Truly a Cinematic Work of Art

Rating: 9/10 (22 February 1999)

The AFI named this the number one American film of all time. This honor is truly deserving. With a powerful script and and fantastic aesthetics, Orson Welles is able to weave his greatest masterpiece. An anonymous reporter delves through the past of newspaper tycoon Charles Foster Kane in order to find the significance of his dying word: Rosebud. Through a series of flashbacks, we learn that one word is only one puzzle piece in a larger picture, unable to describe an entire life. Cimematographer Gregg Toland uses sequence shots and deep focus in a way never before imagined, in order to tell a story through long takes and few cuts, a feat never before accomplished with such success. The end result is a must-see American classic, where we truly see one man's whole life go up in smoke...literally.