Film & Discussion: Citizen Kane (1941)
Spoiler alert: Rosebud is a sled, the most iconic slatted belly-slammer in movie history. Sure, it’s symbolic — a child raised without love will ripen into miserable adulthood — yet the audience doesn't catch on until flames blister its veneer for the climactic reveal. Were that all Citizen Kane was about, it would hardly be worthy of its well-deserved "greatest film ever made" ennoblement. Here you’ll find a one stop history of cinema class. Citizen Kane, not The Maltese Falcon, was the first film noir. Orson Welles incorporates elements of just about every genre: comedy, melodrama, mystery, romance, newspaper pictures, musicals, and even a set of dusty swinging saloon doors that John Wayne would be proud to sidle through. (No sci-fi, unless one counts the pterodactyl, a former resident of King Kong's Skull Island, buzzing the wedding.) Welles did for talkies what D.W. Griffith did for silents: Kane is the first modern talking picture in its use of sound as a means to tell its story. And dare I say it’s influence has touched more filmmakers than the rest of the AFI Top 100 combined. In that sense, and so many others, we all owe Charlie Kane everything! Screens: Liberty Hall Theater at Paradise Village on June 19 at 7:00pm. Ralph DeLauro will be on hand to share his passion for the film. — Scott Marks