Citizen Kane

On the March. Citizen Kane, the world's richest man has died, leaving behind his great fortune of statues, pictures,painting, mansion, and a castle he created himself. An Empire as large as Genghis Kahn's but only in News. He created his own opinion and made everyone who read or heard his news. He was a man who controlled the masses, yet he tried to fight for them.

He was a very tragic, yet quite intriguing character. Charles Foster Kane, a man with money, property, and literally anything he could have wanted. But it was his dying words were the sum of the man. A man that is missing something essential to his life. Orson Welles did a superb job of playing the man besought with true guilt and anguish, because he falls short of his goals as a human being. He also did a great job directing the movie, it is in Black and White, which i don't really like, but that is only a minor detail. The real genius of the movie is that it's a great big flashback. It tells the different viewpoints of the people who knew Kane the best.

The movie starts out with the end of Kane's life, his dying words, "Rosebud." The press gets a hold of it and tries to find out what its meaning. So they try to find the truth behind the word. They first start with how his childhood was. It flashes back to when he was boy living at a border house, where his parents had to give him up to a very wealthy business man in exchange for a gold mine and $15 or $50, 000 a year. They do but he doesn't go without fighting the man. That's what CF Kane was born to do, or so he thought. He was on the side of the people, taking down the trusts with a paper that told the truth. He even had a Code of Ethics of some sort, but soon it got out of hand with the true taste of power, the power of popular opinion.

It got extremely out of hand and he soon became the richest man in America, if not the world. He wanted power and he wanted everybody to love him, but only on his terms. He wanted they're opinion to be his opinion. He got that, but at a very heavy cost. Love was the cost, he couldn't have anyone love him because he was in love with himself too much and this lead to his downfall, and his lonely end to his life."That's all he ever wanted out of life, it was love. That's Charlie's story, how he lost it. You see, he just didn't have any to give. Oh, he loved Charlie Kane of course, very dearly!" Jeb Leland(Joesph Cotton), a close friend

I really liked this movie, the cinematography is stunning, without color it enhances the power of the words and the context of the situations that are portrayed. The actors are great, especially Orson Welles. The movie brings up some questions that are interesting; How does one with so much power and wealth be lonely? Can materialism lead some down the path of loneliness? With power comes the power to bring down "the man', why didn't he do that? Why was Rosebud so important to him?

I'd give this movie a 9/10, Great movie and i hope to see it again. Just a great movie.