Lives up to the hype, a fantastic film, though surprisingly a little different than how pop culture...

DVDs:

	• Citizen Kane (Two-Disc Special Edition) Orson Welles, Joseph Cotten Turner Home Ent, 2001 average customer review:based on 697 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

It's a compelling story well told.

This is a good DVD version of a great movie. I understand that it fails to engage many viewers, and I don't want to sound condescending and suggest that the unengaged lack attention spans. Certain art pleases some and displeases others and this film is no different.

"Kane" combines humor and pathos in a tale of lost innocence, arrogance and self-destruction (plus numerous other themes) that will either speak to you or annoy you by the end. It spoke to me. I loved the symobolism and allegory, and I, personally, love the history that goes along with the film of the epic battle between Welles and Hearst.

In terms of the history of American Cinema, you cannot dismiss this film. If you're serious about understanding the growth of the American film industry, the evoloution of the film maker's craft, and viewing milestone works of American film then you have to have "Citizen Kane" on your list. That doesn't mean you have to like it.

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Technically brilliant but...

It is very difficult to write a review for a film like "Citizen Kane", that is universally accepted as being one of the greatest movies of all time. It seems unnecessary to write another review proclaiming its brilliance, while to say anything else seems like sacrilige. The only way I think that this can be done is by considering each aspect of the film one at a time.

"Citizen Kane" is the story of multi-millionaire Charles Foster Kane, told by those who knew him, to a journalist, after his death. It is said to be based on the life of William Randolph Hearst, who attempted, unsuccessfully, to have the film suppressed upon its release.

Technically, "Citizen Kane" is a brilliant film. From a historical point of view, this film revolutionized film making. In "Citizen Kane", Orson Welles introduced a number of cinematic techniques that had previously never been used in American movies. Prior to "Citizen Kane", movies were just seen as little more than filmed stage plays. Orson Welles changed that and because of him film became an artistic medium in its own right. Although, Welles's use of these techniques seems a little clumsy by modern standards, considering that he didn't have decades of movies to refer to, what he did was incredible.

The acting in "Citizen Kane" is uneven in quality. Orson Welles (who received a Best Actor Oscar nomination for this film) is excellent as Kane, as is Joseph Cotten as Kane's best friend. The film is let down, however, by its supporting actors, in particular Dorothy Comingore as Kane's second wife. Nevertheless, it is pointed out at the end of the film that the majority of the actors in this film had never appeared in movies before, so to a certain extent, the poor acting can be overlooked. (As an aside, watch out for a blink-and-you'll-miss-it appearance by Alan Ladd as a journalist in the final scene of the film).

What lets down "Citizen Kane" the most is its script. From the vantage point of the 21st century, "Citizen Kane"'s Oscar winning script seems slow-moving and is the victim of poor character development. The news reel scene at the start of the film goes on for too long, as does the second half of the film, about Kane's personal life. I would have preferred to see more of his newspaper career. Further, the characters of both of Kane's wives are underdeveloped.

Overall, I do not think "Citizen Kane" deserves to be called the "best" film of all time. There are other better films out there, even films made at about the same time, for example "Casablanca", which was made the following year. Nevertheless, I will agree that it is one of the most influential movies of all time, and for that it deserves to be seen.

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KANE is great...but Thompson is a moron!!!

