Orson Welles

What can be said about Citizen Kane , topper of Best Of lists for half a century, staple in college film courses, and buster of conventions and assumptions about film-making? No less an intellect than Welles, the boy wonder with a career on the stage before his 18th birthday and omnivore of all things artistic and intellectual, could’ve produced such a towering monument. The story centers around a gaggle of reporters chasing the meaning of the last word, “Rosebud,” of Charles Foster Kane, an iconic and enigmatic newspaper publisher. Their journey takes the viewer through a tour of Kane’s life and rise to fame and power. We see that when Kane his father and then his mother die, and the boy is sent to live with the tycoon Walter Thatcher, whose memoirs become one of the clues used by Jerry Thompson, one of the reporters investigating the origin of “Rosebud.” Kane’s relations with Thatcher were thorny, but that can probably be said of his relations with many of the people in his

Citizen Kane not only went on to status a classic, essentially the pinnacle of American filmmaking, but it was also very well received upon its release. Here’s a sampling of the remarks of various newspaper and magazine film reviews: Orson Welles removes his Citizen Kane make up 1940 John O’Hara, Newsweek: “your faithful bystander reports that he has just seen a picture which he thinks must be the best picture he ever saw.” Bosley Crowther, The New York Times: “Far and away the most surprising and cinematically exciting motion picture to be seen here in many a moon.”: Howard Barnes, The New York Herald Tribune: “The motion picture stretched its muscles at the Palace Theater last night, to remind one that it is a sleeping giant of the arts.” Life: “Few movies have ever come from Hollywood with such powerful narrative, such original technique, such exciting photography.” Cecilia Ager, PM: “Seeing it, it’s as if you never really saw a movie before.” William Boehnel, The