So my wife is listening to this podcast where they’re going through the AFI Top 100 list from 2007, and the first movie they did was Citizen Kane, which is #1 on the AFI list (although it doesn’t seem like the podcast is going in order generally).

You’ll recall that this is also #2 on the S&S list that I watched through, but I didn’t watch this, because I had seen it before, in 2002 (ironically because it appeared on top of that year’s S&S list). So I was actually sort of curious what I’d think about it with more context.

As in 2002, my overall takeaway is: It’s pretty good! I had forgotten, actually, how much of the film has a light, high-energy feel to it. Because obviously it’s the tragic story of a man who loses everything he values and dies, but also a large part of it is him as a younger man rising into his success. (As I say that, I’m realizing how much the plot structure shares with Hamilton — it’s even a sex scandal dug up by his opponent that derails his political ambitions.) And Welles, a young man rising to the height of his powers at the time, plays the young Kane with a casual insouciance.

It’s definitely a film that works on a story level — it’s easy to get sucked into Kane’s larger-than-life story — and one whose time-hopping flashbacky structure is smoothly executed enough that it still feels like a straightforward narrative even though it’s not at all.

Visually, the thing that of course stands out is Welles’ use of deep focus. I’d read about that long ago, but didn’t really understand what it meant; but after watching The Rules of the Game (and in particular, after watching the little Filmstruck documentary about how that movie used deep focus), it’s really obvious how it’s used all through the movie.

Also, on kind of a societal meta level, it’s lightly sad that this is basically the canonical pre-spoiled movie, where literally everyone knows the answer to the film’s central question long before they see it. Because, like, if you didn’t know what “Rosebud” was, the ending would be a lot more interesting than how it typically plays today, as kind of the punchline to a joke you’ve been waiting for the whole movie. Citizen Kane dropped out of the #1 spot on the S&S list for the first time in 2012, and I sort of wonder if it won’t keep dropping as more of the people who encounter it do so pre-spoiled and are ready with knowing smirks and predigested analysis instead of dropped jaws and brains thinking through what it all means, at the end of the thing.

For my own part, and maybe for that reason, while I do think it’s unquestionably an excellent movie, and has held up super-well for something that’s 75+ years old, I tbh wouldn’t put it at the top of my personal movie ranking list. But a spot in the top ten does feel about right, so that’s not some giant slam against the thing.