“Citizen Kane”

For people who like to watch films rather than analyze them, Orson Welles’s “Citizen Kane” presents a special problem: Can viewers enjoy the film for pure entertainment value,

It’s hard to separate the film from its status – American Film Institute’s Best Film of All Time twice, freshman Orson Welles’s debut as both an actor and a director. It’s the Mount Everest of American films. And yet, the plot is still totally engaging.

Welles is Charles Foster Kane from a young, over-indulged heir to a small fortune to the bitter old man who grew and then squandered his fortune. We find out in the opening news montage that Kane is dead. The rest of the film is told in flashback, which is essential to the film’s brilliant narrative. After Kane has died, his dying word is “Rosebud”. The newspapers who are organizing his montage want to find out what this means. So an employee is sent to interview everyone Kane may have been close to. While the film is somewhat told chronologically, it’s told from the perspective of the different characters who are flashing back. Thus, Welles has to portray Kane according to their memories.

We watch great films like “Wizard of Oz” and “Casablanca” because we love the characters and they tell a great story. Kane is no different. Members of the audience who don’t know or care about things like cinematography, film history, or film criticism are still going to be entertained by the story.