Reflections on Citizen Kane by Meighan Byron
I had only seen clips of Citizen Kane before watching the entire movie in class last Wednesday. Yes, I still think that it can hold up in today’s world of film because of its very original story line. People in the 1940’s would have been more familiar with the parallel to William Randolph Hearst. That is lost on the generation today that maybe unfamiliar with him.
The plot and storytelling conveyed through the movie is still very compelling. Citizen Kane in comparison to other movies today stands out. Every scene with more than a minute of dialogue could be considered the climax of every other movie that I’ve seen in my opinion. That is why it is still considered the greatest movie of all time.
Another point I couldn’t help but notice was that the people Charles Foster Kane had the most intimate relationships with called him Charlie. His first wife, his best friend Jedediah Leland, and is second wife all called him Charlie. It could be said that perhaps if it had been a different time Kane would never have married his first wife. Maybe he would have been in an openly gay relationship with Jedediah. It was plain to me that originally that’s where Kane’s loyalty and affection lied. After all Kane asked Jed to go to Europe with him and when Jed asked to leave the New York office of the newspaper, Kane followed him to Chicago where he built his second wife a theater. Perhaps a grand gesture to distract from the real reason why he was there? I guess we’ll never know, but it is sure fun to speculate.
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Yes the hollow American Dream does have resonance with the modern film-goer. We’ve witnessed it in a different way. Modern day Charles Foster Kanes are the Ken Lays, Jeffrey Skillings and Enron CEO’s of our hollow American Dream. Instead of ruining one life at a time, our modern Kane’s have ruined thousands of people’s lives. Instead of deceiving a first wife about an affair, modern Kanes duped thousands of people by way of accounting fraud. While Charlie Kane was shown to have a heart in need of love and a yearning for a lost, innocent youth, the modern Kanes cared only for money.