Hello everyone and welcome to the Every Movie Ever podcast.
My name is Ben Groves.
And my name is Rob Macfarlane and welcome to the show, a movie podcast where we ask the
important questions like, Citizen Kane, is there any point discussing this movie anymore?
We're gonna.
This is the sensitive version of the show.
Swear will be bleeped, but fear not dear listener, as always, the full uncensored version is
available early on our Patreon for as little as one pound, buddy.
Find the link next to wherever you clicked play.
And here is go fuckity fuckity.
Yeah, that's going to be a nightmare to censor in about an hour.
You've just ruined your own day.
Why did I just do that to myself?
Ruin your own day.
How are you doing buddy?
I'm good man.
I'm doing work and I'm remembering who I am again.
I'm realizing that I'm not defined by what I do.
And that I'm outside of the contract of switching hard labor for monetary gain.
I'm actually a person.
So to anyone who hasn't taken holiday, me do it because I'm me again.
Yeah, just just you've got scheduled holiday.
Take it and go.
Oh, I'm a person.
OK, it's the best.
How about you, man?
Fine, I guess.
Heads in the bin.
I'm not going to lie.
It's all good.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
It's one of these things where you look, you sort of start questioning your own existence
and everything you stand for and everything you're doing and everything you've done.
You know, I mean, you sort of like, uh huh.
Am I really living or am I just ticking boxes at this point?
What am I doing?
I can tell you it's the latter, mate.
Yeah, feeling that.
Just one left to tick.
You know what I mean?
Yeah.
Honestly, don't.
Best pick up line at the moment is, are you a toaster?
Because I'm a little long bath would sort out a lot of my issues.
Your Google history is just shotgun tastings.
My area.
Local poisons.
You know what I mean?
Yeah.
Local poisonous plants.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Artisan only.
You can pretend that you were just bad at foraging.
Exactly.
That's it.
Yeah, yeah.
How to forage mushrooms and then just working backwards.
You know what I mean?
Yeah.
What are we doing today, Ben?
All right, buddy.
So today we're doing Citizen Kane.
It's a film that most movie fans hate for being called the greatest movie of all time.
Yeah, that it is.
And today we're going to knuckle down and decide whether 2025 is the year that we can
officially leave this ancient relic in the past or whether it's still relevant to an
understanding of the world that we live in today.
There's a thousand and one things you've probably heard about this movie before, especially
if you're a fan.
So we're not going to repeat all that because you've heard it.
And if you're not a fan, you wouldn't want to hear all that stuff either.
But today we're bringing everyone together and asking the real question.
Is a much point in chatting about Citizen Kane in 2025, is it still worth a watch?
Because you know, yeah, this film is old, old, old.
It was made in 1941, Ben.
Yeah.
And I've got a list of things that this film is older than.
Go on.
CPR.
That's upsetting.
Engagement rings.
That's understandable.
Transistors.
Not quite sure what that is, but I'm here for it.
The bit that were in radios in the fifties that made like cheap radios possible and computers.
Mainly the radios.
The Big Bang Theory.
The TV show.
Yeah.
And also the actual Big Bang Theory.
Oh, okay.
Ballpoint pens.
Okay.
Velcro.
Oh, Godlike invention.
The NHS.
Okay.
And slinkies.
Okay.
I can relate to that one.
When Orson Welles was making this film, I want you to think when he went to write something
down, he wasn't doing it with a ballpoint.
What was he doing it with?
Pencil, I imagine.
Oh.
Because you're not going to get a fountain pen out to make a quick note, are you?
I don't know.
Just napkin and a quill.
When Kane marries Susan Alexander in this film.
Yeah.
He's not giving her an engagement ring.
What does he give her?
Polio?
I don't know.
Piano lessons?
I don't know.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
So for the benefit of those people that have got no plans on seeing this film, I imagine
it's a fair bunch here.
We're going to just quickly whip through the plot so you know what the hell we're talking
about later in the episode.
Consider this your spoiler warning.
But Ben, you've picked me to the post this week.
So we do this thing where we take it in turns writing breakdowns for each other.
I've written a breakdown for you this week, buddy.
Uh huh.
Which is...
I see that there's titles which I will take care to read.
Thank you.
Because I know you love a title.
Thank you.
It helps me break up my day.
Helps me feel like a person.
Yeah.
Appreciate you.
Love you.
Yeah, man.
Have fun with it.
I've written it.
I've really got into the character of Rob McFarlane and wrote it as you would see it.
I see revenge for last week, isn't it?
No.
Right.
Enjoy.
And the real estate.
We witness the dying moments of hero Charles Kane whispering his final words, Rosebud.
But what does this mean?
What is Rosebud?
Who is Rosebud?
And why do we care?
As the film opens in the form of a news report covering the world's loss of a media mogul
and a titan of industry, we see a gorgeous, if you know, slightly small for my conservative
privately educated taste, estate.
Not privately educated, it's fine.
Complete with a personal zoo, which for my conservative privately educated taste had
cages a bit too big.
I mean, fair, you don't want to have in too much space.
Don't want the animals getting the wrong idea.
Wouldn't call them animals.
The report covering Charles Kane's life summarizing everything from his rise to newspaper mogul,
political ambitions and his eventual downfall.
One journalist is tasked with investigating Charles's life to find out who Rosebud is,
primarily to sell more papers.
But the rise and fall of Charles Foster Kane.
That's a new voice.
Thank you.
Told through a series of flashbacks, we witness a bank by a human child from the horrid mountain
paws and whisk him off to a life of luxury and lavishness.
We see Charles acquire a newspaper and his transformation into a powerful and influential
public figure.
Kane's early morality and desire to use his wealth to help people are left in the shadow
of his growing ambition and arrogance.
This is nicely done, Bert.
Thank you.
Now, after seeing him smash the back doors off of every business dealing he touches,
brushing the newspaper business like it was made of paper.
I mean, as a parallel there.
We now see Kane's relationships and watch him crush some fine blue chip cabaret puss.
Wow.
That's a pretty strong take.
I mean, I don't want many things in life, Ben.
But some fine blue chip cabaret puss is up there.
Bro, I saw the ankles.
His first marriage ends because he was too busy chasing power.
