One Word Movie

Orson Kart

Seeing as I was talking about Shatner's Citizen Kane the other day, I thought I'd better say a few words about Orson Welles's Citizen Kane, viz, Citizen Kane.

Well, it's not very good, is it?

The photography is stunning, and Young Welles does well. But it goes on for much too long and it doesn't sustain the story, or the viewer's interest. Sets with ceilings were big news in 1941, but it gets carried away with how wonderful and new all this is. I'd love to be wrong, but this movie is shit. It's a shame to think that with all that promise and optimism, all that belief in the power of art, that one of the last things that Welles did was the voice of Unicron in the Transfomers movie.

If you want a fantastic Orson Welles film, may I recommend A Touch of Evil (good)? If Citizen Kane is the work of a young man who thinks he's a genius, Touch of Evil is the voice of someone who knows that's not enough. Orson Welles is hideous. Marlene Dietrich is in it, and Charlton Heston plays a Mexican, as Tim Burton points out in Ed Wood. Bleak and wonderful, and the famous tracking shot is still incredible. Yeah, there's a long tracking shot in The Player, and there's another in Point Break where Keanu Reeves goes into the FBI office. Impressive, but ultimately just choreography. What's amazing about the tracking shot in Touch of Evil is that you are praying for the camera to cut away, and it won't.

Incidentally, I thought Lost in Translation was good, but can you imagine how much better it would have been with Late Period Fat Welles playing the Bill Murray role?

posted by Chairman Peyote @ 2:20 PM