Is a childhood worth sacrificing for wealth

Rating: 9/10 (12 November 2011)

I think the quote that my friend made about this movie sums it up pretty much: it is a modern day work of literature. I agree with him precisely on that point. I do not give it a 10 because at places it is slow and dull, but one does not appreciate the brilliance that is this movie until after one has sat down and thought about it. Citizen Kane is not a movie is simply watch, it is one to think about and mull over the ideas that come through it. Another friend stated that it was the most boring piece of crap that he has ever seen, and though that might be his opinion, I feel that he missed the entire point of this movie.
Citizen Kane is about a man named Charles Foster Kane who is a US newspaper magnate. I will not delve into the plot because that is not the purpose of the movie. Rather it is a character study on Kane and it is also a tragedy for we see how Kane's life not only slowly disintegrates to its inevitable conclusion, but also we see how his life ended up as it is.
There has been a lot of discussion over the precise meaning of Rosebud, the word that he mutters on his deathbed. At the end of the movie we discover that Rosebud is the name of his sleigh, and we see this as it is thrown into the fire. A journalist spends the entire movie trying to find out the meaning of Rosebud, but he fails to do so, walking out of Kane's manor, Xanadu, behind a huge amount of possessions packed away in boxes. We learn that the answer to the Rosebud question is an insignificant item amongst all of these meaningless possessions.
What does Rosebud mean? It may be the name of the sleigh, but what does it really mean. I guess to answer that question we must look at what Kane had, and what he did not have. At the beginning of the movie we are told all about Kane, or what the media knew of it, but as we follow the journalist we slowly come to learn more about the more intimate and personal period's of Kane's life. We are allowed into Kane's personal space and into his mind to try and understand how he thinks, and by doing that we are given clues as to why he mentioned Rosebud.
Charles Foster Kane was incredibly rich, having almost everything that he could want. Xanadu, his palace in which he died, was a tribute to his wealth. The palace was not finished, but that only says something minor about his character which I will not address. What I wish to draw out of that is that Xanadu represents his wealth and his ability to claim whatever possession that he wants. I use the word possession because there are three things in the movie that his money cannot buy: the presidency, love, and his childhood. The presidency is a minor thing, and love becomes more important after his first divorce. It is important because he uses his money to make his second wife famous, but one thing that this does not do is make her truly love him. He dies in bed a lonely man.
I believe that the major thing that Charles Foster Kane could not buy was his childhood, and we see evidence of this throughout the film, and tied together at the end where we see his sleigh, Rosebud, burning in the fire. His actions and his attitudes all show signs of a little boy trapped in the body of a man, trapped since the days he was sent off to boarding school.
The first instance is when Kane's mother decides to send Charles Foster Kane away. His father is against this, but his mother is adamant that Kane has a good education. When Kane learns of this his first reaction is to lash out at Thatcher, his trustee, with his sleigh. For the rest of his life he hated Thatcher with a passion. He refused to listen to him, and made his job incredibly difficult. Even though he was sent to the best schools, he reacted violently against them and was never able to last long. In the end he purchases a Newspaper because it seems like a good idea.
He hated Thatcher because Thatcher was the man that stole Kane's childhood. When Kane came of age he was able to dissolve the trust, and as such remove Thatcher from his life. He reaction to the schools is his hatred of having his childhood stolen from him, and the newspaper was him trying to reclaim the childhood that he had lost. In the end he is too old to live out a childhood, but tries to anyway.
The final thing that I wish to discuss is the reaction by Randolf Hurst against this film. It is a reaction that I really do not understand because I do not see Kane as an unflattering character. My friend described Kane as being a real and a repulsive character. I did not find him that repulsive, rather rash and unthinking. He actions which lost him the presidency was not due to any immorality, but rather due to lies fostered by his opponents. The divorce of his first wife is never explored, and it is doubtful that it was because of this because she knew the truth. Maybe it is because she did not really love him, but because she loved the fact that one day he might be president.