Citizen Kane (1941)



by Orson Welles
a compilation of reviews

Rosebud.

This one word has become the most famous word in movie history. What does it mean? Citizen Kane's story revolves around this one word which is uttered in the very first scene. The man who says it is on his deathbed, and it sparks an investigation into what he meant. That man is Charles Foster Kane.

The judgment I have on Citizen Kane, in summary, is that it's a darned good movie. Many are the souls of the cinema who have joyfully hailed it through the years as simply the best movie ever made. That might of course be because of the glowing originality, or the splendor it shows in composition, the bald and ferocious statement it ultimately makes on American and Western culture.

Citizen Kane is a brilliantly made movie. It is hard to get the full impact of film because it was made in 1941 and it was a revolution in style. All the film techniques Welles employed for the first time are used frequently today and can be done in a computer. Back in the 40s, no one had ever seen them..

But Citizen Kane is more than cinema trickery. It is an engrossing story of greed, power, lust and all the things that make life exciting. Loosely based on the life of William Randolph Hearst, the newspaper magnate, this film sweeps you into its story as it is told in in flashbacks as reporters track down people who knew Kane and try to find the meaning of Rosebud. .

It is such a simple idea but an extraordinary complex film. It allows Orson Welles to paint with broad visual strokes as we progress through Kane's childhood to his deathbed, and as he says his last word "Rosebud." .

I can't deny the fact that Citizen Kane has power and a tremendous impact on me, and it has always had. To me it comes through most of all as an awesome statement on the cultural life of Western societies, built by greed for money, where newspapers and other mass media more or less are controlling our lives. The blind faith we are used to give those at the pulpits -- the politicians -- is ruthlessly examined as it erodes and shown is the tragic void creeping inside materialism and the impotence that follows on every abusive egocentricity. .

These things are all nicely in there in Citizen Kane, apparently so, and to see it with these things clearly in mind increases the experience..

Actually I can't remember the first time I saw it, but I think I was around twenty or so. In those days of youth, as of now in fact, I had shortage of money and I know I kept thinking about the crash occurring in the movie when Kane loses so much money. The crash of course is the Wall Street crash during 1929..

The years following the crash were depressing years indeed -- the Great Depression -- before Franklin D. Roosevelt began "The New Deal" in politics. This is to say that Citizen Kane, among everything else, today stands as a terrific document for those times and gives a nice approach to them. Citizen Kane therefore has for me primarily the function of a powerful and appropriate statement on Western Culture -- like a manifesto -- The brutal, revealing examination of the predicament we have as consumers and as perplexed voters in Western democracies, has been shown to me in a great movie. .

Also it's always a personal tragedy in my view to witness the downfall of Charles Foster Kane. First the fall from politics, "caught in love nest with singer". Then fall from marriage of Susan Alexander because of lack of trust; the fall from his whole life, eventually left with nothing but a mansion of emptiness in Xanadu, echoing so clearly the falsity of hopes placed in materialism as the continuing sickness of our shared culture is exposed. .

Is this the best movie ever made? Maybe. Citizen Kane sparked so much controversy that it only had a very limited release in the 40s. Hearst wanted the movie destroyed. Many theatre chains were afraid to show the film because of the power of the Hearst newspapers..

There really hasn't been a movie quite like it since.