Most certainly one of Hollywood's greatest...

Rating: 10/10 (3 June 2000)

"Rosebud" is the mournful, deathbed utterance of Charles Foster Kane (Orson Welles). "Can one word explain a man?" one reporter asks. This is what reporters intend to find out. The film is a jigsaw puzzle of Kane's life assembled piece by piece by those who "knew" him best so that everyone might learn what or who "Rosebud" is. The film's opening seems to suggest that this investigative intrusion into his personal past is not a place that should be trespassed upon. The cast is brilliant, especially Welles as the unfulfilled newspaper mogul. The story, scripted by Herman J. Mankiewicz and Welles, owes as much to the life of Welles himself as it does to yellow journalist William Randolph Hearst, its most obvious model. The film remains fascinating from start to finish, in viewing after viewing, in this, Welles' directorial debut. It is filled with innovative technique, symbolism, and powerful meaning and has solidified its place as one of the true masterpieces of cinema.