One of the best productions in cinema history, rivaled only by Casablanca, Orson Welles’ Citizen Kane which first premiered in 1941, was ahead of its time.
Predominantly filmed in black and white, Citizen Kane is widely acknowledged as one if not the greatest movie ever made.
His last words
The movie revolved around the final word Charles Foster Kane uttered before he died — Rosebud. Speculation is rife as people suggest numerous interpretations of what the word meant.
A journalist embarks on a journey to find out the meaning of the word and gains profound insight into the life of a legend.
Rosebud
I’d like to first of all state that I am solely against the colorization-of-old-movies movement and I am thankful this movie hasn’t been altered in any way to that effect.
With that said...
There are quite a handful of reasons why Citizen Kane is my favorite movie of all time. The plot itself combined with the acting of Welles is quite timeless and remarkable.
At just 20 years old, Welles co-wrote, produced, and directed the film. More remarkably, it was his first acting role! In the film, he played the role of a young Charles Foster Kane and the old Kane. If anything, the makeup that made Welles look older was incredibly flawlessly done, even by 1941 standards.
The transitions from one scene to another must have inspired the cut-to techniques that we find in modern-day sitcoms, like in How I Met Your Mother. This technique gives you the ability to flash back to a past event while telling a story from a present point of view if that makes much sense. And to see it in a black and white movie is astounding.
It set the stage for filming techniques pioneering camera angles never before seen on film by then.
The movie also utilized the effect of “breaking the fourth wall”, which is simply actors talking directly to the camera/audience.
About the movie
The film was rumored to be a fictionalized and somewhat accurate retelling of the real-life of businessman and Newspaper owner, William Randolph Hearst. Elements of the film parallel his life. The fictional New York Inquirer was of course a play on Hearst’s San Francisco Examiner; his real-life castle was renamed Xanadu in the film and his mistress Marion Davies is called Susan Alexander. Hearst was also the pioneer of sensationalist or yellow journalism — promoting controversial and often false headlines to capture readers’ attention and boost circulation. This was depicted in the film in the scenes regarding the Spanish-American war and how Kane used his newspaper to generate buzz around the war.
Hearst was said to have despised the film and even made attempts to boycott it at some point. Still, the film was loved by many and catapulted Welles into the limelight.
Aside from Orson Welles's amazing acting, it would be a travesty to ignore the fascinating acting of Walter P Thatcher(George Coulouris), who adopted Kane when his parents came into fortune.
What did Rosebud mean?
I was on my way to the Western Manhattan Warehouse…in search of my youth. You see, my mother died a long time ago. Her things were put in storage out West. There wasn’t any other place to put them. I thought I’d send for them now. Tonight I was going to take a look at them. A sort of sentimental journey.
Charles Foster Kane
Spoiler alert!!!
It turns out that Rosebud was the name of his sled when he was little.
You know? That one he was playing with in the snow at the beginning of the movie.
For Kane, no matter how much wealth or artifacts he amassed during his lifetime, he never found what he was looking for — true happiness. The kind he had up until he was adopted.
Favorite scenes
- The breakfast scene with Kane and his first wife, illustrating their disintegrating marriage — the final cut (where the camera pans out)that shows his wife reading a rival Newspaper The Chronicle, while he reads his Inquirer is one of the most beautiful shots in the film.
- Thatcher reads the headlines from Kane’s newspapers
- Kane plays with his sled in the snow before he is adopted (the camera movement was unforgettable)
- Kane walks past an illusion mirror after his wife leaves him
Orson Welles — The Man, The Myth
Orson Welles to me seemed like a cross between Jack Black and Marlon Brando. His tall frame and boisterous laugh are some of the features that are unmistakable when you see him on the screen for the first time.
Before Tom Cruise took on Aliens and defended the earth in War of the Worlds (2005), it was Welles who first voiced the radio adaptation of the book by H.G Wells and caused a nationwide panic in 1938 — a myth still retold till today in broadcast lectures all over the world.
New York Daily News front page from Oct. 31, 1938.
Photo by New York Daily News Archive via Getty Images
Welles has been in other critically acclaimed movies such as The Third Man and Touch of Evil.
