Review
Is this the first βmodernβ film?
The staging, lighting, camera movement, nonlinear narrative, extended takes, makeup, tricks of sound, pacing β there's not an attribute Welles didn't push the limits of. There's scarcely an tool in the cinematic toolbox that he didn't reimagine.
Each aspect of the film, down to the most minute detail, has been copied and referenced and homaged so many times that watching it in 2026 requires an act of imagination. You have to make the effort to see it through the eyes of the 1940s filmgoer and imagine it in the context of its contemporaries.
Many of the legendary films from the Hollywood's Golden Age hold their own given the constraints and studio structures of the day. But if you remade them shot-for-shot now, they'd be out of place in the modern language of cinema. But Kane could be reshot and edited exactly as-in and hold up to any modern classic.
There so much compelling about this film that it's hard to know where to start. Nearly every shot, every scene, every line of dialogue is masterful.