A Drunk is in Charge:

Rating: 10/10 (28 March 2004)

The motion picture Citizen Kane is most recently being marketed in a two disc special edition from Warner Brothers.The one disc is of course Citizen Kane and the second disc is entitled,The Battle over Citizen Kane-Special Features.I would recommend if you are in the market for the movie get the two disc special edition.It is important to understand why or at least how come this movie is so highly thought of,the second disc will assist the would be viewer in determining what kind of a problem are we up against.I originally saw Citizen Kane somewhere around 1970-1971 and I did feel it was interesting, however what about when you cant put your finger on it but its still there? Thats somewhat how this film was then and this time around I know why.The film was in part about Orson Welles own life however much is as I was aware of upon the initial viewing many years ago about William Randolph Hearst.This area is why I recommend the special edition.Hearst is the one who said you send me the prose and I'll provide the war,this is not meant to excite it is meant to warn you as to what your up against.Hearst was a very dangerous and even frightening character because according to the information that was provided he may have contributed to the assassination of President McKinley.This special disc will provide enough material so that you find that when we talk about undue influence,propaganda,areas like creating your own stories just to increase circulation and very unseemly attributes,there was know one more powerful nor influential then Hearst.The idea of what all this influence means was virtually invented by Hearst and this is what I mean when to suggest that what is in fact reality is not the well spring of a Democracy but of a horse of a different color and that is the death of a democracy.There are no dreams only the pedalling of a system and its undue influence and Hearst was an important part of a lie that we are even today suffering the effects of.There is good reason why this film is thought of so highly because like some other films they tend to comment on reality without knowing just how justice in this heart and this mind sees what it has attempted to accomplish.The idea of influence is perhaps like the power of suggestion it electrifies the night air,it maybe the impostor we are looking for,I kid you not.In fact this type of a discourse has provided a underpinning to some of the twentieth centuries most serious calamities.The idea of false importance is of a worthy psychological look see as well as the problem that we are drawn to now take a look at-This film is smart and if such considerations are somewhere even if only on the shelf somewhere it might be worth viewing.These items are of course not mentioned lightly and indeed there consequences do not go away simply,they must be dealt with because this is a problem.In a manner of speaking the call is yours as to the purport of this two disc edition and the films place in film history.P.S. Do not take the idea about "rosebud" seriously,upon the initial viewing I seem to recall that rosebud was the name on his sled.This film is something of a satirical look at the life and times of William Randolph Hearst.