A "Singer"

Oh man I watched Citizen Kane on Monday and loved it. So to tell all those people who are like me and knew nothing about this show it won an Academy Award in 1941 for Best Original Screenplay, but was actually nominated for 9 Academy Awards. Just goes to show you that awards are based on popularity are not actual content. It was directed by Orson Welles and he was also Citizen Kane. What a crazy talented man at only 24!!!!
The story follows the life of Charley Kane a driven ambitious man with more money than God. In the show he is already dead, but his life is told by his close friends and lover. He is pretty much sold off by his mother when he is very young to a wealthy man, Thatcher, so Charley can get an education and a better life. His career peaks in the journalism business rather early in life, and then you slowly watch his decline. So the whole goal of the movie is to find out what his dying word, "Rosebud," meant. You don't find out what it means until the end of the show, but the killer irony is that no one else in the show ever figures it out. You realize what it means at the end when all of Kane's workers are burning his numerous belongings and you see an old sled with "Rosebud" written across the top, the sled from his childhood.
"Rosebud" means so much more than just a sled. One of the characters in the show asks if maybe Rosebud is something Kane lost or always wanted. Of course it was!! Kane just wanted his childhood back, that had been ripped away from him so early in life. Kane tried for the rest of his life to fill this giant hole with alcohol, women, and possessions. His monstrous house Xanadu was just a monument to this fact. Although you see Kane is this vicious light through most of the movie you can't help but just feel bad for the guy at the end. Its just like MJ he just wanted to be a little boy again.
Aside from the main story this movie has great writing with a good mix of comedy and drama and amazing cinematography. I am still laughing that they called Kane's lover a "singer." ha ha!! So perfect! I also loved the part where Kane moves to New York and just steals all of the amazing writers for his own paper. Oh the things you can do when you have money coming out of your ears. The cinematography was WAY ahead of its time, and I am still shocked that the show didn't win the award for that one. I realize that there are a lot of similarities between it and Rebecca directed by Alfred Hitchock in 1940, but it should still be recognized for its genius.
So because it is the greatest movie of all time I had to do more research on the show and the life of Orson Welles. So after reading reviews by Tim Durks and Robert Ebert and watching a documentary called "The Battle over Citizen Kane" made in 1998. I learned that Citizen Kane is actually based on the life of William Randolph Hearst, the insane journalist and owner of The New York Journal. So when this movie was made in 1941 Hearst was in his late 70s and on the decline. Gotta say Welles had some balls!! To basically make fun of a man and his loved ones while he is still alive is gutsy, and he ended up paying dearly for it. Hearst tried desperately to make sure the movie never got to the theaters, but Welles was determined to expose Hurst as much as possible, and now, well its the greatest movie of all time. Nice try Willey! Epic Fail! Although props to Willey for ruining Welles career and pushing him into bankruptcy so early in life.
Clearly there are some major differences between Kane and Hearst, like the fact that Hearst was born with loads of money and Kane had a classic "rags-to-riches" story. The script makes more sense however when you realize that Orson Welles was an orphan by the time he was 8. He was shipped off to boarding school where he was quickly realized for his genius and made it big. So although Hearst believed the movie was about his life I don't think he realized that Welles was really telling his story too.
All in all an amazing film with a killer ending. I would recommend this to anyone, and to my fellow Mormons out there its PG. Hope you all have already seen or will see this show and love it as much as I did.