His second marriage deteriorates as he tries to take pity on a poor, always a mistake,
and make her dreams of being a singer come true.
But instead of being grateful for this opportunity, she just yells about doing jigsaw puzzles
all the time.
She does.
To be honest, Ben, people like you, the uneducated unwashed masses, jigsaw is pretty impressive.
Mate, they're odd.
You know what I mean?
Shut up.
Just know you're lame.
You know what I mean?
As if that poor is going to be doing jigsaw.
She's going to be fucking rolling around in her own shit, yelling stuff at the ceiling.
Do you like the sun or Blu-ray?
That's what she's going to be yelling at.
I judge the value of my relationships in just straight number terms.
And it's just the number of pieces of a jigsaw that they can complete.
Six.
That's where I'm at.
Six and I'm out.
You know what I mean?
There we go.
Kane's relentless drive and unfaltering ambition isolates him from his friends.
He loses his political career and his personal happiness.
He's plagued with the tragic irony of gain, immense wealth, be known by everybody and
become profoundly lonely.
I mean, I'm sure being a bit sad in your literal palace would help.
I'd rather have one of my many servants clean up my sad boy depressive episode tissue farm
than do it myself.
Right?
Okay, Ben, I thought just side note here.
I thought we agreed to not mention the sad boy depressive episode tissue farm.
I mean, someone's got to plow the fields.
See which one of our floors is clean.
I swept the field.
You know what I mean?
I plowed the field.
You harvested.
Yeah, I harvested recently, bud.
Were they happy or sad tissues?
I don't know.
I don't remember.
No one can remember.
Right, part three.
Rosebud.
The journalists investigation turns up nothing, completely empty regarding the significance
of Rosebud.
A few theories are developed and people have their opinions as to what Rosebud could mean,
but they're poor people.
So their opinions mean less than nothing.
Back to the factory, you actual trained chimp of a human.
Make me my money.
Ben, you really keyed into my incredibly liberal communist.
That's the Rod MacFarlane I know.
The fact that this is the Rod MacFarlane you know, makes me question if we're friends.
The amount of times I've seen your eyes light up whilst reading the most horrendous put
downs to pause is outrageous.
Yeah, because it's my kink.
I'm like, although you deny my right to the title, I grew up a poor and when I see a scathing
put down, I'm like, oh, hurt me, mommy.
Yeah, I know.
I've heard, I've literally heard your semi knock the desk twice.
You know what I mean?
Kane's possessions at his moderate estate are being sorted for auction or burn.
And we finally see Rosebud, his childhood sled from the day the bank bought him for
50K.
A brief insight of how this media mogul's final thoughts were of his lost childhood
innocence before the corruption of money and wealth consumed him.
Pussy.
Right.
I mean, I'm going to, I'm going to say, Ben, I really wish I was you.
So I wasn't able to read that.
But unfortunately, try writing.
I mean, dude, you're getting good with your letters.
Thanks, man.
They will work on your shapes and your animals and we might, we might have a whole human.
One day I might have my own zoo and my own crazy mental jigsaw puzzle doing wife who's
just screaming at me for no reason all the time.
A man can dream.
You know what I mean?
Having read that, having read that, very kindly provided in inverted commas, my voice.
I'm going to assume you're firmly in the I hate Citizen Kane camp.
Not like tell me, tell me your thoughts on this movie.
Set out your stall as to your initial argument.
I don't hate this film.
Strong start.
I don't love this film.
Oh, I can.
I can appreciate what it does.
Right.
Because there are some elements in this film that blew me away and I was not expecting
it from a 1941 movie.
Right.
From a 25, 26 year old director.
I wasn't expecting it.
The subject matter doesn't interest me at all.
It's I didn't care about Kane or Rosebud or the investigation into this.
It's kind of, it's the social network all over again.
I can appreciate it.
It's a fun two hours ish.
The story is boring.
Right.
Okay.
But the film itself as a film, very interesting.
Okay.
So I had to, I had to switch up how I was watching it almost immediately because I was
like, I don't care about this.
How about you?
I, this is a film I admire much more than I enjoy.
That surprises me because I think the social network comparison is really apt to the point
where when Orson Welles was making this film, he kept repeating that it wasn't about W.
Randolph Hearst in order to get the film made and seen because W. Randolph Hearst was the
Mark Zuckerberg of his time.
He's remembered as the irresponsible media tycoon of the sort of late 19th, early 20th
centuries who set standards by which journalism ought not to be practiced.
He was like sensationalism.
I don't care if it's true.
We're going to be first and it's going to shock people.
Yeah.
He built a huge empire owned like dozens of newspapers, magazines, radio stations.
See if this begins to sound familiar, right?
Okay.
He was prioritizing sensationalism over factual reporting, owned Hearst Castle, a sprawling
estate in California filled with art, exotic animals and luxury beyond comprehension.
Sounds like Pablo Escobar.
Had a well-known affair with an actress who struggled with her acting career partly due
to his attempts to promote her beyond her talents.
You're Pablo.
Ran unsuccessfully for political office, also Pablo.
Also Pablo.
Including a failed bid for president and a term in Congress.
Pablo.
And in his later years faced financial difficulties becoming increasingly isolated relying on
loans to keep his empire afloat.
Pablo.
It's Pablo or Citizen Kane.
This is so clearly about that guy.
In the same way that when social network was being made, they were like, look, this isn't
necessarily a true account, but it's an account based on these court documents that are public
information.
Right.
Okay.
That makes sense.
That sense of it being a takedown of a large owner or controller of information.
This was the social network of the 1940s.
Because you didn't have the internet.
You had a man who would control every newspaper in your state.
Yeah.
Paper Facebook.
Origami Facebook.
Instead of sending pokes and stuff like that, he would just f*** the poor.
Yeah, right.
Exactly.
Which he literally did with his actress misses.
That kind of sense of like, oh, it's not about this guy.
We've a hundred percent carried through and we're dealing with the same problems that they
were a hundred years ago.
W. Randolph Hearst, and I've got a thing on this later.
W. Randolph Hearst is not a character who's gone away by any means.
Okay.
So there's a social relevance, but there's also a filmmaking relevance.
There's so much that this film did.
