CITIZEN KANE

Rating: 10/10 (1 April 2020)

It's terrific! Everyone's STILL talking about it! "CITIZEN KANE" (1941, Welles) is about the life of fictional character Charles Foster Kane as a journalist attempts to discover the meaning of the man's last word, "rosebud", by interviewing everyone who knew him. But did anyone really know him?
I absolutely love this film. Why should I tell you why? You'll have heard it all before. I don't think this is the greatest film ever made and in that regard it's certainly overrated (and severely underrated as a result, by viewers left cold after the hype) but it's one of my favourite films because it makes me think.
******SPOILERS******
"CITIZEN KANE" is by no means perfect. For example, old Jed telling the journalist things he wasn't privvy to in real life is a glaringly bad error- but I suppose that might have been done on purpose. Personally I don't think it was. And the brilliantly delivered line "Let's all go to the window" must be one of the most hilarious deliveries in cinema. And it makes me laugh!
The cast are acting. Really acting. They've got their characters and they perform. There's no upstaging, no one tries toobhard, it's acting pure and simple.
This "ROSEBUD" is the great mystery of the film. No one really knew Kane, he didn't even know himself, and everyone hopes that the meaning of his dying breath will reveal all about the man. Of course the true meaning of the word is never found outa by the journalist, but we see it as significant twice.
Often people say that Kane longed for his childhood, his life before he was given away to Thatcher and brought up to be the richest man alive, and after owning so much extravagance he simply longed for his old wooden sled. That may be true on his deathbed, but it also played an important role in his downfall as a man. On his way to see his childhood possessions and, we can be sure, his Rosebud sled, he meets a young lady who soon becomes his mistress. This leads to him not being elected governor, him losing his wife and son, him becoming a joke of a news man, and him suffering the awful turmoil of her leaving him in his old age and realising that money and possessions have gotten him nowhere slowly. The first time we hear him say "Rosebud" he is dying and sounds as though he longs for whatever it is (which we learn to be his childhood to put it simply). That second time we hear him say "Rosebud", after his second wife leaves him, he is vengeful and clearly blames it and the rest of his childhood for the way his life turned out. In a way the word does explain everything about the man, but only to us.
*SPOILER FREE*
It's a great film but don't take it so seriously. Enjoy it for the satirical character study and groundbreaking exercise in filmmaking that it is.