Let the Currents of Chaos Carry You to the Port of Prosperity

Yonason Goldson
Thu, 08 Jan 2026 23:00:00 -0800
Lifestyle

Do you have a favorite movie? Is it "Citizen Kane"? Over the last seven decades, critics and filmmakers have chosen, with near unanimity, Orson Welles' magnum opus as the best movie ever made.

The film was truly revolutionary. It introduced non-linear narrative. It employed innovative camera techniques. It devised montage sequences and integrated sound effects. The storyline is textured, complex and thematically profound, driven by a mystery that goes undiscovered by the players while being artfully revealed to the audience.

With so many technical accolades to its credit, the film has indisputably earned the title of most influential movie of all time. But the best? That's something else.
Updated: Fri Jan 09, 2026

Do you have a favorite movie? Is it "Citizen Kane"? Over the last seven decades, critics and filmmakers have chosen, with near unanimity, Orson Welles' magnum opus as the best movie ever made.

The film was truly revolutionary. It introduced non-linear narrative. It employed innovative camera techniques. It devised montage sequences and integrated sound effects. The storyline is textured, complex and thematically profound, driven by a mystery that goes undiscovered by the players while being artfully revealed to the audience.

With so many technical accolades to its credit, the film has indisputably earned the title of most influential movie of all time. But the best? That's something else.

Amidst all the extraordinary elements over which motion picture aficionados ooh and ahh, the most important consideration of all has slipped through the cracks: "Citizen Kane" is a lumbering bore. Perhaps audiences had more patience and lower expectations when it premiered in 1941. But the industry would have gone out of business long ago had filmmakers not improved cinematic storytelling by multiple orders of magnitude.

To consecrate "Citizen Kane" for the brilliance of its component parts marks the quintessence of missing the forest for the trees. What the movie lacks is this week's entry into the Ethical Lexicon:

Gestalt (ge-stalt / guh-shtahlt) noun

An organized whole that is perceived as more than the sum of its parts.

Sir Alec Issigonis, designer of the Mini car, quipped that a camel is a horse designed by committee. Of course, that's not quite fair, since camels are perfectly designed for their environment. A better example is the Ford Edsel.

Few of us are old enough to remember the would-be wonder car. Massive hype lauded unique styling and futuristic features like push-button shifting, self-adjusting brakes, warning lights and "Teletouch" steering wheel shifting. Despite all that, the car proved one of history's most magnificent flops, surviving only two years in production.

In short, it was a camel. Each element was designed by a different team, delivering — like "Citizen Kane" — a product that was far less than the sum of its parts.

So which movie belongs at the top of the list? It's not even a question: "Casablanca." What is more, the back story behind this incomparable masterpiece is as compelling as the film itself.

Based on a lackluster play titled, "Everybody Comes to Rick's," the movie likely would never have happened had the script not arrived at Warner Brothers studio the day after the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor. Literally overnight, patriotic movies became all Hollywood wanted to make.

It was production head Hal Wallis who envisioned Humphrey Bogart as the lead. But no one else did. Having played mostly gangsters, even Bogart couldn't see himself in the role. He also didn't like playing opposite Ingrid Bergman, who towered over him by three inches. Off screen, there was virtually no chemistry between them; the stars barely spoke to one another between takes.

Most remarkably, throughout the entire production, no one knew how the story would end. Writers were turning out script only days before filming. Right up until they shot the final scene it was still undecided who would get the girl, Rick Blaine or his rival, Victor Lazlo.

"Casablanca" succeeds not simply as a compelling love story. It triumphs as a multilayered drama of conflicting loyalties, idealism conquering cynicism, selfishness bowing before sacrifice and loss assuaged by redemption, which stirringly encapsulates the global war that serves as the movie's backdrop.

Perhaps, the relentless tension that makes the film so extraordinary comes precisely from the ambivalence and uncertainty that plagued the entire production process. In this way, "Casablanca" provides us with hope not only that good will prevail over evil, but that order will emerge from chaos. The gestalt of its cinematic brilliance reassures us that the obstacles we encounter on the path to success are the very elements that make success so sweet.

King Solomon taught, "Better is the end of a thing than its beginning; and patience is better than pride." All the planning in the world is worthless if it doesn't get us where we need to go. And the most profound joy fills our hearts when we penetrate the darkness of discord to bask in the radiance of transcendent harmony.