There is, man.
This is, okay.
So this is where I'm going to bring up my first point because I was not expecting this
film to do what it does in the way that it does.
The storytelling in this movie.
I love 1940s films.
I love 1950s films.
A lot of them are sort of like goofy sci-fis and stuff like this, but I like the few dramas
here and there.
The thing that I like about 40s and 50s movies is the simplicity of it all.
You don't have to understand which way the story is going to go because every story back
then went A to B to C.
Yeah.
It's an autistic man's dream.
It is.
You just know exactly what to expect.
It makes sense.
It's like watching an episode of Friends for the ninth time, but you've never seen the
film before.
Yes.
It's A to B to C. It's all very comfortable.
It's all very easy to digest, I guess it would be.
But also charming.
Charming.
Yeah.
It's reminiscent of a simpler time.
And then all of a sudden some 26 year old is like, yeah, but what about this?
Have you ever thought about doing it, telling it through narration of an investigation,
through flashbacks of unreliable narrators that we can only partially trust?
Every time you get a retelling of this man's life, because the film is essentially four
retellings of a man's life, you get a different version of who he is.
Yeah.
A thousand percent.
Imagine you've got an investigative journalist who is hired by a newspaper owned by Kane
to do Kane's obituary and is then tasked with going out and finding out what his last words
meant.
We have to trust that this employee is loyal to this corporation because we saw how we
treated his businesses towards the end of the film.
And that messed with me a little bit because I was like, okay, so the entire film now comes
into question because it's through the retelling of an investigative journalist that worked
for him.
And this guy is clearly, very, very clearly a massive cockwamble.
It's now hard to trust everything that I've seen and heard, which is great because it's
just throws in the trust issues.
It's almost like, and this is going to be like, it's a ball take.
It's almost, it's almost Fincher in the way that we do the flashbacks, the reliable narration,
the mystery, the investigation, that this whole insidious undertone that goes through
this very sort of like, I don't need to buy an opera house, she's going to sink at the
Met.
And then immediately on screen is a sort of like opera house that he's built.
Yeah.
Kane buys an opera house.
So amazingly funny.
I'm going to be honest with you and I would say that the nonlinear storytelling in this
is almost proto Tarantino.
People sit around and they stroke their chin, they go, ah, pulp fiction.
And Tarantino, he was brilliant with a nonlinear narrative.
This was the first one.
You know everything that's going to happen in the film by two minutes in, because they
start the film with a newsreel obituary for the life you're about to see.
It's mad, isn't it?
It is actually mad.
So you know everything is going to...
41.
Right.
41, he pioneers nonlinear storytelling and there is that sense of bunnies, there is that
sense of can I trust this narrator?
And the whole film centers around, you know, how can we get to know this person?
Which as a statement to make when you're talking about somebody that you are actively taking
down is really interesting.
In the same way that the social network goes, we've got all of this material from people
that are currently suing Mark Zuckerberg.
So this is what they think of him.
For 1941, when they don't have ballpoint pens yet, but they're doing subjective storytelling.
Do you see what I'm saying?
Come on.
It's so...
Come on.
You've got to understand as well, right?
But unfortunately this is now like it's a standard in modern storytelling.
We are spoiled to a point where watching this film now in 2025 will hold all merit because...
It's not tenet.
Do you know what I mean?
I'm saying like we are so spoiled for choice when it comes to great non-linear storytelling,
unreliable narration, and it just leaves you with more questions than answers.
I love that about films.
But give it the context, right?
This is black and white.
Orson Welles' first feature.
1941.
People must have walked out of the theater and been like, my brain is changed.
Memento.
Remember the first time you watched Memento?
Exactly.
I was like, oh, films can be this way.
Yeah.
Hated it.
Thought it was stupid.
We watched it together in uni.
Hated it.
Not only was it a first in non-linear storytelling, I'm going to blow your mind on a couple of
other things here, right?
Go on.
Yeah.
Cinematography.
So he hired a very, very talented cinematographer and basically let him run a hog wild with
a load of money.
There's a load of stuff in here that was never done before this movie.
Having everything in the frame be in focus.
Yes.
It's called deep focus where you get to choose what you look at.
Now not only is that an interesting technical cinematic first for me, it adds to the quality
of what the movie is trying to say.
By allowing you to choose where you're going to look in the frame, it's allowing you to
choose what to focus on, much like the narrators are.
It's not, you're not being told this is what to pay attention to.
You're just going, here is the information.
What will you choose to look at?
Oh my God.
Right?
There is an incredible example of what you've just said and it's only just hit me when his
second wife takes the medicine and they have to break into the room.
Kane and Bernstein break into her bedroom.
She's OD'd on something.
Kane's like call for the doctor.
Yep.
That entire shot, right?
I was like, something seems off because I couldn't tell which way she was facing.
I didn't know whether it was the light or this and the other, but it's because there
is a glass and a spoon.
Yes there is.
There is a very forefront of the shot that is very, very in focus, but the door is very,
very in focus.
You get a choice what to focus on, whether it's the substances that have obviously been
misused, the OD'ing wife who is now horribly depressed trying to kill herself or the faux
concern that Kane is showing with the genuine concern that Bernstein is showing sort of
further separating Kane from humanity.
They pioneered the use of an optical printer.
This was the first time in cinema history where they would focus the frame and then
they would mask out most of it.
So for instance, in the bottom of the frame in the foreground, like you said, you've got
the medicine, you've got the spoon and the needle and whatever, right?
They focused on that and then they blacked out the rest of the frame and then they reshot
the scene with the other bits in focus and that blacked out and printed two images to
the same frame.
This is exactly it.
It's insane.
They did all of this in a Velcro less world.
Yeah.
Do you know how much less time people had because they had to keep retying children's
shoes?
It was constant.
Oh my God.
Just grow up.
Learn how to do it yourself.
You know what I mean?
Velcro fixed all of that.
Learn like I did.
Get some roller blades and then sit on your front garden until someone goes, that's not
it.
And then you keep going.
You know what I mean?
That's it.
Grow up.
The other, the last thing that they invented, ceilings made.
Dude, don't do this because again, this is in my notes.
Tell me what's interesting about the ceilings, Ben.
