Should Citizen Kane Be Required Viewing for Kids?

Posted by Adam Sweeney (adam@filmschoolrejects.com) on January 2, 2009

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Citizen Kane has been lauded by critics as the greatest American film of all-time, but should that make it a mandatory part of American students’ curriculum?

Michael Pinto of the beloved Fanboy.com was enraged when he recently met a “college bound liberal arts student” that hadn’t seen Orson Welles’ masterpiece, a film that topped AFI’s 100 Years … 100 movies list. Pinto was shocked that any American could graduate high school without having seen the film, which got him to thinking that the American schooling system should require students to watch it before graduating.

“There are so many reasons to teach this film — the screenplay alone is a great example of theater, a play with a rightful place in every English class alongside every other classic from Shakespeare to Arthur Miller,” Pinto said. He continued, “What’s wonderful about Citizen Kane is that it’s a film about all of the universal themes like love, greed and hope — yet it’s also a wonderful period piece about the history of the United States.”

Now, I don’t agree with Pinto’s statement that, “you can’t understand the character of our country unless you’ve seen this film.” I didn’t see Citizen Kane until I was in college and I still feel that I had a pretty decent grasp on what drives our country. The answer is money, right? But I think that Pinto may be onto something when he says, “Citizen Kane should be used to teach the subject of American history — it touches on so many topics that were critical to the formation of United States after the Civil War: the gilded age, robber barons, the Spanish American War, yellow journalism, progressivism, the great depression and even the isolationism that took America into World War II.”It is an exceptional character study of the American psyche, as well as a beautifully shot film. I still think it is overrated in some regards, however.

Tell you what, I will agree that Citizen Kane be mandatory viewing for students in American History classes, but only if the study of Orson Welles’ obesity is covered in health classes. Deal, Pinto? We can push for this teaching platform in 2009 under the slogan of “All’s well who study Welles!” If you want to see more Pinto’s argument you can check it out here.

Is Citizen Kane the greatest film of all-time? Should it be taught in the American schooling system?


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  • Citizen Kane should be required viewing for any film student. I watched it a bunch of times in various film classes in college and I love it.
    I do think the story has some legitimate applications in the regular classroom, but I belong to some message boards where high school aged kids have complained about being forced to watch it.
    "It's soooooo boring" was the most popular assessment of Kane.
    Ah kids these days with thier MP3s and Twitter thingies.
  • It is required as a film student. Any instructor worth his/her weight is showing it in class. I saw it in Intro to Film and Great Directors. Hell, we even had ten questions on the final just on CK Problem is, parents have their kids on this instant praise and gratification trail. So what do you expect for minds desensitized by violence at a tender age?
  • I agree with Jackie. We watched it as the final film in my Film Studies course and had to examine why people prop it up so high.
  • It's not just a case of teaching kids that KANE is a great film, its teaching them why it is a landmark cinema. They should watch it twice, the second time with Ebert's fantastic DVD commentary track.

    The real problem is that kids today are not being taught proper critical thinking skills, a legacy of Bush's failed "No Child Left Behind" policies which only taught rote memorization. High schoolers should be taught how to watch films, not just look at them.
  • It only took them 7 years to figure out that the policy does not work. No one has the balls to demand it be dropped. Kids lack reading, writing and comprehension skills. Basics that should have been taught in elementary school show up across the board in middle and high school.
  • No.
  • Matthias Galvin
    I disagree, I think it should be required viewing for children not because of its "historical applications" but for appreciation. Children are (or at least should be) taught to understand and appreciate all of the great works of art in all mediums, whether or not it's literature, (epic) poetry, theater, painting, or the cinema. For that reason, it sould be viewed to be somewhat taken apart, to be understood as a work of art in film, like Homer is read for his great works of poetry, or Shakespeare is read for his great works of theater. The idea that it's a "legitimate teaching tool" is crap: Like all films (documentaries included), it is a carefully constructed fiction. While this is true for any work in any medium (books included), film is at a handicap as a teaching tool for certain things as it is tigher and more condense, the example being that a comparatively long film cannot contain nearly the amount of useful information as a comparatively long book.

    tl;dr: Citizen Kane should be viewed as a work of art for dissection and appreciation as part of what is canon in cinema, not because “you can’t understand the character of our country unless you’ve seen this film.”
  • Ditto. And no.
  • Cole,

    Thanks so much for starting my day off with a big-assed laugh, bro. :-) Transformers... priceless.

    As to your question, I don't know for sure - but even for a movie as old as that there are amazing elements to it in every facet of filmmaking. From the camera angles used, the cinematography, use of aging make up on Kane, the "mystery" plotline in an otherwise non-mystery movie... you could go on and on.

    And I STILL refuse to sign up for "IntenseDebate." Don't know why... call it a rebellious streak.

    Best,

    Vic
  • 790
    Its more than money that controls the world,,,
    Money is just the front game, the real game,,,,,"control" is held in the VIP room.

    Never seen Citizen Kane, doubt it would change my world view,,,,
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