Citizen Kane (1941)
Drama | Mystery

-- Ultimate Collector's Edition -- 70th Anniversary Edition --


Tagline: Everybody's talking about it!

The Orson Welles masterwork that expanded filmmaking frontiers like no other movie: the fascinating story of a ruthless publishing magnate’s rise to fame and influence- climaxing in the man’s mysterious final word: “Rosebud.” Grandly entertaining and groundbreaking throughout, this nominee for 9 Academy Awards (and Oscar winner for Oscar Screenplay) made Welles, in Martin Scorsese’s words, “responsible for inspiring more people to be film directors than anyone else in the history of cinema.”

The second disc in this double-disc release is The Battle Over Citizen Kane, a two-hour Oscar®-nominated documentary that chronicles the titanic struggle between filmmaker Orson Welles and newspaper magnate William Randolph Hearst, who claimed Citizen Kane was a thinly veiled and slanderous account of his own life.

Storyline: A group of reporters who are trying to decipher the last word ever spoke by Charles Foster Kane, the millionaire newspaper tycoon: "Rosebud." The film begins with a news reel detailing Kane's life for the masses, and then from there, we are shown flashbacks from Kane's life. As the reporters investigate further, the viewers see a display of a fascinating man's rise to fame, and how he eventually fell off the "top of the world." Written by Zack H.

User Comment: QulkSiLvR Princeton, New Jersey • Citizen Kane, the film, is many things. It is a brilliantly crafted series of flashbacks and remembrances. It is an engaging story of a dynamic man in a dynamic world. It is a remarkable statement for the wide range of time periods that it covers. It is a deceptively simple story centering on perhaps the most meaningful word in all of moviedom. Behind all that, Citizen Kane is the American cinema. There is not a major director today who has not been influenced by the genius Orson Welles put forth in his debut masterpiece. The film centers around a group of reporters investigating the origin of the dying newspaper tycoon (loosely based on Garrison Hearst), Charles Foster Kane's last word: Rosebud. The movie begins with an unforgettable newsreel montage summarizing the man's life.

From there on, the viewer is thrown into a gloriously chaotic world of flashbacks upon flashbacks, in which the viewer slowly learns just about everything about Charles Foster Kane's enthralling life. From his trying childhood to his rise to power to the pinnacle of his success to his marital difficulties to his fall from grace, the story of Charles Foster Kane is presented for the viewer in a way that few other movies can offer: magically. Citizen Kane, undeniably, is THE triumph of the American cinema, and one of the greatest films every created.

Summary: Undoubtedly the greatest American film ever created.

--- JOYA ---

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