Watching Citizen Kane

The QB World bookstore screens art-house movies every weekend at their Pondok Indah and Kemang stores. And yesterday I saw the promotional poster at their Jalan Sunda branch announcing that Citizen Kane would be the selection for Sunday night. Not wanting to miss this rare opportunity, I decided to drop by in Kemang for the screening.

Citizen Kane, directed and acted by Orson Welles and released in 1941, is considered one of the greatest movies ever made. It is also perhaps one of the most analyzed film in cinema history. What are the reasons for its greatness? As a movie, it can be viewed from two aspects: one as a technically innovative film that breaks new grounds in cinematography, editing and directing; the other as a very engrossing human story about the rise and fall of a charismatic man named Charles Foster Kane, told in a masterful manner using all the film-making techniques at the disposal of director Orson Welles.

One might think that to the average modern audience, a black-and-white movie like Citizen Kane will be quite difficult to sit through. Having so many accolades already heaped upon it, the audience could also be led to believe that this is one of those ponderous art-house films made to show off the director's technical mastery of the medium, only suitable as a laboratory specimen to be dissected by film students.

But once the movie began, I was completely drawn into its story. At its core, the movie is a mystery story about the last word uttered by the fictitious media baron on his deathbed: Rosebud. Who or what is Rosebud? As his life is slowly revealed through mock newsreels, flashbacks and newspaper headlines, we are drawn into the mystery and enigma of this multidimensional character called Kane who chose to take over a crumbling newspaper and vowed to transform it into an honest, fearless and unbiased press, albeit one defined in his own terms. With the mystery of Rosebud as the propelling force, we are led on a journey of the man's life; through his successes and failures in friendship, business, politics and love.

The use of deep-focus, the innovative camera angles and the effective use of flashbacks all contributed to a movie that does not have a single dull moment. Using a vast array of cinematic story-telling devices, Welles provided the audience with revealing glimpses of the personality and character of this man Kane; every sequence, every shot and every introduction of character building up to the drama of his inevitably lonely death - which we were shown at the very beginning of the film. And then only in the final lingering scene, the answer to the mystery of his last word is revealed to the audience.

I left QB World with a very satisfied feeling. I have always wanted to watch Citizen Kane after reading so much about it during my teenage years as an avid film buff. As I rode a cab home to the hotel, I smiled at the thought of how I finally managed to catch Citizen Kane after a wait of almost two decades, and in the most pleasantly unexpected places: at the cafe of QB World in Kemang, Jakarta, while eating spaghetti with Bintang beer on a quiet Sunday night.