A milestone in the history of film, it occupies a prominent position on any triumphal arch that praises film achievements. It is the "pioneering work" of film art and the turning point in the history of modern films and traditional films.
"Citizen Kane", also known as "The Grand National", is a biographical film with rich connotations and philosophy. It was also written by the 25-year-old film master Orson Welles at the time. , self-directed and self-acted masterpiece. The film opens with the death of Kane, a newspaper tycoon, and through his life experience and the rise and fall of his career, it witnesses the complex truth under a capitalist myth. In terms of content and form, "Citizen Kane" "" embodies unique novelty in both content and form, and is therefore regarded as an important experiment and innovation in the history of world cinema.
"Citizen Kane" was filmed more than 60 years ago, but it is still regarded as a well-deserved champion and number one classic among the "Top Ten Films in Film History". It was listed in the authoritative British magazine "Sight and Sound" "Since 1952, every 10 years, the world's top directors and film critics have participated in the "Top Ten World Cinema" selections, and it has topped the list for three consecutive years. Its influence is evident. However, what is puzzling is that "Citizen Kane" is also a film whose box office is far out of proportion to its reputation. When explaining this phenomenon, a senior film critic said: "It is not the kind of movie that makes people look forward to it. It is not a plot film, but a film with a high degree of condensation of life, a profound understanding of human nature and society, and a rational experience of the psychological world. Its meaning is profound and needs to be chewed over and over again. It is a pure movie "Citizen Kane" has an immortality that breaks away from the fetters of time. It rises to a new level in every aspect. Some aspects have been imitated to the point of flooding, but some have not yet dared to break through. . Many of the films that followed it only made breakthroughs at a certain level or at a certain point, and were strongly sought after by everyone. However, "Citizen Kane" greatly broke through the original expression techniques of film art at every level, and some were almost It has reached the level of "no one will come after".
——Senior film critic Zhou Liming in the United States
Hollywood financiers (and perhaps movie audiences around the world) can accept beautiful prose as well as poetic prose. Prose... but perhaps they have difficulty in accepting pure poetry, legend, fable, myth, and here I mean the movie Citizen Kane.
——Famous French director Francois Truffaut
Orson Welles and his debut film "Citizen Kane" are the cornerstones of modern cinema. No matter who you are, as long as you have a movie like "Citizen Kane", you can only give people one feeling: the mountains are high and the mountains are high. This kind of achievement is enough to make people look down on the world and stand proudly among the heroes.
Therefore, Orson Welles should be immortalized together with his "Citizen Kane", and he should occupy a prominent position on the forehead of any triumphal arch that honors heroes in film history.
——The famous French film theorist André Bazin
The experts’ voting results are like a touchstone, which accurately reflects their views on global films. For the past 40 years, "Citizen Kane" has been in a league of its own, firmly at the top of the charts. Orson Welles is simply the Shakespeare of modern cinema!
——Nick James, editor-in-chief of "Sight and Sound"
One day in 1940, at Fairyland Beach in Florida At Nadu Manor, 76-year-old newspaper magnate Charles Foster Kane died of illness. Before his death, he left no last words except murmuring the words "Rosebud."
The death of this powerful man known as "Kubla Khan of America" ??was reported on the front pages of various newspapers. Young reporter Thomson was very interested in Kane's last words "Rosebud" , wondering what it really means and trying to figure out what kind of person Kane is. So he decided to interview those close to Kane, those who loved him and those who hated him.
The first interviewee was Kane's second wife, Susan, but she flatly refused to be interviewed, and Thomson was turned away with an eviction order of "get out".
In the library of Philadelphia, Thomson consulted the undisclosed manuscript of the memoirs of the late banker Thay Chell. I learned that when Kane was a child, his family became prosperous due to mining development, and was later entrusted to Thatcher by his mother.
After Kane obtained property rights as an adult, he bought the first newspaper on his own initiative, published the "Enquirer", and openly opposed Thatcher. Thatcher believed that Kane was just a lucky gangster and a shameless person with no sense of responsibility. disciples.
After that, Thomson met with Bernstein, the general manager who cooperated with Kane in running the newspaper, and Leland, Kane's college friend who later became a drama columnist, and learned about Kane. Some snippets of his life: He became a man of the hour when he set up the Inquirer and got involved in politics. He married twice and divorced twice. Once he married Amy, the president's niece, which made him rise to the top, but since this was a political marriage, it was predictable; once he married the female singer Susan, who once It was a sensation, but this time it failed to recover. After the Great Depression, the "Kaine Empire" quickly declined and prospered.
Thomson once again visited Su and Enkai's old housekeeper Raymond, and learned that in his later years, after Susan ran away, Cheng's temper became bad and he lived in seclusion and loneliness until he died of illness. But when Thomson asked these people about "Rosebud", they didn't know how much they had caught. Some people might have it was a girl he had loved, or something he had lost. Some people even thought it was "something wrong with their brains". Normal" to prevaricate.
Thomson interviewed five people in turn and got different stories, but he was still unable to solve the mystery of the "rose blue and white buds".
Kane's precious belongings will be auctioned, and some other sundries will be burned. While burning the property, Thomson suddenly discovered that a ski with the trademark "Rose Blue White Bud" was thrown into it. The fire, the flames swallowed it up, and black smoke came out of the chimney...
Orson Welles and his "Citizen Kane"
One day in 1938 , when millions of Americans listened to the realistic radio drama "War of the Worlds", they were shocked to learn that the earth was at war with Martians, and great panic broke out among the public. It wasn't until the next day that the truth came out. It turned out that people had been fooled by this radio program. In today's terms, this program was actually a "show". At the same time, everything about the author of this radio program It immediately became the headlines of major newspapers reporting that this person's name was Orson Welles.
