Thursday, June 21, 2007

Rosebud.

My fifteen-year-old is, like me, a bit of an old movie nut and tonight we watched Citizen Kane together. It is a treat for someone who has seen the picture 100 times as I have to watch it with someone who hasn't seen it before--particularly someone who was born a full fifty years after Citizen Kane was released.

There was a lot of technique in Citizen Kane--Toland's cinematography, Hermann's music, etc. but it's not technique that makes Citizen Kane stellar. It's the story, the script and the acting. Going back to an early post called An Homage, Citizen Kane imparts useful consumer information in an executionally brilliant way.

It is a fabulous piece of work and if you haven't seen it for a while, buy the DVD. Watching it will be good for your career. If nothing else, it should raise the level of your ambition.

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