As expected

Rating: 9/10 (11 January 2003)

Citizen Kane...I was really anxious in watching this film, as it is considered one of the best, if not the best, movie ever. These considerations are not made upon nothing, and I do agree Citizen Kane is one of the best movies I have seen.
SPOILERS
We have the idea, especially in America, that even a poor kid can become the president of the country. That anyone can work his way up to fame and fortune. But what happens when you have all the money you might need? People degenerate. Kane is the kind of character who degenerated. It is always about himself. He is the one who rules, he is the one who commands. He wanted a newspaper, so everyone could hear him...but no one could really know him. After the dies, the press asks itself what his last word might have meant. Rosebud. A reporter, named Thompson, is assigned to find out its significance...as if they could understand him after finding out that the sense of that one word.
I believe it really does mean something he has lost. All his life, Kane suffered...without really knowing. All the ones around him, really were there to love him, because he needed someone to be able to go on. Like in Casablanca... His false idea was that he could get anyone with money and presents. He had to be in the center of all things. For him, he was all that really mattered.
Kane was a disputed figure, someone who never quite knew what was right. Someone who thought that because he was rich, he could do anything he wanted with the ones around him. He kept his respect though for the whole American population, and he wished that they found out the truth about what was happening around them. You might say, he did accomplish his goal...but his methods, and his whole life, were messed up. His second way, poor miss Alexander, was forced to live a life she could not. A life without love, a life without real essence. She had the role to love Kane, without being loved. No friends, no nothing...all she liked were some jigsaw puzzles, and that was all she had to live with. Kane's friend, Jed, is just another person in his company...his friendship with Kane, is not of real essence, so it ends at a given point. Was it because the article? Or was it because he was drunk? I am not sure...maybe both. Maybe only the first. One more thing would be, that Kane always needs to do something with a reason...all he does, he does with a reason. How many people act so now? Can you act in such a way? Only with reason? Might be. But to always need to prove something, that is a thing that few people do. It shows how strong a man's will actually is.
Kane is a figure which gets lost in this world. His needs are to high to be fulfilled. "Citizen Kane" tries to make himself loved, through his abilities, through his humor, or through his way of thinking. Yet, he never gets to know the people around him...and thinks merely of himself. How can you write to people you do not really know? The thing that Kane never had, was a happy childhood and that's where man sets his limits. In this case, it all revolved around money.