Citizen Kane is considered one of the greatest pieces of cinema that can continue to keep the audience engaged. After the death of Charles foster Kane, a group of reporters go out to find the true meaning behind of his last words. With only going on a single word, Rosebud, the reports meet with his friends and acquaintances to discover what they truly knew about the man with the name Charles Foster Kane. The story starts off by showing his childhood and continues on into his adult life owning multiple newspaper companies across America and building one of the greatest empires the world as ever known. The tragedy of the film is Kane’s downfall. True you don’t get to know the man himself however and only get to see some parts of his external self. As he becomes wealthier, Kane becomes a very unlikeable person. At the beginning of the film it shows him as a very honorable man who cared about the working man. However, toward the end it seemed that no one truly knew who Kane really was. He didn’t care about anyone but himself.
Orson Wells gave an outstanding performance as well as a fantastic job directing the film. Instead of just having one narrator telling the story of Kane, Wells had the same story being told by different people. Showing the different point of views of the characters and what they truly thought of Charles Kane, you never learn the true story just their own scope from personal events. As well as the different angles of the camera that gave more of a dramatic effect when needed.
However, to some Citizen Kane might seem like a hard film to follow and at some points I can agree with that. It is a very well thought out story line but the way Orson had the stories being told by different characters and skipping around was confusing at some point. If you were not paying attention to who was telling their part of the story beforehand, you were easily lost until their story was done. And even though most of the story was trying to find out about Charles Kane’s last words the ending keeps you on the edge, since you never truly know why he would say those words. Although some might be lost throughout the film and others might just question different things Citizen Kane is truly an outstanding film.