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“Citizen Kane” voted the best picture ever made by the AFI was shot in black & white, a 133:1 ratio and mono sound.

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In my opinion, that's a weak argument considering at the time of the production of CITIZEN KANE, the three technological features you cited were the standard techniques of the day. Had other technological options been introduced sooner (widescreen, stereo, 3-D, anything digital, etc.) who's to say the filmmakers involved with CITIZEN KANE and other classics wouldn't have used them?

I agree, though, that Hollywood these days has "lost the plot" when it comes to good storytelling...at least on a mass scale.
 

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Posted by Galen Murphy-Fahlgren (Member # 4535) on 10-07-2008, 05:42 PM:
 
Julie, that isn't the point he's making. What he means is that even without modern features like surround sound, anamorphic widescreen, color, etc., it still kicks the crap out of most movies because it has a better story than ANYTHING coming out these days. I think a lot of the best movies are so great not in spite of comparatively limited technology but because of it. Movies like Citizen Kane, Touch of Evil, Psycho, and possibly my personal favorite classic Nosferatu (I could go on and on), were made by people who did not have a crutch to lean on. These guys were hardcore about storytelling with whatever tools they had available, and they were awesome. Directors like Michael Bay, on the other hand, have every possible gizmo and almost infinite money and they produce crap consistently.

Basically, good directors can tell their story well with extremely limited tool sets, and bad directors work in Hollywood these days.
 

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Posted by Mike Blakesley (Member # 26) on 10-07-2008, 05:46 PM:
 
There are dozens and dozens of movies with good stories released yearly, which sink. Meanwhile, craptacular special-effects-laden sequels make over $200 million. If you were an investor ready to sink $100 million of your stockholders' dollars into a movie, which way would you lean?

Not saying it's a good situation, but that's reality.

Don't lament the film director of the 21st century; lament the audience's tastes.
 

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Posted by Galen Murphy-Fahlgren (Member # 4535) on 10-07-2008, 06:14 PM:
 
Oh, I do both. I don't see a lot of new movies. When I do, it is usually very limited release stuff. Happily, my new theater plays some indie movies.
 

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Posted by Tim Reed (Member # 137) on 10-07-2008, 07:11 PM:
 
Don't get me started, Robert.
 

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Posted by Scott Norwood (Member # 30) on 10-07-2008, 07:46 PM:
 
If I had $100m, I wouldn't "invest" it in movies (which are almost invariably really terrible investments).

If I had to, however, I'd fund a bunch of low-budget ($500k-$5m) films, rather than one explosion-fest. If one were to invest in, say, 50 $2m films, it would only take a couple of hits to recoup the money, and the risk would be far less than blowing $100m on one feature.

Two more points:

- there have always been terrible films; I'm willing to bet that the proportion hasn't changed much over time and that there were more terrible films made in 1941 than in 2007 (of course, there were more total releases in 1941); of course, the good ones are what people remember

- terrible films get made because people buy tickets to see them; over the weekend, people spent nearly $30m to see "Beverly Hills Chihuahua" and under $70k to see "Man on Wire"; guess which type of film is more likely to be made in the future?
 

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Posted by Tim Reed (Member # 137) on 10-07-2008, 09:19 PM:
 
Scott is right on. That's an excellent idea of investing over several pictures... something like that never dawned on me (not that I could ever *do* it, mind you).

quote: Scott Norwood

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terrible films get made because people buy tickets to see them

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Despite its status, Citizen Kane is not entirely without its critics. Boston University film scholar Ray Carney, although noting its technical achievements, criticized what he saw as the film's lack of emotional depth, shallow characterization and empty metaphors. Listing it among the most overrated works within the film community, he accused the film of being "an all-American triumph of style over substance... indistinguishable from the opera production within it: attempting to conceal the banality of its performances by wrapping them in a thousand layers of acoustic and visual processing". Of its director, he went on to state, "Welles is Kane — in a sense he couldn't have intended — substituting razzle-dazzle for truth and hoping no one notices the sleight of hand". He also criticized critics and scholars of allowing themselves to be pandered to, stating "critics obviously enjoy being told what to think or they'd never sit still for the hammy acting, cartoon characterizations, tendentious photography, editorializing blockings, and absurdly grandiose (and annoyingly insistent) metaphors....When will film studies grow up? Even Jedediah Leland, the opera reviewer in the film, knew better than to be taken in by Salammbo's empty reverberations." The Swedish director Ingmar Bergman once stated his dislike for the movie, calling it "a total bore" and claiming that the "performances are worthless". He went on to call Orson Welles an "infinitely overrated filmmaker".

Similarly, James Agate wrote, "I thought the photography quite good, but nothing to write to Moscow about, the acting middling, and the whole thing a little dull...Mr. Welles's high-brow direction is of that super-clever order which prevents you from seeing what that which is being directed is all about."

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