Citizen Kane is frequently cited as the single best movie ever made, or depending on who you ask it’s only the second best movie behind Paddington 2. Regardless of Rotten Tomatoes list of best movies of all time Citizen Kane is and will continue to be, at least for the foreseeable future, a masterpiece. Although just about every praise that can be said about this movie already has been said, I wanted to add in my two cents and analyze it not as specifically as a film, but focus on the story at hand.
Spoiler warning: I will be spoiling the entire plot so read at your own risk if you haven’t seen this 83 year old movie.
To put it simply, this story is a tragedy, and one that follows the classic tragedy format of the title character dying. To that end part of what makes this story so unique is that instead of having a protagonist whose trying to do the right thing but dying in the end anyway because of a combination of miscommunication and manipulation from other characters, such as seen in Othello, we instead see a protagonist who has the clear potential to do good, yet whose pride and lack of genuine care for his actions leads them down a much worse path as the movie goes on. When Kane first buys the Inquirer he promises to be truthful in what they publish in his Declaration of Principles, with the support of Leland who keeps a copy of the declaration. The initial stories Kane chooses have a focus on attacking landlords, copper robbers, and traction trusts, all known for maximizing their profits at the expense of both their customers and workers (at least when looking at real world history, and which was known at the time).
But over time it we see Kane fall well short of that initial promise as he begins publishing Yellow Journalism, a practice that skews the facts to make for more catchy headlines to sell more paper, and cracks in his supposed ideals begin to form. after his cheating scandal is revealed to the public in his short political campaign we see Kane continue to travel down a worse and worse path, until it’s too late for him. There are several moments that you can look to as a point of no return for Kane, but among them I believe the best would have to be when he fires Leland. By the end of the film Leland has transferred to the Chicago branch of the Inquirer, still working for Kane but not with him. After Kane forced his second wife Susan, the girl with whom he cheated earlier, into a terribly unsuccessful opera role, Leland writes an honest and negative review of Susan’s performance, but falls asleep before he can finish it. Kane decides to take the unfinished review and complete it for Leland, keeping to the negative aspect and “finishing it just the way [Leland] started it” before firing him the minute he’s awake. Soon after we see Leland mail Kane his copy of the Declaration of Principles alongside a torn up check that was supposed to be his severance package, and Kane’s response is simply to destroy that declaration, his pride blinding him to how he’s failed to live up to what he was supposed to stand for.
At around this time Kane attempts to build Xanadu, a massive mansion that is ultimately left incomplete as the cost of even starting to build it prove too much for Kane’s assets. As Susan leaves Kane, he flies into a rage destroying everything in sight only stopping at the sight of a snowglobe, containing a simply cabin, in the middle of nowhere. It is this same snowglobe that Kane holds as he dies, uttering a single, final word: “rosebud” The ending of the film reveals the word rosebud etched on the sled we saw him riding on as a child, ending on such an ambiguous, almost disconnected note.
Although it’s never explcitely stated, I do have one interpretation of the ending that I would like to put forth. The snowglobe is peculiar in that we only ever see it twice, once at the beginning with Kane’s death, and at the very end when we finally reach Kane’s death after seeing his life and learning who he was. Much like how you can look back to the beginning of the movie after reaching Kane’s death, if we look back at the beginning of Kane’s life, we see a simple cabin on a snowy, fateful day, Kane playing with that very same sled. It could be as simple as Kane being reminded of his childhood, of simpler times, but it could also be deeper. Wondering what would have happened if Thatcher hadn’t taken him away from his family. After losing everyone he cared about this snowglobe could also be the very last thing he has left that truly matters to him, as the last thing to remind him of Susan after destroying so much else. And after his death, the only thing remaining of his is the unfinished Xanadu, both a testament to Kane’s pride and selfishness, and representative of how great he could have been but failed to be.
SPOILERS END HERE
Citizen Kane has certainly earned it’s spot as one of if not the best film of all time, with a reputation to support that. The central character of Kane is a relatively rare case of a tragic character who is never able to recover. Whereas other characters who fall from grace may either slowly redeem themselves or end up staying fallen while retaining sympathy given the circumstances, Kane falls so far in such a way that by the end of the film there is no real sympathy, not from any of the other characters at least. and in the end, rather than try to change, try to redeem himself, he gives up, despairing as he slowly ages all alone before finally succumbing to death and leaving behind a legacy of mystery to the public and pain to those closest to him.
From the film’s score, I would have to choose Leland’s Dismissal as my favorite track, an explosive moment followed by quite acceptance, encompassing so much of the film’s tragedy in so short a song.
If you are a fan of tragedy or movies in general, I would strongly recommend that you see the watch this Citizen Kane.