This IsThe Most Important Film Ever Made, And Here's Why

Rating: 10/10 (22 January 2006)

Arguably the greatest of American films, Orson Welles's 1941 masterpiece, made when he was only 26. Plot: Citizen Kane still unfurls like a dream and carries the viewer along the mysterious currents of time and memory to reach a mature (if ambiguous) conclusion: people are the sum of their contradictions, and can't be known easily. Welles plays newspaper magnate Charles Foster Kane, taken from his mother as a boy and made the ward of a rich industrialist. The result is that every well-meaning or tyrannical or self-destructive move he makes for the rest of his life appears in some way to be a reaction to that deeply wounding event. And in the end when everyone suspects that "Rosebud" is something Kane wanted and never had, or something he had lost along with everything else, the irony is there, as they give up by saying that a man's life cannot be described in one word. Even though "Rosebud" is the very name of the sleigh he had as a boy when he lived with his mother as a boy, and is the only thing he took with him, "Rosebud" was always in his mind reminding of the event as he made moves through his life that would react to this deeply wounding event. And the scene of the men burning "Rosebud" in the fire is breathtraking, leading you to the conclusion that the answer they were looking for to Kane's life was right there but destroyed by choice as it was for Kane. THe movie is breathtaking and may not be or be the best movie in history, it's your choice, i personally think that it is at the top, if not, the top. But I personally love Vertigo, read my review for Vertigo also, it has so many ingredients to project what we call the best picture in cinematic history, while Citizen Kane falls short to me, somewhere, although I can't place my finger on it and what it's missing. I think it's just the genre and how Vertigo's thrilling aspects interest me, but this is undoubtedly the most important film in all of history, rent, or better yet, buy the two-disc set, featuring an amazing documentary on disc two, which was nominated in 1995, for best documentary, by the Academy. And then you will understand this review completely, thank you.