#1 ‘Citizen Kane’
A Boy, a Sled, and a Whole Lot of Male Ego
Let’s light a cigar, pour a tumbler of scotch, and once again genuflect before the alabaster statue of Citizen Kane—the Great American Film™ that has been force-fed to every film student like it’s the cinematic Eucharist. Orson Welles’ 1941 magnum opus is hailed as the pinnacle of innovation, the Holy Grail of storytelling, the very birth of cinema if you ask a man with a Criterion subscription and a superiority complex.
And yes, sure, technically, it’s dazzling. Groundbreaking, even. Deep focus shots that defy physics. Nonlinear storytelling. That moody chiaroscuro lighting so heavy-handed you expect Dracula to pop out from behind a velvet curtain. But beneath the virtuosity lies the same old chestnut: a man with limitless power and zero emotional intelligence leaves a trail of broken people behind him and then dies sad.
Tell me if you’ve heard that one before.
Charles Foster Kane—media tycoon, empty capitalist, and walking Freudian case study—spends his life hoarding influence like a toddler hoards crayons, only to die whispering Rosebud, a word that sent generations of male critics into existential spirals. Spoiler alert: it’s the name of his childhood sled. Because when you peel away all the money and misogyny, all the castles and control issues, all the affairs and abuse, what lies at the center of this mythic man?
A little boy who never emotionally developed past age eight. How poetic.
The film desperately wants us to care about Kane’s soul, as if the trail of emotional wreckage he leaves behind is simply the collateral damage of greatness. His wives—cardboard cutouts of varying levels of disillusionment—exist only to serve his ego or suffer for his neglect. His friends are mere props in his self-mythologizing theatre. Even the reporter piecing together Kane’s life feels like a placeholder for Welles’ own narcissism, scurrying around to give meaning to a man who mostly just trampled over people while whining about his mother.
It’s not that Citizen Kane isn’t brilliant. It is. But brilliance in the service of glorifying wounded masculinity is still glorifying wounded masculinity. The film asks the wrong question: not “who was Kane?” but “why do we care?”
And maybe that’s the real magic trick here. Welles made an exquisitely shot, emotionally barren ode to male alienation, slapped it together with flashbacks and bravado, and we’ve been calling it the greatest film ever made ever since. Meanwhile, the women in Kane’s life fade into oblivion, as disposable as yesterday’s headlines.
So go ahead. Marvel at the camera angles. Swoon at the set design. Quote “Rosebud” like it’s scripture. But don’t confuse a monument to ego with a masterpiece of humanity.
2 out of 5 snowglobes
(One star for Gregg Toland's cinematography, and one star for that poor second wife who had to endure Kane’s opera fetish. The rest? Lost in the snow.)
