Cinematography is hardly even a "technical achievement" because it's right in front of your face. How the movie looks is hard to ignore.

Yeah, it's basically the prose of a movie, but I can read a book with relatively unimpressive prose but with a good story and a lot of heart, while I'd be bored stiff by a beautifully written book that had nothing much else going for it.

There's a place for both (CK has heart out the ass though).

I really didn't like Kane the first time I saw it about 10 years ago. I gave it another shot a year or two ago and it blew me away.

You definitely have to look past some of the more dated elements of it, but if you can the story of Kane is haunting and epic.

If it's a visually impressive movie, like Gravity, then cinematography is already going to be the star, but in a character-driven movie like Citizen Kane it takes the backseat for importance. And like I said, I kind of hate old school acting, so I doubt I'd appreciate the writing of Citizen Kane regardless, as I'd be too busy telling myself that the way they were talking was just the thing back then and I shouldn't hold it against the movie.

It is and can be both.

Why thank you.

There was movie making before Citizen Kane, and then there was movie making after Citizen Kane. That alone makes it epic. Wells was only 25 when he made it, had never directed anything prior, and had never worked in Hollywood. He went into it as a blank slate and pretty much made it up as he went along.

I'd say I'm gonna go back and watch Citizen Kane to see if it clicks with me this time, but we both know I'm not actually going to do that.

In hindsight it's pretty boring a lot of the time. Welles definitely focused on the technical stuff at the expense of the story.

I thought the story was pretty engaging.