The fact that they have them is interesting for a start because I can't point out many
early forties movies that have visible ceilings.
Like the set is an actual enclosed set.
I know a lot of it was built on stages.
They just didn't bother with the things.
Pretty much all on stages.
Yeah.
But they had a set repertoire of shots that they would use.
And it was sort of like we dip into three.
It's long mid close.
Yeah.
Do we go from feet up?
No.
Are you fucking mental?
Being a director in the forties was easy.
That shot, then that shot, then that shot.
Easy.
Excellent.
Where's me money?
And also Wells was like, you lazy citizen Kane looking pricks.
Wait until I make your job harder.
You just wait until I make your job harder.
There's a couple of other examples that I just want to touch on real quick.
One that I thought was particularly Fincher-esque.
The first time that we visit the second wife's club.
Yes.
Susan Alexander's club.
She's down in Atlantic City drinking herself to death.
The journalist pops in.
She's like, you can fuck right off.
Before all of that, buddy, before he even gets there, we see the neon sign on the roof
and it's raining and the camera goes through the neon sign, which I thought was pretty
impressive because it's on a dolly.
It's going through a tiny gap.
I know the size of cameras back then was enormous.
It's a fridge.
Either that sign was giant or some trickery afoot.
Some mischiefs.
It goes towards a window and then does a transition through the window using the rain and the
mist as the transition.
Because Orson Welles obviously went, look, I've just seen this movie called Panic Room.
It's coming out in 90 years.
Yeah, I was literally like, dude, Fincher had to be given like 60 million to play around
with this.
And Orson Welles was like, yeah, just hold on one second.
Can we just go through the window and transition it out?
I'll just do an analog mate.
It's insane.
The simplicity of these tricks kind of underplays how clever they are.
In the same way that if you gave me like 70 ingredients and then go make a thing, I'll
be like, yeah, fine.
If you give me three, a lot of the ways that these effects were achieved, like the crane
shot through the Atlantic City neon sign or light bulbs, they didn't have neon.
It predates neon.
This is insane.
It predates an element.
Amazing.
Or the ceilings.
Ceilings is a good example.
The reason they didn't show them before is because they would build a, they just build
the walls of a set.
Yeah, of course.
And then they'd have no ceiling and they'd have all the lights because old films are
not that sensitive.
Lenses were quite dark.
And so anytime you see a 1940s film, they are performing under lights as bright or brighter
than the sun.
It's just melting.
That's why they had to wear a lot of makeup.
And Orson Welles was like, well, I want the ceiling visible.
So they would dig holes in the floor to put the camera in so that they could shoot up
from like knee height.
And then they just built fake ceilings out of thin fabric and just had all the mics in
there.
And you go, when, when, when you explain it, you're like, oh, that's easy.
Simple.
But you're like, yeah, but no one had done it before.
And the film had been around for 50 years.
We talking about, oh, it's simple.
Yeah, it's simple.
And that's why it's brilliant.
It's incredible.
Like the way that the way that he's done this, the way that he's just pulled stuff out of
thin air and gone, yeah, this will work.
And then they're still being utilized to this day is mental.
It's insane.
It's mental cinematic history.
Totally.
I get that.
That's all for me.
That's all putting it in the admire column, not in the love column.
Yes.
Like is it still worth watching?
Is it still lovable because it was the first to do stuff?
Like you're not still with your first girlfriend, even though she was the first to do many things.
You're not sat there being like, oh yeah, I should.
That's my favorite.
That's the best one.
Got you.
But cinema seems to go Citizen Kane.
That's the best one.
I got a lot of reasons for that, but I want to hear why you think that this...
I think there's a lot of merit held towards the first to cross the line for something
when it comes to like achieving something new.
Merit, yes.
A lot of merit that comes from achieving something new.
And if that achievement is achieved on a certain bit of land from a certain nationality of
it gets dined out on forever for about a thousand years.
Forget the genocides.
We made trains.
Go us.
You know what I mean?
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
That's the kind of thing.
Yeah.
How did you get the resources to invent trains?
Ignore that.
Yeah.
I've looked at countless lists.
That was good.
I've looked at countless lists, right?
And I in prep for this episode, I was a little bit of a shithouse on Facebook and I joined
a group.
I joined a group called Film Buffs.
Okay.
I thought you could say area nation for a second there.
I was really worried.
No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.
Cool.
Film Buffs.
And I was like, I want to try and get like something going that's going to be quite fun
to be a part of.
And they so posted the thing.
We came up with the thing of Citizen Kane was never really that great.
Just posted that.
Just see what happens.
For a cinephile group.
Yeah.
They're all self-proclaimed film aficionados.
It's been said to me twice by two separate people on this post.
If you ever describe yourself using the word aficionado, know that you've gone wrong.
Yeah.
1000%.
You've gone too far.
There's no saving you.
You need to give up.
Take a step back.
Pick a new hobby.
You don't know me like that.
All right.
But yeah.
So these movie aficionados, we've had like, there's been shed loads of people agreeing.
There's been shed loads of people saying, well, the technical, the technical achievements
are an absolute marvel.
They are incredible.
I agree.
And that's what we've been talking about for the last half hour.
This is exactly it.
And we can't debate that, but it is boring as fuck.
And I'm like, yes, buddy.
A few saying that, you know, it's actually topped the AFI's top list of all time.
How much do you enjoy it?
The AFI lover.
I'm asking you, not the AFI.
Do all movie aficionados get their opinions from the AFI?
Yes.
Is the question I want to ask.
Okay, cool.
Well, now let me know.
That's what the A stands for, Ben.
It's great.
It's the top of every list.
I think that and the other.
But I think the one thing that everyone is forgetting is, right, this is essentially
the story of a child who was bought, placed to work, right?
But signed his life away.
Not him.
His parents signed him away.
He was bought, placed in an environment where he's just, he's there to work.
He's essentially business property, right?
You have a huge amount of wealth through inheritance.
We've kidnapped you and raised you in our ways so that you can use that inheritance wisely
for our purposes because we are your bank.
We are in charge of your education.
We're in charge of your future career.
The idea to have one person purposely built to protect and unify our business endeavors.
100%.
Citizen Kane is RoboCop.
