"Rosebud"

Rating: 5/10 (2 September 2006)

Citizen Kane is based around the meaning of a single word "rosebud".Ther is a debate to this day about the consequence of that word.Charles Foster Kane utters the word rosebud on his deathbed.He is a newspaper tycoon who's life story is one of rags to riches and back to rags again.He builds a palace by the name Xanadu .He acquires great wealth and power and then loses it . Kane's carefree childhood is interrupted when a lawyer takes him away from his parents to his new adopted family with a lot of money.From their he begins his journey with a small time newspaper and becomes a rich and powerful man.
After Charles Foster Kane's death a group of journalists decide to find out the meaning of his last word Rosebud.They are shown to be unsuccessful in their quest.
Rosebud is written at the back of Kane's childhood sled.This could imply that Rosebud was Kane himself as usually people write their own name behind their childhood possessions.Rosebud has a deeper implication as Kane was taken away from his parents and thus his childhood was nipped in the bud.As once a rosebud is uprooted it can never grow into a rose.One journalist says that you can tell a lot about a person by his last words.Maybe Rosebud was an expression of the fact that Kane felt like despite achieving a lot he still was a rosebud and could not become an individual.