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If one word could describe this film it would be GENIUS.

Oh, there have been other great achievements in cinema art before and since, but few pushed the envelope as hard or set the bar as high as Orson Welles did in Citizen Kane. It's noirish multi-angular composition is legendary, but groundbreaking cinematography isn't the reason for Kane's revered status in my estimation. Many films have examined how easily gained wealth can corrupt the human spirit, but no one besides Welles would've dared pursue the subject as a thinly disguised biography of the most powerful newspaper magnate who ever lived, William Randolf Hearst.

Hearst, who is reputed to have made news when it didn't happen on it's own, was very much alive when Citizen Kane was filmed and none too thrilled with the idea of his own private life being exposed to public scrutiny and ridicule. In the movie, the fictional Kane's death becomes a search for what was most important in the deceased character's life, a word uttered on his death bed which might be the key to some deeper meaning to his life. But through it all, is it Hearst's and Kane's life or our desire to know some ultimate truth which is being investigated?

Citizen Kane plays on so many different levels that it's rich tapestry can't be fully explored in one viewing. There are ironies within ironies and at the heart of it is America's fascination with success and voyeristic need to know everything about those who symbolize it.

After reading these impressions you might think that I've given some important element of the movie away, but let me reassure you, I haven't. A movie this great has much more to it than can be put into words. By now you should be looking up internet venders if you haven't been able to locate this awesome 2-DVD set locally; so, my friend, what are you waiting for? :o)

Cheers,
AuPh


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