The four RoboCop is RoboCop.
You switch out the police force with the bank and now you've got a, we can build in bigger,
better, stronger.
But they're talking about a newspaper mogul rather than like a shooty shooty.
They're building the perfect investor rather than the perfect police officer.
They forget about the love angle, which is why he comes out a bit weird.
Yeah.
Okay.
It's kind of the same story.
You know what I mean?
They both die and they're both still forced to work.
Right.
I'm saying that being taken into the care of the ultra rich at a young age.
I love how you're phrasing this.
Bear with me.
Let me cook.
No, no, no.
I got you.
Being taken into the care of the ultra rich at a young age raised on a life of extreme
luxury and then given a trust fund of hundreds of thousands of pounds per month, right?
Yeah.
Is equivalent to being pinned to the floor and having your limbs taken off by shotgun
blasts.
Yeah, I can see that.
I can see that.
Not too dissimilar.
Yeah.
The parallels are scary.
This is what I'm saying.
RoboCop 1941.
Do you know what I mean?
Now look at here.
See, you've got 20 seconds to comply.
I love the idea that RoboCop 1921, because again, we don't have transistors yet.
Just be covered in valves.
Yes.
Let it warm up for a little bit.
We'll blow valves.
Let it warm up for a bit.
Like a 50s guitar amp.
Yes.
Oh no, it'd be the day the earth stood still, dude.
It's that guy.
The guy that comes down to earth.
That's incredible.
Yeah.
Okay.
See, it works.
I've got a slightly closer parallel than RoboCop and I hear RoboCop.
I do, but I'm going to talk about some politics for a bit and I'm going to talk about them
non-judgmentally.
Okay.
Yeah, I'm super into politics.
Let's go.
I know you don't care.
There's currently a man who owns an information empire, who's been given an office in the
White House after buying a media organization or an information platform and wildly changing
its outlook.
Is this the one that carries sinks into new buildings and is like, just let that sink
in?
Right.
Is this the same guy?
Is this Elon Musk?
This is Elon Musk.
Yeah.
Elon Musk carried a sink into the Twitter head offices and was like, just let that sink
in.
Yeah, exactly.
Exactly.
This is a man.
I've got some tweets.
Hit me.
Hit me with it.
Elon Musk.
I have a World War One trench knife embedded in my bedroom wall just in case.
1917 edition.
More useful than a gun in close quarters.
I don't think that's true.
No.
The guardian, inverted commas, is a nest of pedophile apologists.
Okay.
Right?
Nest.
It's a nest.
This is a man who bought a Path of Exile 2 account fully leveled up.
Hold on.
No, no, no, no, no, no.
I just went online.
No, no, no.
This is the bit that I'm following about Elon Musk.
I'm deep in this rabbit hole.
I'm deep.
All right.
Him and Asmongold are going at it left, right and center.
I'm in it.
It's still going.
A popular right wing streamer has called him out for faking his online game streams.
He's the richest man in the world.
Asmongold isn't right wing.
He's not right wing.
Oh, Ben.
He really is.
No.
Asmongold's like, he's...
Nah, stop it.
I knew you getting the internet was a mistake.
Stop it.
I'm just going to...
Stop it.
Okay.
I'm going to complete my parallel.
Do it.
Come on.
Hit me with it.
They both come from privileged backgrounds.
They do.
Based on generational wealth.
Yeah.
They both use the media to influence public opinion, promote their own ventures, and use
their platforms for personal vendettas and sensationalism.
Okay.
They both got insane, weird projects like, I'm going to build Xanadu, a private estate
with art and wealth and all this kind of stuff.
A million statues.
Or, we're going to go to Mars.
We'll be there by 2025.
No we won't, musky boy.
All of it pointing to the fact that this is still happening.
The ultra rich buying our diet of information and using it to enrich themselves further
was happening then and it's still happening now.
That's f***ing depressing.
So I'm aware that you watch the movie and you're like, okay, yeah, it's technical this, it's
technical that, it's technical the other.
As a letter, as a screaming warning from the past, this has never been more relevant.
There is an unelected man with an office in the White House.
He's only there because he owns a media empire and has money.
And he's now deciding policy for America and running campaigns trying to get labour out
in the UK.
Yeah, no, I see what you're saying.
I see what you're saying.
I feel like this isn't going to be the first example that we've had.
I feel like every iteration of most governments is going to follow similar suit.
Exactly, but I think that's the thing.
It's going to happen.
It's always happening.
We've got a particularly egregious example going on at the moment, but this is old, this
is literally old news.
That's upsetting.
I'm glad that you've brought this up though because it's nice to have a balance between
very hard hit in real actual comparisons of RoboCop and Citizen Kane and then the light
hearted ones.
Yeah, RoboCop is.
Are you ready for me to sum up this film?
I'm ready for you to do what you think is the sum up of this film, yes, Ben, and then
I'm going to surprise you.
Okay.
Finger up the bum.
You're ready for this.
So my grand takeaway from Citizen Kane, the Beatles.
The Beatles are massively important when it comes to the music publishing business side
of things, right?
Food webs.
Birds wouldn't have a food source without them.
See what I mean?
Idiot.
Thousands of songs from the musicians that changed the world of music and art forever
for the better.
They fundamentally crafted stuff.
Vox invented distortion so that these guys could play Shea Stadium.
That shit is from the Beatles.
You're welcome.
Every single distortion user ever.
Yeah.
Okay.
All right.
Yeah.
I mean, you pull a face.
Nine Inch Nail used distortion.
Yeah, yeah, they do.
You're welcome.
But it's fine.
Black musicians didn't do distortion with the blues.
Vox didn't make it.
Okay.
Vox didn't make it.
So it's not.
Yeah.
Vox didn't make it.
Vox invented it for the Beatles at Shea Stadium.
In which case, Samsung invented the touchscreen with the A54.
No, it was the A21S.
Okay.
Yeah.
I mean, there were touchscreens before that, but it wasn't made by Samsung.
So what's the point?
Exactly.
Samsung invented the Samsung touchscreen.
Yeah.
Vox invented the Vox distortion.
The Beatles are responsible for metal, I guess.
The Beatles are responsible for most music.
You can trace it back.
