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PaperclipPerfector  4mo ago (text post)   2496 thread views

Friday Fun Thread for July 19, 2024

Be advised: this thread is not for serious in-depth discussion of weighty topics (we have a link for that), this thread is not for anything Culture War related. This thread is for Fun. You got jokes? Share 'em. You got silly questions? Ask 'em.

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Citizen Kane is rated so highly for technical reasons. Orson Welles invented half the shot types that modern filmmakers use when he was making Citizen Kane. For example, deep focus, where the shot is arranged so that both the background and foreground are in focus during the shot. If you watch any modern movie today, you will see shot techniques that were created for Citizen Kane. The problem is that these techniques have been in use for 80 years now, so when you go back and watch Citizen Kane, it looks good, but you won’t notice how revolutionary it was. If you were watching it in 1941 it would look quite unlike anything that came before it.

Indeed, It's a core example of the old "Shakespeare is unoriginal" or "Seinfeld is unfunny" trope. It only appears derivative because everyone has spent the last umptysquat years riffing off of it. When it was new it was genuinely new.

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