Essay About Film Citizen Kane And Charles Foster Kane

Citizen Kane
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The film Citizen Kane by Orson Welles, opens with a picture of a castle with a window
that has a light turned on. As the backgrounds begin to change into a closer view of the castle,
then a view of the castle from the reflection of the water surrounding it, we are drawn into the
window as a man falls dead with the last words “Rosebud” coming from his mouth. We are then
brought through a maze of scenes that reflect one mans journey through life from his childhood
with an abusive father, to the time he inherits the worlds sixth largest fortune.
Charles Foster Kane, is portrayed in the movie as a man who has everything one could
ever want. Whatever he doesnt posess, he tries to buy. Power and wealth to Kane are the
epitamy of success, and although he claims or atleast tries to be happy, he truly is not a happy
person. As Kane begins to learn that the things he wants most in life he cannot purchase, so to
do the people with whom he surrounds himself with. When Kane ran for governor, he tries to
use his wealth to overpower his opponent, Gettys. This backfires on Kane when Gettys
threatens to use information about an affair Kane had to thwart him from the race. Kane once
described his wife as a “cross section of the American public”. These sort of references provide
us with an image of a man that is willing to do anything to portray himself as loving or able to be
loved.
Kane was truly never able to love someone. He was given everything he ever wanted,
and when he couldnt buy something, he tried to create it. When Susan Alexander, Kanes
second wife, wanted to be a singer, Kane got her a teacher, and began from there, to create a
singer. He built an Opera house and made her into a glamourous star. Throughout the film,
Kane used his paper, the Enquirer to manipulate the minds of the public into believing whatever
Kane wrote. Kane also used his paper to show the public how politicians (Gettys) were corrupt
and dishonest. Whether the facts published in the Enquirer were true or not, to Kane was
irrelevent.