Their catalogue is so extensive.
You can trace most modern day music back to elements from the Beatles, from the early
musicians, right?
Totally.
But f***ing hell, are they culturally exhausted?
Look, are they?
They are quoted everywhere.
They're covered everywhere.
They're reviewed left, right and center.
It's a nightmare on the cultural side of things.
Very, very important on the publishing side of things, because whoever owns the music
publishing stuff, controls quite a lot of money there, right?
I feel that Citizen Kane is much the same as this.
It's the Beatles of cinema.
So from a filmmaking perspective and for its contributions to the craft, Citizen Kane is
monumentally important.
Like monumentally so.
Groundbreaking technique, game changing use of camera framing, camera angle, cinematography,
lighting.
They're pioneering storytelling and editing the way that they, like you said, the way
that they compound frames together.
It's ridiculous.
Because of this influence over an entire industry, the techniques introduced in Kane, evident
in today's films, like eight decades later, they've all become so standard that they're
no longer hit the same as they once did.
We've been completely spoiled.
So an answer to our initial question, is Citizen Kane still relevant?
The answer is both yes and no.
Yes for all of the above, because everyone today, Fincher in Panic Room, has utilized
things to a better degree and to a more technically...
He's got the benefit of being 50 years later in time.
So you would hope.
You'd hope he'd turn it.
This is what I'm saying though.
But that idea is present in Citizen Kane in 1941, which is mental to me.
So what it is for cinema, absolutely yes, it is relevant.
It always will be.
We need to be grateful for it.
We need to be thankful.
The film that we watch today in some way has been touched by Citizen Kane.
Square in the keynote, it's been a little tickle, a little fondle, a little whoop.
But for me personally, no.
It's not relevant at all.
It's the bank buying a human child and the struggles of the wealthy and the corruption
of power and old school morality.
So much more than that.
I can't relate to this.
I can't relate to it.
It's boring.
Where are the misunderstood monsters who just want to be loved?
Where are the weirdly full of red flags, final people that I inexplicably fall in love with
for no reason every single time?
Where are the brains?
Where's the IQ?
You know what I mean?
The thinly veiled in tiny red pasty brains.
You know what I mean?
There's no cleavage covered in brains.
So what's there for you?
This is what I mean.
It's nowhere.
All of that stuff is nowhere.
What's even the point?
Am I going to watch this so I can go wank off some farts, sniffing Bellen beyond the
library in black and white?
No.
I don't want to do that, Rob.
But clearly you're about to tell me why you do.
Would you like to say something?
I'm going to tell you why this film is actually...
I'm surprised that this film didn't connect with you because this is a film that I think
speaks very deeply to the life that you've led and the life that I've led.
I'll agree.
I think it's a film that talks about you can struggle your way there and you can get it
and you can find yourself unhappier than you've ever been.
And the fallacy of legacy, how the joy in life is the process of working towards something
not in the having.
He starts at the top.
So he picks a small newspaper because he can enjoy building it up and the striving to have
that he enjoys the building.
Once he's built, he's unhappy.
And so then he picks an impossible mission, which is making his untalented mistress into
something respectable because he knows she'll never get there.
But it allows him to engage in the chase of getting it, perpetually.
That's why he's so angry with her when she says, I can't do this anymore because it's
me they're mocking.
He's like, no, I need you to do this.
I need you to keep engaging in this ridiculous mission because the trying is the game.
And the fun is in getting the platinum trophy, not in the having of it.
As a film about loss, as a film about thinking that you'd lost everything and then getting
to a point where you go, oh, actually, now I don't have it.
I realized that that was super important.
I don't know what more we could relate to.
It's not a film about a rich guy.
It's a film about any guy uses a rich guy.
Because if we start off with a poor fellow who's coming back and then he builds it all
up and then he's unhappy, that doesn't tell the story of, as he says in his own words,
if I hadn't been born rich, I might have had a chance at being a decent guy.
A hundred percent.
And I like all that stuff.
It's not lost on me.
It's a very sort of like, it's the very forefront of the film.
It's good.
The only thing that troubles me with it is...
Great.
So you can't relate because you're an inverse snob.
No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.
I feel like...
That's very funny, but no, that's not it.
Me and you have taken a lot of time out to work on accountability and I feel like that's
the big thing here.
He doesn't...
He never once looks in the mirror and he never once has anyone that will say, every room
that you walk in stinks of shit.
You know what I mean?
He does.
He's friends with Leland and he pushes him away.
Precisely for that reason.
This is what I'm saying though.
But look, okay, so for me, you were my Leland.
You were like, you're a nightmare.
What are you doing?
And rather than going, you're fired.
I'll write a review for you that makes you seem like an absolute dickhead to one of your
mates, which is just pure manipulation and just, again, denying any sort of accountability
whatsoever.
Yep.
Instead of that, you've got me to a place where I have to sit and stare in the mirror
and it makes me sad for a bit.
It does.
It makes me sad for a bit, but also it forces me to look at some of the really complicated
things that have been going on in my brain and head and challenge why I think certain
ways and why I do certain things and why I lived that life in the first place.
Admittedly, Charles Kane was sort of bought.
So he didn't really have a choice.
He was bred for it.
Yeah.
He didn't have a choice about it, which again is upsetting, but the relatability of...
You are right.
It's a similar thing.
The chase is always better than the actual getting, but it's the lack of accountability
and the lack of self-awareness and the complete committal to self-worth being what you bring
to the table.
And even if you have like a 4,900 acre estate, which has been built, it's essentially a castle
museum.
It's a mausoleum.
It's a tomb.
Yeah.
It's a tomb.
So you've built this entire thing that has everything in the world in it.
And you keep it in boxes in the basement.
You'd still be horribly unhappy.
Buying it brought you joy, but now you've got it.
And that's the same with Susan Alexander.
That's the same with everything.
And as an analysis of the American dream and how hollow that is and going, okay, so you
value materialism, you value the having of things, look where it gets you.
It's still incredibly relevant.
Now here's where I might surprise you is that what's important for me about Citizen Kane
could obviously...
It could fill hours and hours and hours of podcast, but what I find most interesting
about Citizen Kane is as a film, it's a champion against everything it is today.
It hates what it is today.
