Citizen Kane

“One of my all-time favorites, Citizen Kane. Masterpiece. Interesting footnote on this is that this was actually Bernard Herrmann’s first film score. Bernard Herrmann, one of the greatest of all time, and one of the things that I love about this, in particular in Herrmann’s work, is you first hear his angular, chromatic sound of how he moves. There’s a kind of brooding nature to his music in this. He also wrote the opera excerpt that is in the movie.”

“Obviously, Citizen Kane. Some of the greatest filmmaking of all time and character work and acting. This film, the thing that I enjoyed about seeing it for the first time was how advanced the filmmaking techniques were, how they were cutting and editing between shots and between scenes. Yep, all-time Performance, all-time filmmaking. It inspires, I mean, I think everyone. So, that one’s going in the bag.”

“In terms of old black-and-white movies, it’s right up there with Citizen Kane. Well, here’s that’s... Look. I got 18 copies, not of this version of Citizen Kane, but of Citizen Kane. There’s room for one more because Citizen Kane... My– one of my favorite films, if not my absolute favorite film. Probably the film I’ve watched the most in life. Isn’t that weird?”

“I think I’m going to surprise you by picking something that looks utterly predictable. Citizen Kane has a connection to The New Yorker. It’s written by Herman Mankiewicz, along with Orson Welles, of course, and there’s a famous book by Pauline Kael, who was the great New Yorker film critic, about the controversy about who gets the credit for Citizen Kane, which many people think is the best movie ever made, certainly in English, whether it was Herman Mankiewicz more or Orson Welles.”

“Citizen Kane hardly needs explanation, it's just so good.”