The Max Daddy Of Great Films-Orson Welles’ “Citizen Kane”(1941)-A Film  Review      

DVD Review

By Fritz Taylor

Citizen Kane, starring Orson Welles, Joseph Cotton and the merry cast of the Mercury Theater, directed by Orson Welles, 1941  

William Randolph Hearst (oops!) Charles Foster Kane was one of those larger than life personalities who in the end, hell, who knows maybe from the very beginning was brought down the slippery slope by his own hubris. Charles Foster Kane (oops!) Orson Welles was one of those larger than life personalities who in the end, hell, maybe in the beginning was brought down the slippery slope by his own hubris and so the material for this film, this great all-time classic film, Citizen Kane, was just waiting to be exploited on the screen. And after re-watching the thing for about the fifth time my first impression way back when is still valid. This is still a great cinematic effort from the material to the cinematography to theme of the mighty fallen yet human enough to remember some childhood memories untainted by success-or failure.  

“Rosebud,” the last word the dying Kane uttered triggered the whole story line. (I was told by someone back in the 1970s when I first saw the film in a revival at the Brattle Theater in Harvard Square not to miss the beginning where Kane utters the word on his death bed, or the end when we are graphically informed what it was all about, because the story line depended so much on knowing that was the key-that informative person was right.) The world- famous Kane of mighty fortunes and of late Xanadu-his ungodly palace down in Florida had by that one word sent reporters, especially one intrepid reporter searching for what that meant.

In a series of flash-backs we find that whatever virtue he had as Midwestern farm boy he had lost by the time he was a young man under the tutelage of his benefactor. We find that he was driven to distraction by placing his brand on the world. From the newspaper he turned around to make a name to be reckoned with in the industry to his ill-fated run for governor to his troubled marital life to his doddering old age as a virtual recluse in his mansion we see a man who was maybe respected, was maybe loved in a funny way but was such a control freak that he let that get the best of him. The rise and fall of Kane, part story, part newsreel, part made-up Hollywood press agent’s clippings and paid graft said something about a not very different from today America-where jockeying for cash and power, in either order rules the planet.