About the all-time cult favorite:

Cinema is one of the most profound arts of storytelling and some great minds bore such flaming torches in the said field that the glow still manages to light our paths to this day.  These works of great art shine like golden beacons to young pioneers as they pave new history each day. 

Now that I am done with a glittery Shakespearean introduction, I shall proceed to hop into my ocean of cinematic facts to bring you one of the most beautiful pearls there ever could be:

Citizen Kane: 

Released in May 1941, Orson Welles directorial, Citizen Kane revolves around the life of an influential publishing tycoon named Charles Foster Kane which is said to have been allegedly based on real life publishing magnate William Randolph Hearst which he wholeheartedly refused to admit and despise for as long as history goes. The film had 13 renowned award nominations among which nine were academy awards. It won an Oscar for the best original screenplay.

The film stars actors such as Joseph Cotten, Dorothy Comingore, Everett Sloane, Ray Collins, George Coulouris, Agnes Moorehead, Paul Stewart, Ruth Warrick, Erskine Sanford, William Alland besides Orson Welles himself as the lead while also being the director, producer and cowriter. It is known for pathbreaking technicalities comprising of several breathtaking experimental musical pieces composed by Bernard Herrmann, sharp editing chops by Robert Wise and universally acclaimed cinematography by academy award winning (for Wuthering Heights) DOP, Gregg Tolland with his mesmerizingly skillful techniques of deep focus and use of cameo and mixed forms of lighting. ˇ 

The films consists of legendary deep focus shots and long takes along with elegant use of blacks and whites; low angle shots to depict power and loss and perfectly choreographed movements and blocking which are studied and applauded all over the world till date. 

An almost spoiler-less account:

The film begins with the death of Kane (played by Orson Welles), forlorn in his castle of wealthy lonesomeness in Florida and the rolling plot of investigation around his demise and final utterance of the word “Rosebud”. We get to witness several glimpses of the dead man’s life through the foggy and blurred accounts of former friends and colleagues. These accounts tell us the story of an innocent child given away by his parents (set in Colorado) to Walter Parks Thatcher, a banker who was to assume guardianship of Kane from then on to educate and provide for him until he turned twenty-five. At this age, Kane receives the huge fortune from his guardian as a souvenir of hand-me-down privilege set in stone by his strong and loving mother. The next Glimpse is set in the hustling heart of New York as Kane rises to be one of the most influential personas through his free fortune, manipulative, opinion shaping newspapers about the Spanish American Wars and his marriage to Emily Norton which later crumbles over years of narcissistic and emotional suppression and borderline abuse. The next glimpse of the film depicts the drastic falling arc of both Kane’s internal and external kingdoms as he gets discovered pursuing an affair with an amateur singer named Susan Alexander. This marks the end of his first marriage and the political public career and goes on to pave the path for a self-destructive and oppressive spree of obsession, control and misjudged decisions that estrange him from the supportive audience and his second wife, who eventually leaves him after several stances of extreme emotional abuse, suppression, violent behavior and aimlessly forceful indulgence. From here, the curve falls flat as self-carved shadows of obsession and an ever-quenching thirst for unrequited control looms over a disappointed and detached Kane until his dissatisfactory demise. 

Concepts and Themes:

The film runs alongside the concept of the American Dream and in a non-linear fashion, talks about growth of people in their entire time periods, casting doubts on their accounts of remembrances through narrations and flashbacks. The film deals with the abuse of wealth in the American Dream. It consists of themes such difficulties in interpreting lives; yearning for emotions other than wealth; vulnerability and loneliness in contrast with monetary growth and the unreliability of memories with a daunting message that deals with the fact that no matter how powerful or wealthy one becomes, they are to fade and be forgotten in the sands of time.                                            

THE ROSEBUD: One of the most important metaphoric themes running in the film refers to the Rosebud which is the sleigh that Kane is to be playing with as his destiny is being changed by his mother. The rosebud refers to Kane’s desire and yearning for emotional dependence and his inability to relate to adult emotions as a result of his oppressive nature. It refers to the futility of ownership and the tragedy it brings. The rosebud further relates Kane’s childhood and the snow globe as another symbol of nostalgic agony and death in the end alongside the loss of innocence and the cost of materialistic successes and existences. It deals with the loss of freedom. The film ends on the note of Kane’s sense of loss and extreme years for the emotions and innocence of life and his sorrowful realisations of the vain nature of material success and control which no one tends to decipher. 

To wrap this account of an enigmatic anti hero that relates the audiences’ yearning to understand and root for him as a protagonist to his own identical narrative on screen, I would add how the film ends with an unsolved mystery of the Rosebud being a token of lost innocence and misguided attempts at love relating to Kane’s childhood sled which we watch, burning to ashes, depicting the reality of humanity giving into desires and material inheritances while remaining oblivious to the most prized possessions of life, love and mutual understanding which come almost free of cost to us..