Sarah Osborne's thoughts on Citizen Kane
I had never seen Citizen Kane before class on Wednesday, nor did I know much about it. The only black and white movies that I am remotely familiar with are musicals, thanks to my wonderful Grandma. Why this movie is considered one of the best of all time wasn’t hard for me to see. It has everything America loves – a celebrity living the glamorous, dream life, and all the dirty, gossip details that go with it. Think about all of the books, shows, and magazines revolving around the lives of celebrities. And what receives the most press is the negative things such as drug abuse, jail time, or even death. It’s almost like we enjoy watching these people fail, probably out of jealously. Citizen Kane was the first movie to really expose this lavish American dream. But even better, it exposed the negative consequences of having everything one could dream of.
The story of Charles Foster Kane is also given all second-hand. It’s structured in the way that most gossip magazines are written by taking information from people close to the actual celebrity. The movie is first narrated by an actual news show which has a man with an exaggerating voice giving an obituary-like talk, but almost making a joke of Kane. It is also narrated by William Thatcher, Mr. Bernstein, Leland, and Susan Alexander. None of these people really understood Kane, nor did they really like him. The good things about Kane were never emphasized, and every story ended in a negative way as he betrayed someone or got betrayed. If I ever have a movie written about me I hope that they wouldn’t ask my enemies and ex-spouses to tell stories about me!
I think another reason why this movie is so poplar is the way it is written as a mystery. The audience slowly learns more and more about Charles Kane as the reporters search for the meaning behind his dying word, “rosebud�. One clue leads to the next until finally the end of the movie, when Kane is in misery, it is discovered that the last thing on his mind is his simple childhood where it all began, before the fame and fortune. Just another reassurance to the celebrity-crazed society we live in that we are just so lucky that we never have to live in a Xanadu mansion with all the money we could ever want! ;-)