Wells attracted the attention of some psychologists with his precocious wisdom since childhood. When he was 20 years old, he served as the drama director of the "Mercury Theater". A few years later, RKO saw Inspired by Welles' outstanding talents, he entered into an employment contract with him and agreed to give him special powers as producer and director. This young talent arrived in Hollywood when the war broke out in Europe. When he saw his decaying studio, he cheered happily: "This is the best mechanical toy that one can give a child!"< /p>
Welles was fascinated by the possibilities that the studio's "mechanical toy" offered him. The first film he directed was Citizen Kane, which told the story of a newspaper magnate, but Welles, influenced by literary techniques and his own radio plays, narrated the story through several witnesses. Zhongchang breaks away from the chronological order. At the same time, he also accumulated some innovative techniques in the film, such as chiaroscuro photography, ceiling-mounted scenery, systematic application of long focal length lenses, excessive mobile photography, and research on sound, etc. Most of these effects are derived from some old styles and techniques in classic compositions and are integrated into them. The strong sense of shape, bold attempts in form, and strong individuality in color (although the style has too much expressive colors) can be said to be super avant-garde at the time. Wells went through all obstacles and wrote that Citizen Kane from the beginning of the Cuban War to 1940 was not so much a newspaper giant as an extreme self-interested operation. As the film progresses, the development of the plot gradually becomes confusing, but the theme becomes more and more prominent, that is, in a materialistic society, many Faustian characters sell their souls in order to gain the desire of the entire world. The state of the entire material world reflected in the film is the most discussed film in the history of film. From the current perspective, it has changed the traditional film shooting model of Hollywood in the past, and has continued to influence the development of movies. It can be regarded as one of the most successful characters in the history of film. It has demonstrated artistic excellence. Power, bravery, ruggedness, impact, entertainment and personal experience all reached the pinnacle of that era.
Between words and images
"Citizen Kane" uses a method that seemed quite modern in 1941 (long shots, depth of field shots, low illumination, etc.) to tell the story of "a The story of a man who almost lost everything he owned. Kane is a child who was abandoned by his family into society, a middle-aged man who spared no effort to develop his media career, a man who gained great wealth but was frustrated in politics and love and ended up in his empire-like manor. An old man who is approaching the end of his life alone. Before his death, he uttered his last words "Rosebud", and it is this enigmatic symbol that forms the content of the film. His guardian Thatcher, his subordinates Bernstein and Leland, his second wife Susan, and his servant Raymond interpreted this riddle-like phrase from their own understanding, but no one could hit the point. . The film's musk painting of the character is accurate, and it concentrates on the contradictions inherent in the Rubik's Cube of human nature in a newspaper tycoon, and embodies criticism of the consequences of American modernization in the life course of Ce En - "Citizen Kane" can definitely Seen as an American fable, a narrative about the ideals of personal struggle.
"Moss, moss, moss..." A simple word repeated, but it expresses the desolation of the end of prosperity. This is the desolation of "but it turned out that the colorful flowers were blooming everywhere, but they were all abandoned in ruins", but it is also the lament of life that "the spider webs painted on the eaves were once the tide of singing and dancing". Things have changed and people have changed. In the end, the young Kane can only be alone all day long, letting his life come to an end. When Kane passed away, another feeling appeared. The subjective emotions were materialized on a crystal ball that contained the mystery of life. The sun came out, but Kane was about to leave. However, who can say that there is no solemnity of life here? And what about Glory?
The Secret of Rosebud
"Rosebud."
Citizen Se-eun made a joke to the world before he died. Everyone believes that there must be a secret hidden behind the word "rose bud". In order to satisfy readers' voyeuristic desire, reporter Thomson visited every relative and friend of Kane, trying his best to pull back the curtain that has been covering up the truth.
The curtain opens, and Kane's life is resurrected on the stage of everyone's heart. Everyone is so old and tired, and they have struggled so hard for life, but in the end it is all in vain. Seeing Ce En's snowy childhood and his struggles, he created a new newspaper style, got married, had children, and enjoyed success and wealth. He was ambitious, but he stumbled into political trouble; his two marriages failed, and he was so decadent, as decadent as the luxurious Xanadu Manor. Thomson obtained many scattered narratives and stories about Kane from different angles and viewpoints through constant interviews, but the subjects and viewpoints were too subjective and emotional. No matter how hard he tried, he still could not put together a couplet. En's overall impression, and even his original partial understanding of him, tended to be blurry.
Kane, a man who has struggled all his life, said the word softly from his dying lips, like a flower that had no time to bloom, still tightly wrapped in its own secret.
What exactly is Rosebud?
Is it a girl’s name? Is it a token of first love? An unobtainable thing? Or a memory that cannot be erased?
When Thomson finally comes to the conclusion that "it's nothing," we see that Ceun's childhood skis were thrown into the blazing fireplace. The flames licked off the drama dust on the skis, and gradually revealed these four words: "Rosebud."
The narrative method of the film is very lively, and on the surface it seems like Orson... Welles was trying to be mysterious and cover up, but in fact, this was an objective evaluation of the newspaper tycoon who objectively reflected the real world and the real rough life through artistic techniques! In addition to the crazy world and facts of intrigue at that time, Orson Welles In addition to being non-revealing, he also expressed his dissatisfaction and contempt for the widely respected white-or-black theory in the materialistic society and the hypocrisy and arbitrariness of deliberately beautifying celebrities. He also expressed his dissatisfaction and contempt for people's blind worship and lack of courage to examine their opinions. "Rosebud" and other phenomena have also been carried out to a certain extent. It turns out that it is just a ski that Ce En used when he was a boy! Orson Welles' superhuman insight and sharp critical spirit are about to emerge.