Citizen Kane (1941)

Citizen Kane is regarded as one of the greatest movies of all time. The 1941 film sees Orson Wells playing Charles Foster Kane who is a Rupert Murdoch like figure who in the very first shot utters the word Rosebud and dies. The film then tells his story from the early years when his mother and father sell him and that puts him on the road to being a business magnet. The film strives to find out what or who Rosebud is. The film goes through many stages of Kane’s life and the thing that regularly turns up is just how empty Kane’s life is despite having pretty much all the money and posessions that a man could want.

Despite the story having a particulary linear pace there were some nice directing moments which were even more impressive when you stop to think that it was done in the early 1940’s and its hard not to be impressed with a lot of the shots. Unfortunatley apart from Wells, the performances make this film very hard to sit through in one sitting. It was like the mention and start of the Rosebud plot was meant to be put in the background to be forgotten and something to takes the audience’s attention whilst the movie goes along but they forgot to put something so there is an awful lot of people sitting in chairs in big rooms not really doing a lot.

The thing that is something that didn’t quite make sense was when the butler claimed to know that Kane’s last word was Rosebud. There is a possibility that he could have been out of shot but to be honest it was a bit odd. The answer as to what Rosebud was did catch me by surprise. I wasn’t expecting a person but it seemed quite obvious when it was revealed but the movie had been going for so long that I had forgotten that early scene when Kane was a boy.

Citizen Kane isn’t the greatest movie of all time but its not terrible. I do think that this is an example of hype getting out of control and a film not living up to the hype. It was actually a flop at the box office taking just over $200,000 of its $686,033 budget but it seems that over the years it has gained its reputation and there must be something that other people  see but to be honest its all style and no substance.