001 Citizen Kane (1941)

In 1998, the American Film Institute celebrated the first 100 years of cinema (1896-1996) by listing the 100 best American films of the century. Citizen Kane was the Number 1 film on the list. Citizen Kane is at the top of many such lists. It was nominated for nine academy awards and won the Oscar for best screenplay. Personally, I don't see what all the excitement is about. I knew before I watched the film that Rosebud was going to be his sled, but that just means that I didn't have to watch it twice.

In short, the story is the biography of a newspaper man. He had a sad childhood. His parents were very poor, and he was sent away to live with an uncle. It broke his heart to leave his mother. He felt unwanted. He went to the best schools and made his fortune. Then he bought a newspaper, fancied himself a defender of the people and made a lot of powerful men very angry. He tried to run for office, but he was stopped cold. It really took the wind out of his sails, and he retired sadly. His first marriage failed at the height of his success. When his career was at its lowest, his child was killed in an accident. His second wife was merely a distraction. When he died, another newspaper man went to his home to research his life for a story. The house was stuffed with valuable objects, but there were no friends or family to mourn him. The newspaper man learned from the staff that Mr. Kane's last word was "Rosebud." He interviewed many people to discover what that meant. He never did find out, but the final scene of the film showed someone throwing an old wooden sled into a fire. The sled had a rosebud painted on it.

So it seems the moral of the story is that a man cannot overcome a sad childhood. Mr. Kane had everything money could buy. He had an exciting and interesting career, but he let his marriage fail, and he died longing for his childhood. I guess that sort of story appeals to Hollywood types, but I just found it completely unsatisfying. In my experience, you can overcome an unhappy childhood by creating a happy childhood for your own children, but Mr. Kane took very little interest in his own child. His dying regret is not for his child. It was for his own childhood, so at the very end he doesn't regret his own mistakes. He regrets his own misfortune. He sees himself as victim, one of the most powerful men in the world, feeling sorry for himself, on his deathbed - disgusting.

All the other things this movie is praised for are true. It is a beautiful picture. It's well-acted, well-directed, the production value is very high, the characters are believable, but in the end, it didn't seem like a story worth telling. What do you think?