Citizen Kane broke the mold of the existing film knowledge, of the existing canon, of
the existing sort of top 10 list, right?
It went, nah, call that.
It said everything that we knew about filmmaking that came before was supposed to be forgotten.
And it tells a two hour story about how trying to be the best, how trying to outlast history
was a pointless exercise.
Citizen Kane, the film hates Citizen Kane, the historical document.
It literally says no word can sum up a man or a film or anything.
I love this.
Because you need a one hour podcast for that idiot.
You wanker, Orson.
Obviously.
Absolute bellend.
To sum up anything, it's a one hour podcast.
That's why everyone's here.
But if you take the polish off this film, you take it off that pedestal, it's still a great
movie about capitalism, about loss, about hubris, about all those sorts of things.
And it's only a boring movie.
And it's only a dull movie.
And it's only a pretentious movie.
If you watch it while it's up on that pedestal.
If you sit down and go, oh, this is the greatest film ever made, is it?
Come on then.
100%.
If you watch it the same way you would watch any other 1941 film, it's the greatest film
of all time.
It's the greatest 1941 film of all time.
100% that.
Yeah.
The film is literally saying this legacy nonsense is only going to get you killed and it's only
going to suck the joy out of something.
And so if you approach this film without that legacy, it's a gem.
It's a gem that's still just as enjoyable today.
But if you watch it because of its importance, you're not going to have a good time.
I love that.
I'll agree wholeheartedly.
I think the research into this film has sort of...
Killed it.
... dampened it a bit for me.
And the reverence for it as well.
It's a film.
It's a 1941 film.
What do you expect?
I thought I was going to get some fun out of this sort of like weird Facebook group,
but no.
Right.
It just fed into every stereotype that I held.
And I was like, this is why I hate this.
People who enjoy being part of the club and going, stroking their chins and going, here's
why it's the greatest.
But do you enjoy it as a film?
And I think if you approach it as this titan, then no.
A little bit like if you walk in the room and you go, oh my God, that's Charles Foster
Kane.
You're not going to end up being mates.
If you walk up to him and go, all right, dickhead.
Yeah.
Keep going.
Yeah.
Treat him like a person.
Do you want to play a game?
I'd love to.
Right.
This is...
I've not done this before.
I quite liked last week where you just went in blind.
So I've got a quiz for you, Ben.
And this might shake the very core of your little chip on your shoulder, proud to be
a poor lifestyle.
Chip on my shoulder.
Chip on your shoulder.
Yeah.
Monkey on your back.
I got you.
This is a quiz.
Are you a budding billionaire?
Sorry.
Are you a rose budding billionaire?
That just...
Okay.
That doesn't work, but it occurred.
It's fine.
So a question for you.
Are you a natural dreamer or someone who focuses on subtle details?
Oh God.
I can answer this for you, Ben.
You're a dreamer.
You have a million ideas a week and execute half of them.
Yeah.
I execute 500,000 ideas a week.
No, no, no, no, no.
You instantiate 500,000 ideas a week.
Execute.
No, no, no.
It's on record.
It's fine.
I have a million ideas, execute half of them.
Thank you.
Appreciate it.
Do you get a buzz?
What was the question?
Are you a dreamer or do you focus on more subtle details?
Ah, dreamer.
Dreamer.
Do you get a buzz from taking risks or do you prefer to plan meticulously?
I mean, come on, dude.
Okay, hold on.
So this is a difficult one because I will jump at anything all the time.
Yep.
But if I like something, then I have to plan out to the second exactly what it is doing
and when it's doing.
Yeah.
So a little column A, little column B. I'm going to go risk it.
I'm going to exactly risk it with risk taker because that is the truth.
Yeah.
Do you see yourself as a natural boss type or someone who is happy doing the basics all
rounder?
No, I don't like doing it all rounder.
You're a big boss, big boss man.
No, neither of those to be honest.
You're asking me if you want sauce, if I want sauce salad.
I guess it go all rounder.
I'm, I don't like either of those.
I don't like being the idea of being big boss, but I also don't like the one to be so like,
yeah, I'll just take it as it goes.
Such a sigma, such sigma energy, bro.
Do you have an innate sense of what people in general respond to or do you have more
of a feeling for what the rich prefer?
Are you common touch?
You're a money magnet.
Obvious money magnet.
No, no, I'm not putting money magnet.
Common touch.
I'm a money repellent.
I often wonder if like you've actually got magnetic properties and it just happens to
be the exact same magnetic properties money has.
I've seen it move away from you on a table.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Yeah.
I've actively chased a fiver down the street before.
You know what I mean?
Who wouldn't?
How conscious are you of your limitations?
Do you take advice from others?
Yes.
No, the answers are what limitations question mark or advice take?
Oh, advice taker.
I'm very aware of my limitations.
Are you joking?
Ben, how's the gym?
It's good.
Oh, it's fine.
My right side of my chest.
Why is that?
Is that because the doctor said that you couldn't go to the gym anymore and then you went to
the gym?
No, it's because the doctor said I can start going to the gym slowly.
So then when I slowly went to the gym, technically the same, my right lungs is now on the fritz.
Went to the doctor's real quick on that one though, didn't you?
I've got an appointment with a specialist.
If I go to the doctor's they're going to go, oh, we're going to book you.
Or are you somebody who doesn't know their limitations?
Because if I go to the f***ing doctor's now, they're going to be like, yeah, let's get
you an appointment with a specialist.
Next time he's in, 19th.
Oh look, you've already got me.
I'm not talking about now, Ben.
I'm talking about the six months of the last year.
Oh yeah, no, I ignored all that.
That's because I was scared.
And I mean, that wasn't because I needed advice.
That was more, I was a little bit, little bit of a fright.
How do you relax?
Are you a connoisseur of the arts or do you prefer to just focus on your business?
I guess they kind of go hand in hand with the podcast.
Do you make time for your interests or does your business need you?
I make time for interests.
Right, last one.
So you've made your billions.
Congratulations.
What do you do with them?
And the answers are do with them.
My business is still growing or now I can do something to help others with all that
wealth.
Probably be.
Yeah, come on, man.
I wouldn't keep it for a second.
Ben, you're a budding billionaire, mate.
