Citizen Kane continues to sit atop the lists of greatest movies ever made when that list is compiled by critics and/or filmmakers. When the list is created by moviegoers, not so much. While I admire Orson Welles’ debut masterpiece, not only do I disagree with its ultimate positioning atop these lists, but I would argue that it is not even Welles’ best-or even second best-film. For such a well-regarded cinematic achievement, Citizen Kane can prove at times curiously uninvolving. In many ways the movie is kind of like a strikingly pretty girl who is not dumb, but instead strikingly intelligent; even so, you never hear her described as smart woman before a you hear her described as a pretty woman. Citizen Kane is like that; it’s gorgeous to look at, but its surface succeeds in trumping its deeper qualities.
Uninvolving is the key problem, I think, that most moviegoers of the past thirty or forty years have had with Citizen Kane. No, correct that. Uninvolving is the second biggest problem; the first problem is that so much of what made Citizen Kane such a revolutionary film is now old hat. Today’s filmmakers see movies with deep focus and overlapping dialogue and even, sometimes, amazingly complex but subtly realized optical effects as standard cinematic language. While Citizen Kane was hardly the first film, or even the first Hollywood film, to utilize these techniques, it was the first film to use them to perfection and to integrate the style into the thematic centerpiece of the story. What was almost avant-garde at the time is the mainstream today and so that gorgeous pretty woman façade of Citizen Kane is now as plain as Halle Berry. And without that flirtation to draw today’s audiences in, there is simply no way to get them involved in the story of Charles Foster Kane.
If you are less than impressed by Orson Welles as a result of not thinking Citizen Kane is the masterpiece you have been consistently told it is, then you mistaken. Orson Welles deserves his place of honor as America’s greatest filmmaker. You have to remember that Welles only very briefly held the same kind of clout routinely enjoyed by such middling directors today as Michael Bay. He only had final cut once in his life and, when combined with his infuriating tendency to get leave his work in the hands of a traitorous cutter like Robert Wise, his career simply was not what it would be today. If Orson Welles had been a 25 year old first time direction in 1975 instead of 1940 he would probably still be the greatest director to never win an Oscar, but he’d have anywhere from five to ten movies on the AFI Top 100 Movies of All Time list. Take, for example, his next film after Kane, an overlooked piece of cinematic genius titled The Magnificent Ambersons.
The Magnificent Ambersons is a story about the tension that exists between progress and tradition. It is actually the story about a spoiled brat’s comeuppance, but the deeper theme at work is how technology affects cultural evolution. In a film overwhelmed with irony in its truest sense and well as its contemporary bastardization, Ambersons presents the older Joseph Cotton as the symbol of progress and the younger Tim Holt as the symbol of holding onto nostalgia. The visual flourishes in The Magnificent Ambersons rival Citizen Kane: the multi-story Amberson mansion almost becomes a character itself. For an example of just how subtle Welles could treat what was in reality a remarkable technical achievement, watch the ride on the horse-drawn carriage that George and Lucy take. Never before and never since has there been a scene shot with two people riding in a carriage that actually feels like they were really being filmed while riding on a carriage. The first time you see this scene you pay attention to the incredible dialogue; the second time you notice that it is all shot in one uninterrupted take; the third time you observe the absolutely astonishing visual accomplishments that somehow turns the kind of scene you may have watched in a thousand other movies into a free lesson on the magic of filmmaking.
Another excellent, and humorous, example of Welles’ talent as a director is in the opening montage scenes. To back to my analogy; The Magnificent Ambersons is like a smart girl who is also pretty, but who adds to that by having a fantastic personality as well. Orson Welles’ second film is easily his most involving with engaging and exasperating characters who are witty and likeable and, in the case of George Minafer, extraordinarily fun to hate as you wait for his comeuppance. There is only one thing that keeps The Magnificent Ambersons from being a perfect film and that is not entirely Welles’ fault. He left his footage behind in the hands of the traitorous Robert Wise while he went to South America to begin working on his next movie. The ending of The Magnificent Ambersons as we know it is faithful to the book-as is the rest of the movie. But Orson Welles didn’t shoot that ending. The only version we have ends happily and stands in unintentionally ironic counterpoint to all that has come before. The ending Welles shot, however, reveals the ultimate triumph of progress over tradition; the famous Ambersons mansion has been turned into a boarding house and the final sounds of the movie were the increasingly loud cacophony of automobiles passing by. The automobile is, next to the house, the primary symbol of the film, marking the passage of time and society from the reliance of the horse and sleigh to the gas engine.
