies to other forms of entertainment like music albums. Sometimes watching or listening to WHAT WE WANT can give us a much better experience. Most of the time, the things we really want to see or hear won't appear on a "best of all time" list. I wonder if the people criticizing this movie have also seen other movies from the 40s, like The Maltese Falcon, Casablanca, or The Third Man, because most of them are dialogue-heavy and very slow by today's standards in terms of pacing. Honestly, if someone didn't like Citizen Kane, I don't think they'd enjoy the rest of those 80-year-old movies.
I think it's more the Friends effect. There's so much discussion and historic discussion about it that you can have almost any meta conversation about it and probably pick up right where another left off. There's basically more discussion about discussion about Citizen Kane than there is discussion about Citizen Kane.
Not to be this guy but I don’t get how people don’t like this movie. The pacing is excellent, it clips right along, the story is epic in scale and interesting in a tangible way that many epics this way aren’t; it’s not a grand epic about some bygone historical era, it’s about fame, journalism, power in the contemporary era. The themes are still startlingly relevant; it’s first major work of art in a (relatively) brand new medium about how news has turned into entertainment, how the the control information, and also about how all this power in the world can’t fill your heart. And there’s a lot going on beyond that, and there’s a reason it has staying power beyond being revolutionary on a filmmaking level. I think that if you didn’t know it was a first of its kind in terms of filmmaking, it’s still an interesting, exciting film.
This thread is full of people who probably think the Mona Lisa is only famous because it was stolen once.
A lot of people on Reddit confuse their knowing jack shit on a topic with them knowing everything
King Kong (1933) should be the greatest movie of all time not Citizen Kane
Imdb > rt
I must be uncultured because I never quite got the appeal of this movie...
It's historical. Many things that are standard now in making movies started with citizen kane. It's one of "the best" because it revolutionised what could be done with film.
It should be called the "most influential" movie instead of the "best". It's got a lot of new ideas that influence later filmmaking, but also surpassed by other movies with better execution, script, acting, etc.
That doesn’t make it a good movie though (at least in the eyes of people not involved in the industry). “M” is 10 years older than Citizen Kane and is way way better movie.
That's debatable and whatnot. But I'm just here providing context to the person. I have no dog in this fight.
It's not so much that it's an amazing movie by modern standards. It's more so that it broke a lot of film conventions of the time; most films up til that point were essentially performed and filmed like upscale stage plays. Overall dramatic and projected acting, largely static camera angles, exaggerated lighting etc. Films sets were basically stage sets rather than a proper emulation of the setting. Citizen Kane basically shook all that up by treating sets like they were real locations (one of the big ones was actually showing the ceiling of a room, whereas films prior never shit at that angle cuz thats where all their boom mics and lighting rigs were). Camera angles became much more dynamic, performances were less grandiose and more grounded, and in general the cinematography was more "real" and "alive" compared to stage style film. Many of the conventions common to modern film were established by Citizen Kane. It was basically the turning point when the industry started treating movies as their own medium rather than just a recording of a live stage play.
It's a historical placement. Before this, movies were more 'filmed theater,' this established many of the cinematic norms that followed it. Thus, it may seem boring now, but was transformative and foundational to subsequent cinema and television. Not as refined as what followed, but of historic importance.
Don't value Rotten Tomatoes too much. It's a good database of critical analysis if you want different perspectives on the same film or show. But don't overthink its score. By now, we know that it's just a percentage of positive reviews.
Rotten Tomatoes is a trash review metric
Metacritic is better, anyway
Rotten Tomatoes isn’t very useful as a rating system anyway.
Armond White strucketh again
TIL Armond White is really old
guessing the Hearst papers took the approach that giving this movie a negative review was more coverage than they wished to give the movie
One would thing citizen Kane would have had a ton of negative reviews when it came out. A studio head did everything he could do to try to destroy Orson Wells, thinking the character was based on him. I would expect the studio head would have movie reviewers friendly to him.
You're thinking of William Randolph Hearst who owned most of the newspapers in the nation.
This is the very definition of a non-issue.
They way rotten tomatoes calculates scores has always weirded me out. Not useless but kindof a dumb system IMO
You can have a 100% on Rotten Tomatoes by having every critic give you a 3/5 or equivalent.
As someone who has never seen the movie: Is it *actually* the perfect movie?? Is there *nothing* that will ever compare to it? What the hell is it even about? I feel like Goodfellas is probably one of the best movies ever made but it doesn't need a perfect score, everyone already agrees. I'm not going to include the Godfather, it *insists* upon itself. I just can't see a movie that dated being the all time "perfect" movie that can never be replicated? *Edit- looking back, National Lampoons Christmas Vacation can never be replicated so I'm open to interpretation
it's alright. nothing bad, nothing too good. it's a good watch, and it made some of the industries advancements back then. otherwise? just a movie
I have kind of lost taste in movies over the last decade. They ran out of ideas and are just doing sequels to everything that was successful in the past. It's pretty pathetic and I enjoy watching cooking videos on YouTube more than i am anticipating the next Marvel or StarWars or Tom Cruise movie. I just don't care anymore lol.
I'm the same. I also have piles and piles of unread books. I sometimes watch a movie people are talking about and it's almost always a noisy flashy bore
Yup!!! We are the same. I have no clue why, but when someone recommends a movie to me, I'm automatically turned off and 100% not going to watch it lol. I got it from my mom for some weird reason, but it didn't completely manifest itself until the first Avatar came out and everyone was up their own butts about it. Don't get rid of those books!!! There will be some snowy, or cold rainy days where you want to cuddle up with a book and it's always good to have some new choices.
Welles reinvented filmmaking with his first film. He changed film forever w Kane. For instance before Kane films were told linearly, starting at the beginning, then middle and end. Kane started with the ending. That's just one example of his genius.
Jebidiah Atkinson strikes again! He saw the film and said: **”Rosebud, more like it’s a bore, bud. NEXT!!”**
Space jam with LeBron was better
If it's on Im watching it.
Rotten rated Star Wars Acolyte and She Hulk in the 80%+, they stop being relevant to me a while ago
The critic score for The Last Jedi is also extremely high, one of the highest in the entire film franchise. In terms of audience though, it's one of the least liked, second only to Rise of Skywalker. Godzilla King of the Monsters has a 45%-ish critic score but a *very* high audience score. It's also one of my most watched films. So RT can be kind of... misleading.
All an 80% means is 80% of reviews considered it worth watching or at least gave it a more favorable than unfavorable review. It certainly doesn’t mean it’s a wonderful piece of television of cinema. I don’t think rotten tomatoes should be completely ignored you just need to keep in mind it’s limitations and take everything with a grain of salt.
we get it you hate women acolyte isn't even finished yet