Bill Gates would be proud of you.
You have a natural business acumen with the vision to develop ideas and opportunities
that no one else sees, yet you still have the common touch to actually understand what
the rest of us want and need.
You do all this with a charm and humour that people warm to and identify with and your
charitable ideas could transform the lives of millions.
Just a shame that all of that loveliness is wrapped in just a big old bundle of dick edit.
It's just all wrapped in the man I love the most who is also by a wide margin the least
reliable man I know.
Comment corner.
Yeah, hit me with it.
So I got a couple.
I got a couple for you today.
We had some lovely people get in touch.
And trust me, I am as surprised as anyone when I say this about the movie in Seminoid.
Okay.
Oh, okay.
So we had Lisa Schlesinger.
Schlesinger?
Smashed it.
But she got in touch and she was like, okay, my dad made this film.
Amazing.
She said, look, in Seminoid wasn't that bad.
My dad, Peter Schlesinger was the producer.
And I said it wasn't.
It suffered from us covering it as part of our Alien series.
And the comparison isn't really that fair.
But as a piece of British filmmaking, it did really well at the time.
It's just not aged brilliantly.
I'll disagree wholeheartedly.
Well, you say that.
But Lisa says, I'm only joking.
It really was terrible.
That's amazing.
And Candy, her sister, got in touch on a separate in Seminoid reel and said, oh, you know, my
dad made this.
And you replied to that one.
I did.
I remember this one.
You said, please pass on my thanks.
I've shown this film to so many people.
Incredible B-movie.
True.
All true facts.
I've never seen more comments more accurately sort of depict the difference.
Imagine if they don't know that two people run that account and they just sort of like,
this guy's a schizophrenic.
No, he's an absolute, absolute sycophant.
Just whatever we say, he's like, yeah, I agree.
I agree.
Yeah, that's it.
Yeah.
But Candy got in touch and said, that's so nice to hear.
He would have loved to hear this.
He passed recently.
So condolences to them.
Oh, I haven't read that.
And congratulations on being part of the, the in Seminoid family.
That's a horrible phrase, isn't it?
The inseminoid family.
I've started using inseminoid as like a way instead of inducted.
Oh, okay.
I'm glad you using it instead of inducted rather than lovemaking.
Hey, do you want to come back to my house and get inseminoid?
And a completely unrelated note.
Candy is now referred to as implementing.
Nice.
And then, and then we had a listener called Libby get in touch asking if we ever watched
B horror movies.
So I was like, I'm going to be honest with you.
Part of this podcast, there's a guy who's really good with those and it's not me.
It's not me.
I am.
They wanted to know what you thought about zombievers.
Zombievers.
Okay.
Zombievers is, is terrible, but amazing.
Right.
Okay.
They agree.
I've got the DVD here.
Look.
Oh, you literally showing the DVD on an audio podcast.
Brilliant.
Enjoy it.
They also watched Arena Wars last night.
NAF, but watchable, they said.
I've not seen Arena Wars.
So they say think running man meets battle Royale.
All right.
That's on the list.
From Tmoo as well.
So nice.
Right.
Nice.
And then the last one was Rippy the Red.
So Rippy, Rippy is the killer kangaroo, right?
The Aussie outback troll.
You're going to have to tell me, bud.
I'm, I'm, I'm too busy watching Keno and stroke him a bit, stroke him a bit.
You literally, yeah.
You'd suck in black and white people off behind the library.
I don't see color mate.
I know.
That's what I mean.
1940s vision.
Right.
Exactly.
Black and white.
Black and white for you.
Oh, I see what I've done.
Hold on.
Yeah.
I see what I've done.
No, no, no.
You're sucking people off in black and white.
There we go.
There you go.
That's what I meant.
There it is.
Beautiful.
Reframe it.
You know what I mean?
Now the spoons in focus.
That sadly is all the time we have.
Running out guys.
Thank you so much for hanging out with us.
It's been an absolute pleasure.
You have no idea how much this means to us.
Just before we wrap up the show, if you have enjoyed this episode and you want to support
the show, can you please leave us a review wherever you're listening to this, tell a
friend about us.
It really does help us more than you know.
Find us on socials, likes and comments and all that sort of stuff.
Shares to your stories are, I cannot tell you how incredibly powerful one of you lot
sharing something to your story and liking it or commenting it is.
And also if you want more show and more content and an extra episode every month, support
us over on Patreon.
It's a pound.
It's a pound a month.
You know, it's one pound a month.
It's just so that we can talk to you honestly and openly and go, oh, we're friends here.
Let's bring out the bad jokes.
Plus you get some extra fun shit.
You know what I mean?
Thank you so much for hanging out with us.
It's been an absolute pleasure.
We love and appreciate each and every one of you more than you will ever know.
We really, really do.
And to thank you for spending an hour of your week with us, especially at the start of the
week.
We know a lot of you listen on a Monday.
Ben is now going to wrap up the thoughts, themes and feelings of this greatest movie
of all time into a little Monday motivational pep talk.
While I just tell you to consume.
Go watch The Beatles of cinema.
You know what I mean?
The Beatles big important with the publishing side of things and it's like whoever owns
the publishing rights of the Beatles might may or may not have been killed because he
may or may not have owned the Beatles.
You know, there's a whole conspiracy theory there.
If you want to get into it, Michael Jackson owned them, by the way.
You know, I mean, he's dead now.
Coincidence?
I don't think so.
Citizen Kane's dead now.
You know what I mean?
Charles Foster bit the bankers ledge, didn't he?
He's gone now.
I think the main takeaway from this is is blue chip cabaret push really is worth the
chase.
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You shake it and it's got the shaky eye.
And when I shake it, the eye moves.
It's dope.
Emma will be appearing at Megacon Live 2025 on the 25th and 26th of January at the Excell
in London if you're heading to Megacon.
Make sure you go see her.
Tell her that we sent you and get yourself some insanely cool nerd pride.
If you're not heading to Megacon this year, first off, why not?
Second off, head on over to emma law rich dot com.
That's E M M A L A U R I C H dot com.
And grab your goodies from there.
Go follow her on Instagram.
Thanks again to Emma Lorich for sponsoring this episode.