Citizen Kane – 1941 – English – Drama
Citizen Kane – 1941 – English
Film directed in 1941 by Orson Welles, and starring Orson Welles, Joseph Cotten, Everett Sloane, George Coulouris, Dorothy Comingore, Ray Collins, Agnes Moorehead, Paul Stewart, Ruth Warrick, Erskine Sanford, William Alland, Alan Ladd, Arthur O’Connell, Fortunio Bonanova…
Synopsis: A group of reporters are trying to decipher the last word ever spoken by Charles Foster Kane, the millionaire newspaper tycoon: “Rosebud”. The film begins with a news reel detailing Kane’s life for the masses, and then from there, we are shown flashbacks from Kane’s life. As the reporters investigate further, the viewers see a display of a fascinating man’s rise to fame, and how he eventually fell off the top of the world.
Review: Citizen Kane, the film, is many things. It is a brilliantly crafted series of flashbacks and remembrances. It is an engaging story of a dynamic man in a dynamic world. It is a remarkable statement for the wide range of time periods that it covers. It is a deceptively simple story centering on perhaps the most meaningful word in all of moviedom. Behind all that, Citizen Kane is the American cinema. There is not a major director today who has not been influenced by the genius Orson Welles put forth in his debut masterpiece. The film centers around a group of reporters investigating the origin of the dying newspaper tycoon (loosely based on William Randolph Hearst), Charles Foster Kane’s last word: Rosebud. The movie begins with an unforgettable newsreel montage summarizing the man’s life.
From there on, the viewer is thrown into a gloriously chaotic world of flashbacks upon flashbacks, in which the viewer slowly learns just about everything about Charles Foster Kane’s enthralling life. From his trying childhood to his rise to power to the pinnacle of his success to his marital difficulties to his fall from grace, the story of Charles Foster Kane is presented for the viewer in a way that few other movies can offer: magically. Citizen Kane, undeniably, is the triumph of the American cinema, and one of the greatest films every created.