Changed the way movies where made and opened a new horizon for film.
Until this movie was made, movies where told from start to finish. They also where very bland and shot with very few camera angles. This film dared to go beyond just making a good old American film. It took film to the next level, with there intricate camera arrangements to its risky take on a very influential news paper mogal.
Orson Wells was a master of theater and brought a bright new light to film. His ability to fool the viewers into thinking that the camera did not exist was amazing. I am refering to such shots as the scene before meeting susan Alexander Kane in the night club and the opening scene when the light from the castle is always in the same spot. These where among many of him and Greg Tolands masterful ideas. The movie has one of the best beginnings among all films and sets the mood for the rest of the film. After hearing one of the most memoriable lines in a movie “Rosebud”, you are taken on a journey through memories of past mixed with present day. Through these array of stories you are trying to find the meaning of this word “Rosebud”. Through ups and downs the reporter on the task of finding this meaning of the word, seems to have found out nothing of it, but almost everything else of Charles Foster Kane. The ending is great it finally reveals the meaning of “Rosebud” as a sled Charles Foster Kane owned as a kid. Showing that of all the things he owned he missed his childhood the most.
This move went through many battles with William Randolph Hearst. Hearst tried his best to bash this movie in every movie review his papers wrote. It seemed to work for the time. The movie was never really accliamed that high until years after. The struggle behind this movie and the great ideas that Orson Wells, Herman J. Mankiewicz and Greg Toland put to the screen shaped the way movies where made from then on. There are many movies now that jump from past and present quiet frequently. Thank you Orson Wells for always testing the American public to take on the biggest of tasks.
By: Johnny Rogers
