Citizen Kane Quotes

• There is more good writing and good acting in any ten minutes of Twister than in, say, all of Citizen Kane.

  Orson Scott Card

  Writing, House, Acting

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• You can have a movie with hardly any cuts, or very few cuts, that is fascinating, you can't take your eyes away from it... Look at some of the long takes in Citizen Kane.

  Roger Ebert

  Eye, Cutting, Long

  Interview With Chris Neumer, www.stumpedmagazine.com.

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• I mean, everyone says Citizen Kane. It isn't that great, anyway. And Orson Welles I knew well, of course. He made other incredible films that no one would let him make, which were much better than Citizen Kane, really.

  Patrick Macnee

  Mean, Citizens, Film

  "10 QUESTIONS: PATRICK MACNEE". Interview with Ken P., www.ign.com. September 17, 2003.

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• Citizen Kane is perhaps the one American talking picture that seems as fresh now as the day it opened. It may seem even fresher.

  Pauline Kael

  Movie, Air, Talking

  Herman Jacob Mankiewicz, Orson Welles, Pauline Kael (1971). “The Citizen Kane book”

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• I actually wanted to publish [ interview with Donald Trump about Citizen Kane] in the New York Times, but the circumstances under which I did that movie made me vulnerable to a lawsuit and at this point in my career, I don't want to go there. But it's amazing.

  Errol Morris

  New York, Careers, Citizens

  Source: collider.com

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• What's interesting is that Citizen Kane was meant as an anti-fascist/anti-capitalist melodrama and for Donald Trump it becomes just another kind of misogynistic claim that misses the point.

  Errol Morris

  Interesting, Missing, Citizens

  Source: collider.com

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• Orson Welles lists Citizen Kane as his best film, Alfred Hitchcock opts for Shadow of a Doubt, and Sir Carol Reed chose The Third Man - and I'm in all of them.

  Joseph Cotten

  Men, Doubt, Shadow

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• I discovered Orson Welles in college; my freshman English professor screened 'Citizen Kane' for us, and I wound up writing a 20-page term paper on it.

  Claire Danes

  Writing, College, Term Paper

  "Zac Efron and Claire Danes Interview ME AND ORSON WELLES". Interview, collider.com. November 24, 2009.

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• My dad had a commercial film company, so he had a videotape player before anyone. So he got Mel Brooks movies or Citizen Kane or some classic old movies. And every summer the revival house in Evanston would show the great films from the '50s and '60s and '70s.

  John Cusack

  Summer, Dad, Player

  "John Cusack, Gen X’s Favorite Antihero". Interview with Clara Jeffery, www.motherjones.com. July/August, 2008.

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• I hate tooting my own horn, but after Steven Spielberg saw Yentl, he said: "I wish I could tell you how to fix your picture, but I can't. It's the best film I've seen since Citizen Kane".

  Barbra Streisand

  Hate, Wish, Citizens

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• When I was young I had a security blanket and a pet dog. The dog got sick and died and the blanket had to be burned, so I guess I was trying to recreate the image of security in the bunny. It was a Citizen Kane/Rosebud thing.

  Hugh Hefner

  Dog, Sick, Pet

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• I don't believe that Citizen Kane or Gone With the Wind, or any damn picture that you can name, would be better off in 3D. I think it's a gimmick. I find 3D distracting.

  William Friedkin

  Believe, Thinking, Wind

  "EXCLUSIVE: William Friedkin Says No to The Exorcist in 3D". Interview with B.Alan Orange, movieweb.com. February 19, 2010.

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• The book is almost always better than the movie. You could have no better case in point than FROM HELL, Alan Moore's best graphic novel to date, brilliantly illustrated by Eddie Campbell. It's hard to describe just how much better the book is. It's like, "If the movie was an episode of Battlestar Galactica with a guest appearance by the Smurfs and everyone spoke Dutch, the graphic novel is Citizen Kane with added sex scenes and music by your favourite ten bands and everyone in the world you ever hated dies at the end." That's how much better it is.

  Warren Ellis

  Sex, Book, Bad Ass

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• You make a film and always hope you're going make "Citizen Kane" or "The Bicycle Thief." You make the film, and for one reason or another, one clicks and one doesn't, but it's out of your control completely.

  Woody Allen

  Thieves, Citizens, Film

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• I personally think Chimes of Midnight is a much better film than Citizen Kane.

  Christian McKay

  Thinking, Midnight, Citizens

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• Movies such as 'Citizen Kane' and 'The Front Page' portrayed an era when driven newspapermen would do anything to get a story. The U.K.'s rough-and-tumble Fleet Street remains something of a throwback to that era, as demonstrated by the recent phone-hacking scandal - which led to the demise of yet another century-old paper, the 'News of the World.'

  Nathan Myhrvold

  Phones, Stories, Demise

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• I like a lot of classic movies, like, for example, 'Citizen Kane', James Dean movies, etc, etc.

  Tommy Wiseau

  Example, Citizens, Etc

  "Tommy Wiseau Goes Legit: An Interview With the Man Behind 'The Room'" by Peter Knegt, www.indiewire.com. June 9, 2011.

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• Orson Welles was a force of nature, who just came in and wiped the slate clean. And Citizen Kane is the greatest risk-taking of all time in film. I don’t think anything had even seen anything quite like it. The photography was also unlike anything we’d seen. The odd coldness of the filmmaker towards the character reflects his own egomania and power, and yet a powerful empathy for all of them--it’s very interesting. It still holds up, and it’s still shocking. It takes storytelling and throws it up in the air.

  Martin Scorsese

  Photography, Powerful, Character

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• Is 'Garden State' the next 'Citizen Kane'? Of course not. I'd like to think we aimed a little higher than that, frankly.

  Zach Braff

  Garden, Thinking, Citizens

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• I really like my first movie a lot, "Kicking and Screaming." I think it's a - I'm very pleased and proud of that movie, but it wasn't the - it wasn't "Citizen Kane" right out of the box, you know? It wasn't "Sex, Lies and Videotape."

  Noah Baumbach

  Sex, Lying, Thinking

  "Director Baumbach Tracks Family Failure". Interview with Alison Stewart, www.npr.org. November 29, 2007.

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