Citizen Kane: Charles Foster Kane - Who Was He?

The story of Citizen Kane drew many people to the theatres since
they
wanted to find out who this Kane fellow is or was. It is unarguably
one of the
best films ever produced. Orson Wells portrays Kane as mysterious
person but
also a sad person. The different accounts are shown throughout the
movie through
the reporter wanting to find out who or what Rosebud is. Rosebud was
Kane's
last dying words.
The first person the reporter Jerry Thompson sees is the owner
of Walter
Parks Thatcher's estate and holdings. Thatcher is long dead and who?
visits his
library and is allowed to inspect the financier's memoirs in
manuscript. Through
Thatcher's words we see Kane as a boy playing with his sled on a snow-
swept
Colorado farm. Through his mother, the boy has just inherited a great
fortune.
Unable to settle his bill, a prospector who boarded with the Kanes left
behind
stock certificates that make Mrs. Kane the sole owner of one of the
world's
great silver mines. She then makes her son the ward of the bank that
administers
her estate, and Thatcher, whom the angry young Kane bashes with a sled,
takes
the boy East to be raised. The movie then shows Kane growing up,
making life
miserable for Thatcher. The mature Kane decides to take direct control
of a
small, struggling newspaper, and immediately begins using it to attack
Thatcher
and others among America's financial elite. This displays the mystery
with Kane
as he wants to expand on something small into something big, but we
don't know
what.
The next account was given by Bernstein, Kane's devoted
assistant. He
explains the beginnings as a newspaper czar and his takeover of the New
York
Enquirer, in which he fired its editor, hired an expensive, top-notch
staff, and
enlisted his college friend Jedediah Leland as the drama critic. Kane
is at
first a crusader for the understanding, opening his first editorial
with a
"declaration of principles." He becomes a champion of the little
person, hyping
his circulation with juicy scandals, crime exposes, etc. In a surprise
move Kane
marries Emily Norton, the president's niece. For the first time here
we see
Kane starting a love story. However this wasn't to last and it paved
the way
for the second-love.
The reporter then visits a half-drunk Susan Alexander in a
nightclub.
She recalls her meeting and eventual affair with the married Kane and
their
discovery by Leland, who is led to their love nest by Kane's political
rival,
"Big Jim" Gettys. Until that point, Kane is heavily favored to defeat
Gettys in
an upcoming senatorial election, but Gettys warns that unless the
publisher
withdraws from the race, he'll take the story to the media. Furious,
Kane
refuses, and the following day his political aspirations are dashed by
newspaper
accounts. He does not have to deal with an ugly divorce, however, since
his wife
and son are killed in an auto accident. It seems that the love story
began to
intensify at this point since his first wife was now dead and he begins
a new
love with Alexander. However, Kane had to realize that her singing
talents were
not the best and despite building Xanadu their lives would become
miserable and
hapless.
At the conclusion, we find out what Rosebud was and how Kane's
last
requests were not fulfilled. He was betrayed by all and no one cared
for the
last wish. By the end, we can see Kane as a depressed, unsatisfied man
brought
up with power and greed but no love. Overall Citizen Kane was a
mysterious man
with ambitions to become famous, a lover to things and people, and a
sad man
without satisfaction in life.