'' Rosebud ''

If you have not yet seen it, read no further. This is not a movie review. This is a guide entry. It will reveal the ending.

Orson Welles starred in this film, directed it, and also co-wrote it with Herman J. Mankiewicz. This 1941 black and white film is perhaps the single most revolutionary and groundbreaking work of cinema in all of movie history. Sheer brilliance! The height of cinema at its time, and some say it has yet to meet its equal in any film made since.

What Makes Kane Great.

Why is this film so revolutionary? Well, because many techniques that we take for granted in cinema today were first seen in Citizen Kane to glorious effect. His superfluous use of melodramatic camera angles and intensive use of shadow and light can be seen in lesser degrees in practically every decent film made since. Where he puts the camera helps us to see Kane as a great man when we are looking up to him, and then as a small and weakened man through the use of deep focus and higher camera angles. Some argue that Kane 'borrowed' from other movies which used these techniques, but no one had used them all together in the way that Welles had, to such effect, that made them so revolutionary and groundbreaking. Since then, directors from Alfred Hitchchock to Stanley Kubrick to Stephen Spielberg have 'borrowed' from Orson Welles, so I think it is fair to give Welles credit where it is due. Some of these cinematic effects which we take for granted now but were far from commonplace before Welles used them include but are not limited to:

• Telling the end of a story at the beginning.
• Refusal to open the film with ten minutes of cast and crew credits, which was standard procedure before Kane. Today it's more common to see credits scrolling at the end of a film.
• Use of mockup newspaper headlines to dramatically move the plot forward.
• Film-within-film techniques, such as newsreel footage.
• Use of multiple flashbacks and storytellers to further the story.
• Framing ceilings in the shot (films were often made on sets that require the ceiling to be 'open' for light and sound equiptment).
• Quick cutaways with the actors on the same set, showing time passing quickly with changes in costuming and hair styles (most notably the dining scene with Kane's wife and the long table).
• Use of matte paintings and miniatures for external shots (most notably, Xanadu the mansion, near the end of the film).

David P. Hayes and other critics have noted that many of these elements were used before Kane, and insinuate that Welles should not be exhaulted for practically stealing from so many other directors. However, prior to this film, no one had done all these things in the same film to such dramatic effect. What was rare to see in movies prior to 1941, which Welles revealed masterfully in Kane, are taught in film schools today. Welles was perhaps a thief, but a good one, and he was undoubtedly ahead of his time.

The story

Based rather loosely off the life of American newspaper publisher and media tycoon William Randolf Hurst, Citizen Kane is an attempt to explain the life of a man after his death. This attempt is futile for the other characters in the tale. However, as we see the images and sounds unfold before us, we think we understand. Then as we leave the theater, that understanding only leaves more questions. Why did Kane make the choices he did? Could he not see the forest for the trees? Was he trapped in politics and complex social hierarchies? Did his hunger for money and thirst for power evolve from a desire in his heart to regain the innocence lost in his childhood? Is it true that none of us can truly ever go home again? Charles Foster Kane dies in his home. His final word was ''rosebud'' and reporters are there the next day wondering the reason behind this word. Why was it so important to him that it was his final thought before he passed away?

One reporter, Thompson, begins to investigate Kane's life, sharing the memories of those who knew him, and learning there were several layers to this man. Kane was a corrupt politician on the surface, but it is not how he started, and we go back through his life to see a young reckless man put in charge of a newspaper, and a child before that ripped from the arms of his parents to live in a boarding school. We learn the meaning behind that haunting word, so nonsensical to those who thought they knew him well. However, it doesn't leave us settled. If anything, it makes us question our own mortality, and those goals set when we were young, and those lost treasures more cherished than gold or prestige. Kane was an American! So many wanted to be Kane. Yet, does one truly want everything and feel so empty and cold inside? Is this the true origin of all avarice? That those who act with greed are only trying to uncover something they lost along the way?

Making the Film

In his early twenties, Orson Welles was considered the boy genius of radio and stage. RKO Pictures lured him to Hollywood by promising him a troupe of actors and a stage and letting him have almost complete freedom. At least that was until they began to realize what he was doing, but by then it was too late. William Alland, Ray Collins, Dororthy Comingore, Joseph Cotten, George Coulouris, Agnes Moorehead, Erskine Sanford, Everett Sloan, Paul Stewart, Ruth Warrick and Orson Welles himself all debuted as actors in this film. Today, it would be rare to see a movie production company take such a gamble. None of these people had much experience in front of a camera. This was Welles' first film and he had little experience before or behind a camera. He immersed himself into the craft, and utilized his creative use of sound in radio, approaching cinema with the same unique creative power he had used before. The film was made in near secrecy. Welles would often tell the RKO brass that he was only 'testing the equiptment' when he was secretly filming scenes he planned to put in the final film. There was a reason for this secrecy. The tale Welles wanted to tell was quite obviously one that certain very powerful people would not want to see told. Though in his declining years, William Randolf Hurst was still very influential.

Welles knew this tale needed to be told, but if he was found out too soon he would be quieted. Still, the film was completed, and as soon as Hurst's estate learned of it, RKO pictures was offered $800,000.00 to destroy the film before it was released to the public. RKO refused. So Hurst did the next best thing. With the estate's power and influence, Hurst made certain that movie houses would refuse to carry it. It was believed by all that this was to be the start for Welles' film career. However, Citizen Kane was to be his greatest achievement, and it was practically castrated in the Box Office. For many reasons, Welles was never able to rekindle that greatness. In his final years he was most known for the occasional wine commercial. To have shown so brightly so young, only to be taken down in his prime. Some say he died a broken man. And with the passing of Orson Welles, we who enjoyed his greatest achievement so much were left to wonder.. Was the drive to tell Hurst's tale in this fictitious form done out of spite? Out of curiosity? Or did Orson Welles identify with Citizen Kane because he felt it might tell the story of his own life? Does it? And in a way, isn't it speaking to all of us? The choices we make. The friends and the enemies we make along the way.. Do we all have an innocent Rosebud lost in our past and a hand reaching out into the heavens for that Xanadu?