Citizen Kane (1941)

4 stars out of 4

The Bottom Line:

Despite all the hype and all the hoopla (which often turns me off to films), I sat on my couch after the movie ended and was struck by the force of the film, knowing that without question I had seen a cinematic treasure; the film is just as innovative, interesting, and brilliant as everyone says it is. December 21, 2008

Best movie ever..( spoiler )

I watched this movie for the first time in english class. I had to write a paper of 8 pages about it. I was amazed by all the elements and interested in what "Rosebud" was. I will admit that I still cry at the end of this movie because like Kane, some of us has lost a something so precious when we are kids that even when the money we have now, we cannot replace it. The music score doesn't help to hold the tears. Just magnificent how a man that was thought to have everything had nothing. December 4, 2008

GREAT SATISFACTION!

I sent a review last week. What happened to it? I'll try again.


I was very pleased to receive "Citizen Kane" BEFORE THE PREDICTED SHIPPING DATE. I ordered from Amazon because I didn't think it would be available here. But I saw it last week in a store for almost twice what I paid for it. Will certainly order from the seller next time. Shirley November 19, 2008

Great--not the best

First, let me get one thing out of the way: Citizen Kane is not the greatest movie ever made. It is the safest choice for the best movie ever made based on who you're trying to kiss up to. The way the critics gush about this movie, you'd think Citizen Kane invented cinematography, nuance, good storytelling, etc. Whoever says that this movie is the greatest movie of all time has only seen fifteen movies. Check out Children Of Paradise, Scenes From a Marriage, Au hassard Balthasar, The Red Shoes, Rashoman, La Dolce Vita, The 400 Blows, The Battle of Algiers, Metropolis, Apocalypse Now, 2001: A Space Odyssey, The Making of Citizen Kane, etc, etc, etc. There are thousands of films that can make a strong case for being the greatest film ever made, so I'll just focus on the merits of Citizen Kane.

First, Citizen Kane is loosely based on the life of Newspaper magnate William Randolph Hearst and his rise to the top of the newspaper business. The story is told in a series of flashbacks that are each narrated by an old acquaintance whose account cannot--for various reasons including inebriation and dementia--be completely trusted. However, all of their accounts of Kane's life share a common thread: Kane was incomplete. Everything he bought was a substitute for Rosebud and his stolen childhood, which became fuel for his obsession for power and the love of the public through his newspapers.

Orson Wells played both Kane and himself--a powerful and talented prodigy who had no sense of his own limitations. And, indeed, at the tender of of only twenty-four years of age, Welles had absolutely every reason to fall on his face. He didn't, he couldn't--not after securing the most lucrative motion picture contract in the history of motion pictures (for his time). William Hearst tried to destroy the film, to keep the world from seeing Citizen Kane; however, the film survived both Welles and Hearst, and lives on for the ages as a proverb: no matter how far you travel, you can never escape who you truly are. The technical achievements of this film are legendary. Believe it or not, the second disc, the Battle Over Citizen Kane, is actually better than the film itself. A film that is well worth the hype, though not the title of greatest film ever. See it, but judge it in the overall context of great films and think for yourself.

author of Gotta Be Down!
November 4, 2008

The Power of Loss

It is a spooky night. Atmospheric dramatic music accompanies the camera to a heavily fenced perimeter. The heavy cast iron entry gate shows an ominous logo, a circle with a big K inside it, right next to it a sign saying "No Trespassing" and right then we know we will enter a domain, which is forbidden to anyone but the viewer. In the far distance in the darkness we notice a single lonely light coming from a gigantic mansion, but we still have quite a way to go and so we continue our ghostly journey across this mysterious and haunting estate while we keep an eye on the light, passing a lifeless pond, sculptures, a zoo and all in a more or less state of decay. Suddenly the light coming from the house is extinguished. The music holds its breath, what's going on here? We sense it's more than merely a person going off to bed; the music and preceding images have prepared us for something different.
There's a slow transition and suddenly we are in a room where it's ... snowing? in soft white idyllic looking scenery, midst of which we notice a rather ramshackle house. The camera pulls back and we now realize we were looking inside one of these glass toys, held by a hand that, while its owner expels his last breath, must release its grip and it falls to the ground where it shatters, after which the camera zooms in to the lips of the dying man which can still utter one last word "Rosebud" before closing forever.

This is the magic beginning of a brilliant movie called "Citizen Kane" , probably the most famous directorial debut in cinematic history from Orson Welles, who the world mostly knew before that as the voice behind the notorious "War of the Worlds" radio show that panicked half the country as it was taken for a news broadcast, who subsequently became famous with his "Mercury Theatre Company" both of which resulted in him getting an up to then unprecedented carte blanche for his debut feature which included sole final cut control.
The owner of aforementioned lips is called Charles Foster Kane, media mogul with even presidential ambitions once upon a time that were thwarted during a senator election because of a cover-up. The movie's premise is simple: a journalist's attempt to track down the meaning of the mysterious last word coming from Kane's mouth "Rosebud".

We tag along his research which involves a series of interviews of key people in Kane's life that offer us through the flashbacks they trigger a gradual insight into his life: His childhood in poor circumstances, an inheritance on condition of leaving behind said childhood in general and his mother in particular and eventual retreat literally and metaphorically behind walls to shield himself from the outside world by whom he feels unloved and misunderstood. Most of all Kane is a tragically lonely man with emptiness in his heart, created there by the forced severing of the connection with his mother as a child, which he keeps on trying to desperately fill by either earning or trying to buy people's love.

As he is unable to really invest something of himself in any relationship, all his human contacts remain hollow and long term are doomed to fail, which no huge and megalomaniac "Xanadu" can remedy, the estate he bought and "pimped" one would say nowadays I suppose, with art and animals from all over the world, to rule his own little empire that the world wouldn't permit him outside its bounds.

Orson Welles with this movie created a first rate masterpiece, helped by the fantastic script by mainly Joseph Manckiewicz (with input by John Houseman and Welles himself), a great director himself, and cinematographer Gregg Toland who came up with all kinds of technical novelties like the famous "deep focus" shots. Quite experimental as well was the use of sound and light, but those are just interesting little facts. Sure, they contribute to the movie's impact, but it is the story and the cast's performances that give it life.

Our tenacious reporter will never find the answer to the question of the meaning of the word "Rosebud", but the director mercifully informs the audience. That being said a lot of guesswork remains for the viewer and to some extend it will remain a mystery as to who this Charles Foster Kane really was.

I will not go into the parallels between the fictional character of Kane and newspaper owner William Randolph Hearst, the included documentary "The Battle over Citizen Kane" will serve to give all the information one could wish for on that matter and it's quite fascinating, but in the end to me inconsequential to the appreciation of this movie.

All this nonsense about "Best Movie of All Time" I leave to other people to debate; I do not even consider it to be Welles' best, but to conclude that the movie has earned its rightful place within cinematic history as among its finest is widely undisputed.
October 31, 2008

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