Quartile rating: 8/10 · 1 rating
Newspaper magnate Charles Foster Kane is taken from his mother as a boy and made the ward of a rich industrialist. As a result, every well-meaning, tyrannical or self-destructive move he makes for the rest of his life appears in some way to be a reaction to that deeply wounding event.
Citizen Kane is one of cinema's most celebrated achievements. Its deep-focus cinematography, low-angle shots, and non-linear narrative structure were groundbreaking and remain influential. Welles and the entire cast deliver magnetic performances. The film's conception and voice are utterly singular — no film before or since feels quite like it. The plot's mosaic structure is ingenious. The ending, while thematically resonant with the 'Rosebud' revelation, is the one element that feels slightly too neat and symbolic — a touch convenient as a dramatic payoff after the complexity that precedes it, earning a slight step down from the otherwise exceptional standard.