Citizen Kane (1941)

"He who prides himself upon wealth and honor hastens his own downfall" -Lao Tzu

Few film protagonists embody the lesson of this proverb more than Charles Foster Kane. Throughout Citizen Kane, his rise to improbable glory is rivaled in significance only by the bitter end he meets. Despite the illusion of "having it all," Kane is a character who starts and ends his life in the same manner - with nothing. The slow degradation of his reason and relevance throughout the film, coupled with the alienation of those around him, render his wealth and power a moot point.

Take, for example, the crown jewel of his fortune - the palace of Xanadu. Designed (but never finished) for his second wife, Xanadu casts a pall over the film right from the start. The gloomy opening shots of an empty fortress silhouetted on the smoky island background set the tone throughout the film.

Kane dies shortly thereafter, but it's not until the rest of the film unfolds that the circumstances of his life become apparent. It's essentially a series of extended flashbacks, as those formerly close to him tell their accounts of how a man on top of the world lived his life so as to leave this world unstable and alone.

The small boy who became heir to a silver-mining fortune transforms into a man (Orson Welles) unsure of a direction in which to channel it. Immediately, hints of an uncertain future present themselves. He drops into and out of several prestigious colleges, before finding the mysterious wisdom to invest in a small New York paper, the Inquirer. For the first several years, they lose $1 million a year, yet Kane could not appear to care less. You don't exactly know what's coming, but little clues like these suggest a bitter ending for the sleazy, yet somehow likable millionaire.

As he builds his empire, Kane's years on top are spent erratically. He woos the top editors from a rival paper into defection, only to travel to Europe and spend lavishly on vintage pieces of sculpture and other artwork. He marries a wealthy young woman, only to jeopardize the stability of their relationship through an ill-advised campaign for political office. And as everything unfolds, the audience is left uncertain how to react. Welles' charisma begs us to feel sorry for him in the wake of each new catastrophe, but the habitual deference to his own massive ego and its poor decisions makes us realize he has it coming every time.

It eventually all comes full-circle in Xanadu, in a scene that is simultaneously the film's most wrenching and its most memorable. Scene after scene of noticeable decay in Kane's relationship with his second wife, Susan (Dorothy Comingore), result to his eventual discovery of her plans to leave. "You mustn't go," he begs her. "You can't do this to me." And like Susan, we see right through him as he reaches the point of no return.

"You don't love anybody," she retorts. "You want to be loved! That's all you want!"Everything - his fame, his relationship - is about Kane. Things meant to be mutual become singular; life's supporting cast is mere afterthought. There are hints at this as the distances between Kane and those close to him widen throughout the film, but it's not until this scene that we're really hit and left pondering the natures of wealth and power, and how they influence those upon which they're bestowed.

The film's contributions to and influences on modern cinema are too many to count: innovative camera angles, use of miniatures...the list goes on. But what everyone will remember is the establishment of a Hollywood renaissance man in Welles. As a director, producer and co-writer, he worked to create a truly remarkable film that would acknowledge the past as well as shape the future. But as an actor, he did one better - creating a character who we both envy and pity, whose fate will haunt us forever. Simply unforgettable.

4 stars out of 4
9/10