Yes, great film...perhaps the greatest for myriad reasons many of us know and those who do not should excitedly discover on their own. But has anyone ever commented until now that in addition to being an examination of the title character, CITIZEN KANE contains a devastating, damning commentary on the basic idiocy of most "investigative" reporters - in this case the "truth"-seeking Thompson. But was it intentional - or a script oversight - that when Raymond the Butler is giving his two cents worth (in his case actually a thousand bucks worth!) to the meaning of Rosebud.....Thompson - a basic idiot-in-the-shadows (is this then why he is always in shadows? To show he is the man-in-the-dark...the man who cannot see what is before him? Who can't even do his job well!) - when Thompson is told by Raymond that Kane utters the word "Rosebud" both when Susan left him and he pocketed "something" and "that other time" when he dropped the glass ball - yet Thompson does NOT even ask what the hell the glass ball was! If he had known it was of a snow scene he might have had the wits to trace it back to young Kane's winter of discontent when the bank seized hold of him and stole him from his beloved sleigh. How dumb could one get? (Perhaps as dumb as many investigative reporters are who fail to deliver the goods or come up with erroneous nonsense that they pass off as truth - or WMDs?) Anyway - I will forever wonder if Thompson's not picking up the "ball"(in this case albeit a glass, smashed one) was intentional by the makers of KANE or was Thompson just tired at the end of the day or was this a script glitch? Also not mentioned - to my knowledge - is the preponderance of fireplaces in the film...leading up to the end one which consumes the secret for all time. (Notice the fireplace directly behind the young Kane when he is given a new sleigh by Thatcher - portent of things to come.) One other thing that I have never seen mentioned in commentaries of the film is this: the great Kane-as-a-boy snow scene....the snowman....it is a forecast of the endless statues that the elder Kane will collect; plus...it somewhat looks like the bald-domed, fatter Kane when we last see him: in the Colorado scene we thereby have child and future man, together. The fact that a snowman is frozen- as Kane is emotionally frozen (especially at the end of the film after Susan leaves) is another point to be considered. So when we first see the dying Kane he God-like holds his past world in his hand, yet being a limited human being afterall (despite Kane's seeming unlimitness of power and money, etc) he cannot enter the scene in the ball...just like he cannot return to that moment in Time. Conversely, when we first see Kane as a boy, he is in the world of the glass ball - but that world is also about to be shattered by the adults who plot his future within the confines of the warm boarding house. It is then - from this interior - that we see child Kane framed...as he is also about to be "framed" for a crime he did not commit and sentenced to a life of wealth and riches he never asked for - or may have ever even wanted. In both cases, however, the dying Kane at the film's opening and the first time we see K as a child - in both instances, he is....alone. Existentially alone in a frozen world that only the human heart and hearthside can warm. One last thing to anyone familiar with the music of Rachmaninoff: listen to his magnificent tone poem "Isle of the Dead" and you will hear what is essentially the Kane motif throughout it. I absolutely love the music of Bernard Herrmann but cannot help thinking he was influenced - however subconsciously - by Rachmaninoff's piece. Even the painting that Rachmaninoff based his tone poem on is reminiscent of Xanadu, somewhat. Anyway - CITIZEN KANE is the ultimate film about ALL of us....not just powerful, multimillionaire publishers....but ALL of us...because we ALL have a "Rosebud" in our souls and minds that will be on our lips when the curtain closes. "Rosebud" is, in its most basic form, the desire we all share to....start again, conquer Time, turn back the clock and NOT have die and end our dreams or our bodies. This is what ultimately makes KANE....a CITIZEN.

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Lives up to the hype, a fantastic film, though surprisingly a little different than how pop culture references it

At the opening of Orson Welles' 1941 film CITIZEN KANE, a dying old man drops a snowglobe as he whispers his last word "Rosebud". Some two hours later we learn that this puzzling utterance was the name of his beloved childhood sleigh. If this mystery was all there was to the film, I would be angry at the number of cartoons that have spoiled it. Luckily, however, "Rosebud" merely sets up the skeleton of the film. When a reporter goes to interview those who knew the deceased, the real drama of the story turns out to be the rise and fall of newspaper magnate Charles Foster Kane (played by Orson Welles himself).

Based on William Randolph Hearst, Kane is an inheritor to a great fortune, yet he chooses to work at a minor newspaper, turning it into the leading daily of New York City through abhorrent yellow press methods. Being able to create the news itself in determining what goes on the front page only feeds the fires of his megalomania. Driven to believe in his own greatness--while he simultaneously craves the love of those around him to validate himself--Kane goes from a popular man of the people to an eccentric recluse with two failed marriages and no friends left. As he sits in his vast estate, surrounded by an art collection he never even unwrapped, Welles convincingly relays the moral that possessions don't buy happiness.

I initially found the film difficult to appreciate in some aspects of production. The transitions between scenes are primitive, and the make-up used when Welles and a couple of others play old men is not convincing. However, the quality of the screenplay is more than sufficient to make up for the limitations of early 1940's film-making. The acting is superb as well. Though I find Welles more gripping as the younger and sociable Kane than the old recluse, many of the other actors play their roles with perfect naturalness. Surprisingly, many of these actors had never appeared on film before, which makes their achievement all the more impressive.

Evidentally no pristine transfer of the film exists. That's a real shame, but nonetheless the film is enjoyable even in its shoddy video quality. Writing reviews like this is somewhat unnecessary--CITIZEN KANE is such a legendary film that if you enjoy cinema you'll seek it out regardless of what I say.

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Greatest Movie Ever for a Reason

Orson Welles at his finest. Any time he won artistic control of his movies, he made greatness. I could hardly imagine how difficult it would be to make the greatest movie ever and do it as your first movie before your 26th birthday. When you look at movies, there is before "Citizen Kane" and after. There were so many innovations in that movie that have become standard now, some people fail to realize how great this movie is. It has everything.

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