Citizen Kane (1941)

Third viewing (1st: before 1987, 2nd: March 7, 1987).

The life of a newspaper owner is told through the testimony of several people who knew him.

I think I finally absorbed all the power of this film, after two earlier viewings in which, for reasons I am not fully aware of, I had a hard time staying awake. Maybe it is just the fact that now I saw it at home, and was able to take a break whenever I felt tired. In fact, there is nothing dull about it, it is a relentlessly energetic film. Admittedly, it is a very formalist enterprise, and I would be extremely dishonest if I tried to make it into a political or sociological or psychological essay or something like that. Many critics at the time of its release were clearly expecting something in those lines, and were deeply disappointed. One of its harshest critics is, paradoxically, the one who got closest to defining it: Jorge Luis Borges, the writer, said it is "a labyrinth without a center". He went on to predict the film's reputation would not survive long. He was wrong of course (and seems to have retracted from that opinion later in life), and his definition, although meant as disparaging, is actually the best compliment one could make. There is no higher aesthetic achievement for a work of art than being "a labyrinth without a center". This absence of a center is perhaps exactly what Welles had in mind and what he meant by "taking the mickey out of it" when referring to the central Rosebud mystery. Meaning in art is not to be preached or explained. All the same, few movies makes us more aware of the destructive power of financial capitalism than Citizen Kane.

Rating: 90 (unchanged)