While Touch of Evil retains the brilliant ending shot by Welles, it too is not exactly the same movie that its director intended. Several unwise-no pun intended-edits were made to existing sequences and, once again, new scenes were shot without Orson behind the camera. Perhaps the most damaging change was to add distracting credits to the extraordinary opening shot that consists of one long unbroken shot that introduces many of the characters as they make their way through the dusty streets of a small Mexican border town. As I’ve written about before, the opening sequence of Touch of Evil is by far the greatest opening in movie history. There is really no capacity for not getting involved in this story. Besides the fact that it’s a mystery, it also contains Janet Leigh’s best performance, Charlton Heston’s best performance (as a Mexican!) and Dennis Weaver playing a motel desk clerk that clearly foreshadows Tony Perkins’ Norman Bates who would appear just a few short years down the road. That isn’t even to mention the startling appearance of Mercedes McCambridge-the possessed voice of Regan in The Exorcist-as a lesbian biker babe. Nor is it to mention the vast array of minor characters whose appearances serve to create a tapestry of off-kilter weirdness that serve to make Touch of Evil impossible not to keep watching no matter where in the movie you come in.
The use of overlapping dialogue has never been used more spectacularly than in Touch of Evil. Robert Altman is usually credited with perfecting this technique that is intended to simulate the way a group of people really interact and while he was the best of his generation, it was Orson Welles who showed how five people carrying on two different conversations at once could be more than just a cacophony of confusion. Welles did it in Citizen Kane, then a little less in Ambersons, then a whole lot more in Touch of Evil. I cannot stress enough how important it is that you watch the scene where the dynamite is “discovered” in the Mexican boy’s apartment before trying your hand at shooting a scene with overlapping dialogue. The legend of Orson Welles includes the story that he watched Stagecoach over and over again before directing Citizen Kane. Personally, I have my doubts since there is precious little similarity of any kind between those two films. But I believe any budding film director or writer today who wants to capture the magic of Altmanesque or Wellesian overlapping dialogue could do nothing better than to watch Touch of Evil about fifty times and that particular scene at least 50 more times.
I mentioned that the overly nervous Dennis Weaver desk clerk character was unquestionably an influence-whether unconscious or not-on the Norman Bates character in Psycho that came out a couple of years after Touch of Evil. I also mentioned that Touch of Evil contains Janet Leigh’s best performance; admittedly not high praise, but this is the movie that proved she could act. Many words have already been committed specifically to the influence that Touch of Evil had on Psycho so I won’t go into the profound details here, but anyone who doubts that even the great Alfred Hitchcock wasn’t himself heavily influenced by the younger director with far fewer films in his resume.
I also said that Touch of Evil marks the apex of Charlton Heston’s career; again not exactly high praise. Heston here plays a Mexican law enforcement officer and while it’s true Heston hardly looks Hispanic without the makeup job he has here, and while it’s true he doesn’t exactly go out of his way to give his character a Mexican accent, I defy anyone to give me an example of where he is better in his Oscar-winning role in Ben-Hur than he is here. The only other Heston performance that even comes close to being as good as he is in Touch of Evil occurred when he took and ill-fated space trip into the a future. A future where apes evolved from men! I’ve long complained about the placement of Ben-Hur among the greatest movies ever by suggesting that anyone who can stick with the epic past the famous chariot race sequence should be canonized as a saint. Charlton Heston often played a tough guy, but he rarely ever actually seemed all that tough. Even during his sweaty encounter with Messala in Ben-Hur Charlton Heston seemed unlikely to be the victor in a real fight. But when Heston walks into that filthy Mexican bar and drags that poor dude down the length of the bar itself, man, that is one guy you would not want to screw around with.
As if succeeding in making Charlton Heston look intimidating wasn’t enough, there is also the breathtaking virtuoso direction of the final section of the film when Heston’s character is following Welles’ corrupt cop while his Welles’ number two guy is trying to get his boss to admit to framing the kid with the dynamite. There is more artistry and suspense in this one sequence than in all the Mission: Impossible, Bourne and Pierce Brosnan James Bond movies combined.
If Citizen Kane leaves you cold and wondering what all the fuss over Orson Welles is about, then I heartily suggest you get your hands on The Magnificent Ambersons and, in particular, Touch of Evil. If after watching these two masterpieces you still don’t get it, then I suggest you stock your Netflix queue only with movies made since 2000. Going back any farther than that might cause brain freeze.
