Did Orson Welles travel back in time to make a movie about the post-truth era and its greatest champion?

Rating: 7/10 (22 February 2017)

The protagonist Charles Kane is a brash and jovial woman-grabbing, wife-cheating, promise-breaking, populist-talking, election fraud claiming, gilded and opulent billionaire of inherited fortunes, who is a "champion of the people" and who's favourite pastime is to manufacture and spread fake news. When campaigning to become governor, he even makes a promise in a speech at a rally to appoint a special district attorney to investigate, prosecute and convict his political opponent. Not to mention that he has a fabulous retreat in Florida by the name of Mara... I mean Xanadu. Does any of that sound familiar? I cannot believe I am watching a movie from 1941. Ever since the movie's release, people have been talking, how much ahead of its time "Citizen Kane" was. Boy, if they only knew.
Apart from the uncanny coincidences with modern times, the virtues of the movie itself are numerous. The script is witty and the mystery keeps us guessing. The direction, cinematography and camera angles look modern even today and must have been ground-breaking back in the day. Jumping back and forth in time keeps the viewer on his toes, which also brings us to the age transformations displayed in the movie, as those are simply marvelous. Especially believable is Orson Welles himself, either as an energetic young man, a more reserved middle aged one or a visibly aged old one. This must be the first movie, where I don't get the jarring feeling of seeing a young man play the part of an old man or vice versa (although the same can't quite be said of the actresses, who must have resisted being made up to look old). Having pulled together all the different parts needed to make a movie work, you really feel like you are seeing the work of a genius here. No wonder this movie is considered one of the towering masterpieces of cinema. If my hunch is correct and a certain political figure has taken away and implemented all the wrong messages from this movie, it is still having a very real effect on everyone's lives today. How many movies from the 1940s (or even at all, up to the most recent ones) can claim that? A unexpectedly tremendous achievement indeed.