Citizen Kane... so I finally sit down to watch it, and the first scene is: "...Rosebud..."
my first thoughts:
"Rosebud? oh, like in ghostbusters ..."
well, so much for the surprise.
That being said, I have to agree that this is a pretty amazing film. I'd like to say I was blown away by the genius cinematography, but to tell the truth I spent most of my time wrapped up in the story. I was expecting, from multiple second hand reports, that the pacing of the film would be fairly slow, even dry at times... but I actually found the whole thing very engaging. Kane himself feels like a force of nature, he buys or builds anything and everything he desires... all the while becoming more and more miserable and removed from the world.
I think Kane's weakness is what creates such a powerful emotional center for the story, despite all the business and politics in the film, it is Kane's failure(s) that make him human, and allow us to empathize with him.
I imagine most people have, at one time or another, thought about all the things they could buy themselves if they won the lottery, and about how much happiness and freedom those things should bring to their lives... Through Kane we can see that very freedom and power consume and destroy him, in a way, illustrating the danger of unlimited control over one's own destiny...
I'll end with this famous, and somewhat fitting, quote:
"Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men."
- Sir John Dalberg-Acton
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