Just to mention a few things that haven't been said already about this Great Film!

Rating: 10/10 (13 July 2003)

*****Major Spoilers Ahead***** Seriously, don't read this unless you've seen the film!!!!!

Citizen Kane is a film that I have seen maybe 20 times and I am always amazed at how many new things I see with each viewing. As a film student, I studied this film for 4 different classes and each class showed me different ways of viewing it. After my second viewing, my first professor told me that there were TWO meanings for Rosebud, not just the obvious one and our assignment was to figure it out using a semiotic approach. I would never have guessed that the second meaning was Susan Alexander's clitoris! Nope, I'm not kidding. Watch it again and see how subtly it is implied. This is actually a nickname that William Randolph Hearst (the man Kane is based on) had for his mistress' clitoris. See "RKO 281" (1999) for more about this as well as "The Cat's Meow" (2001) for more about Hearst/Kane.
The shots are so carefully constructed and relate so well to the themes of the story, with each one telling you a lot about Kane's character. For example, during the newsreel, Kane gets wet concrete on his jacket and the camera suddenly cuts without changing angles and the concrete disappears; this relates to how his character hides his weaknesses. This is a subtle way for Kane to cover this up, yet this is left just apparent enough for the film audience to understand what Kane did to the newsreel. Yes, this newsreel was constructed after Kane's death, yet it is footage captured while he was alive and since Kane would never allow that to be seen and has a monopoly on the media, he had it cut from the original footage. You all may be thinking that I am reading way to far into this film, however these are all things that I learned in college. There are some films for which you really need an education in fine arts to appreciate many aspects of them. The story itself can get tiresome, but it is not the story that really makes this film one of the greatest; it is how well the Director conveys his ideas. "The less obviously a filmmaker reveals his intentions, the better the film." This applies for art films such as this, but not for junk like "Half-Baked." This is a film that uses the language of images, not so much the plot, to convey its ideas. Masterful direction, storytelling, and performances. They just don't get better than this! *****/*****