The Start of Movie Night

For a while now I've been wanting to start a movie night group. A bunch of friends get together once a month to watch an old film and discuss it all the while just hanging out and enjoying each other's company. I tried to start one a couple of years ago but it didn't last very long. Now that I have my own place and better viewing equipment I'm more determined to get this off the ground and keep it going.

The first time I really had no plan. I figured I'd just randomly pick films I was wanting to see and we'd go from there. We pretty much covered a wide range in the three films we watched. We started with City Lights, then Spartacus, and finished up with The Usual Suspects. All three great films from different periods in film history, but no real connection.

For the new and improved movie night I've decided to start by focusing on the films included in the AFI's list of 100 greatest American Films. Looking over that list pretty much all of the American classics are covered. Many I've seen, but quite a few important ones I actually haven't seen. And by talking things over with friends who are wanting to participate there is quite a few classics that they haven't seen as well. The whole point of doing a movie night is to expose each other to different films that we haven't seen but probably should see at some points in our lives if we want to be considered film lovers. Eventually I'd like to get into more obscure classics and into some of the foreign masters, but for now we will stick to the American classics. The AFI list covers a wide range of popular and important films. I plan on alternating between older and newer films and trying to hit a different genre each time so we aren't watching serious dramas month after month. I'm really excited about the potential of this "club" and I hope others will get involved.

For our first night it was a pretty obvious choice as to which film to start with. If we are going to watch films from the AFI list then we might as well start at the top, so we watched Citizen Kane.

When AFI first did their list in 1997 Citizen Kane was chosen as the greatest American film of all time. When they revisited the list ten years later it held on to the top spot. In fact it was one of only two films from the original list not to change positions, the other being Best Years of Our Lives at #37. It has for years been considered the best of the best and a widely heralded film by film critics and fans alike.

The story behind the film is just as entertaining, if not more so, than the film itself. Orson Welles was a highly sought after talent. He made his name in theater and on the radio, famously convincing half of the east coast they were being invaded by Martians in his radio play adaptation of H. G. Wells War of the Worlds. He was brought to Hollywood by RKO and given full reign over any project he wanted to do, a power that in those days was unheard of for a director. The result of his first film at the age of 25 was Citizen Kane.

The story focuses on the world's richest man, a newspaper tycoon who had it all and lost it all. He dabbled in politics and entertainment, and built himself the greatest mansion known to man. He died alone and broken, and left this world with his final words "Rosebud", the McGuffin of the story. A reporter sets out to interview the people from his past to discover what the meaning of that word is, to which he never discovers but the audience does and it's all we need to know who the real Charles Foster Kane was.

The life of Kane hit a bit close to home to William Randolph Hearst, who felt he was being mocked by the film. Hearst was a newspaper tycoon that could easily influence public opinion in any of his numerous news papers. He dabbled in politics and had a relationship with a Hollywood actress. He built himself an elaborate mansion in central California that is a tourist hot spot today. He tried hard to get the film blocked from release and set out to ruin the reputation of Welles. The film was released and a critical success but it was a box office failure. It managed nine Academy Award nominations but it only won one, for the screenplay. Welles struggled to get films made after Citizen Kane, often having them taken away from him or changed against his approval, and thus his career for the most part was ruined by his first film. Citizen Kane was rereleased in the 1950's and had much better box office success, but by then the damage was done. Over time it's status has grown and is now considered one of the best of all time, a stark contrast to how it was originally received.

Before watching the film I gave a little bit of this background information to put the film in context to how it is perceived, and after we watched the film I presented this question to the group: is it the greatest American film of all time?

Everyone in attendance liked the film. They all thought it was a really good movie, but did not understand why it's considered the greatest film of all time. Other suggestions were thrown out as films that they would consider better, such as Casablanca or The Godfather. Based on the films they had seen they had a hard time placing it at the top as the best film of all time, and I tend to agree.

I appreciate the technical aspects of the film, and I think it's an enjoyable film, but I also feel it's a bit dated. I still strongly prefer The Godfather and would put that movie at the top of any list. It's hard to watch Citizen Kane today and realize all of the technical achievements the film made and think of them as fresh and innovative after we've been exposed to decades worth of films that has borrowed heavily from the movie and even pushed things forward.


A lot of the techniques used in Citizen Kane weren't entirely new, some had been tried before, but none had worked quite as effectively in assisting the story like they did with Citizen Kane. When talking about the films achievements most people point to the cinematography. The use of deep focus, keeping characters in the background and foreground in focus, helped create a sense of voyeurism, like we are there watching things unfold. The use of sharp angles helps to establish the power of the characters. Kane is often photographed from low angles making him seem tall and menacing while weaker characters like Susan are photographed from above to make them feel small and vulnerable. There is a lot of use of shadows that would go on to heavily influence Film Noir. It is without a doubt a well photographed film.

For me it's the screenplay that stands out and deserves admiration. The film is not a straight narrative told from A to B. We see the title character die in the very beginning, and his actual life is told through nothing but flashbacks. The story jumps around to different time periods based on who is telling the tale. This technique also establishes the unreliable narrator. Each character that knew Kane is telling their story of the time they knew him, and it is from their perspective of the events. If they did not look at Kane favorably then the story they were telling made Kane look to be in a negative light. Nobody really knew Kane but everyone tells their version of him. The only true glimpse we see of Kane is in his dying words Rosebud. The revelation of what Rosebud is tells us everything we need to know about Kane and is the only reliable truth of what Kane was really like. Point of view narration has been used extensively in literature but hadn't really been experimented with in film up until this point. It opened the door to explore all sorts of new and different narrative techniques in future films. For this alone it deserves plenty of recognition.

These are the reasons that Citizen Kane is so widely hailed as the greatest film of all time. It's definitely worthy of the praise and recognition it receives for it's innovation. I certainly have an appreciation for the film but I have a hard time calling it the best ever. Everyone in attendance seemed to agree. It was fun to see the film through fresh eyes and get their perspective on what they saw and how they perceived and understood the film. It was also fun to share what little knowledge I have on the film and it's history with them and to see if that changed their opinion. We have a lot of films yet to watch, and maybe over time as we see a wide variety of films and learn about their history and innovations their opinions might change and they might see this as truly the greatest American film of all time. I might learn a few new things myself through this group and maybe my opinions will change over time as well. Exposure and experience is the goal of movie night and I'm really excited about the upcoming journey.