Hollywood's Decisions

To my elders,

So one of the theatres in Montreal has "Classic Cinema Sundays" where they play classic movies on Sunday afternoon. So me and D went to see Citizen Kane this past Sunday.

Now, I had never seen Citizen Kane before, but my expectations weren't too high, its only been, like, voted the best movie of all time by the AFI. So I knew how it ended, and that Rosebud was a sled from Kane's childhood and that it was a metaphor or whatever, which, out of context, is like knowing that Psycho has a shower scene without knowing when the shower scene is in the movie. Meaning it doesn't quite actually mean much. Other than being the cheat code on The Sims.

Its not just that Citizen Kane is supposedly the best movie of all time, or that the cinematography is supposedly the most beautiful of any film, its that even if another movie was categorically better than Citizen Kane on every account, Citizen Kane would still be "The Greatest Movie of All Time" because someone, a long time ago, decided it was. And its not going to loose the thrown anytime soon. Hollywood makes decisions, and there is no changing them. Now, sometimes, movies deserve it. Casablanca is actually kind of Wonderful and sad and romantic and, you know, has Nazis and stuff.

Citizen Kane is a biographical sketch of a sad and complicated man that no on ever listened to. He explained himself over and over again, his actions spoke louder than his words, and yet, no one ever understood him. People assumed that there was nothing else a man could want other than wealth and power and fame, Love, maybe, but that wasn't what Kane wanted either. He wanted his life back. He'd had no say in anything and he didn't want it and he was stuck. Stuck and miserable when he'd been happy, once upon a time.

But its still not the most cinematographically beautiful movie I have ever seen. Heck, Brokeback Mountain is waaaaayyyy more pretty looking than Citizen Kane. Changing landscapes may be a wee bit cliche on the pretty scale, but they were beautiful. Citizen Kane didn't even have the best framing I've ever seen.

Its like Jennifer Aniston. Someone decided, a long time ago, that she was famous and could be in movies. So now, no matter how many flops she turns out, she will keep getting cast, she will still be banked on and overpaid because Hollywood decided she was a movie star. Even though she hasn't been in anything successful since, what? 2004?

-K