Citizen Kane - Review: Purely Magnificent

Rating: 10/10 (5 June 2016)

I've seen this movie twice, once in my film history class, and once at the local theater.
I absolutely love this movie, it's awesome.
Citizen Kane is beautifully directed, it's artistic in its direction, and the set-pieces are breathtaking.
Orson Welles is fantastic in the title role, he's mean, he's evil, he's charismatic, and he has a lot of charisma. I loved the artistic choices that showcased the character. There are moments when the character turns nasty personality wise, he becomes consumed in darkness, and you can barely see his face. I loved the scene during the Opera performance, Kane knows the show is bad, but he continues to clap, when he stands up, he's covered in darkness, he claps louder than the audience, and now you can see he's only clapping because of his ego.
Citizen Kane showcases the rise and fall of a tycoon. "You know, Mr. Bernstein, if I hadn't been very rich, I might have been a really great man." - Charles Foster Kane
When the movie started, I kinda wasn't into it, it felt like a really bad comedy, I was worried that the entire movie was going to be like that, and I was dead wrong. After the introduction, the movie changed gears, the opening was just a documentary in the making, and the people making it where missing one crucial piece, Rosebud.
Kane's dying word was, Rosebud. What is Rosebud, it's Kane's old snow sled, when he was a child, he played with it, and it symbolized his innocence before he became wealthy and powerful.
The movie chronicles the story of Charles Foster Kane through the eyes of friends, employees, public information, and his ex-wife, however, there's still a mystery involved because the crucial information can't be found, Rosebud.
Rosebud is a piece of information that isn't discovered. By the end of the movie, Rosebud is burned, and the secret dies with Mr. Kane. I like that the movie wasn't traditional and it ended on a sad note. At first I was upset by the ending because they just burned the damn sled, but then it's symbolic because his whole life wasn't privatized, and this one significant thing is his only real secret. Rosebud is a remembrance of his youth and when things were innocent, it's the only real pure thing in Kane's life, he gets to die with a sense of that long forgotten purity, and he takes his purity to his grave. A piece of Kane died when he left his sled behind, but then he got that piece back when he actually did die.