Take for example, the scene in which Kane is speaking to his newly married, first wife. He took what he learned about telling a story and brought that to his movie-making. Citizen Kane is perfect because you can learn everything you ever needed to know about how to analyze a film from it, and it is such a beautifully simple story, with complex characters, making the everyday important, just as it should be in our own lives.įirst off, Orson Welles, the writer/director/actor in this film, who actually plays Citizen Kane, was only 25 when he accomplished this feat! He had previously been made popular through his famous “War of the Worlds” broadcast. Some movies do a poor job of sending a message and those are the movies that people watch and forget to learn from them. You must find universal truth and your own personal growth from what you take from the movie. No…to get the message of the film you have to watch and know what to look for-the subtle nuances and the mise-en-scene, everything that is in a particular frame, because those are the clues and you are the detective. It may never cross the lips of any of the characters, or be written in white on a black screen (as in black and whites), and it won’t be mystically entered into your computerized mind, or sent as a message to your iPhone. This is my life for a day.” Film is only about escaping in the sense that a message must escape from the scenes, and the story as a whole. I get to live in this other world for the day. Being able to turn your brain off and say, “Ok. Watching a film takes so much more than just escaping from your own life for a few hours. After watching it, and knowing more about true appreciation of film I get it, so to speak. Citizen Kane (1941) I always wondered Citizen Kane was on the top 100 list of “Best Movies Ever,” or “Timeless films,” or whatever really.

Peace through power kane