Citizen Kane
Citizen Kane is a 1941 American drama film directed by, produced by, and starring Orson Welles. Welles and Herman J. Mankiewicz wrote the screenplay. The picture was Welles' first feature film. Citizen Kane is frequently cited as the greatest film ever made. For 50 consecutive years, it stood at number 1 in the British Film Institute's Sight & Sound decennial poll of critics, and it topped the American Film Institute's 100 Years... 100 Movies list in 1998, as well as its 2007 update. The film was nominated for Academy Awards in nine categories and it won for Best Writing (Original Screenplay) by Mankiewicz and Welles. Citizen Kane is praised for Gregg Toland's cinematography, Robert Wise's editing, Bernard Herrmann's music, and its narrative structure, all of which have been considered innovative and precedent-setting.
Plot
In a mansion called Xanadu, part of a vast palatial estate in Florida, the elderly Charles Foster Kane is on his deathbed. Holding a snow globe, he utters his last word, "Rosebud", and dies. A newsreel obituary tells the life story of Kane, an enormously wealthy newspaper publisher and industrial magnate. Kane's death becomes sensational news around the world, and the newsreel's producer tasks reporter Jerry Thompson with discovering the meaning of "Rosebud".
Awards
Cast
- Agnes Moorehead
- Alan Ladd
- Buddy Swan
- Charles Bennett
- Dorothy Comingore
- Erskine Sanford
- Everett Sloane
- Fortunio Bonanova
- George Coulouris
- Georgia Backus
- Gino Corrado
- Gregg Toland
- Gus Schilling
- Harry Shannon
- Joseph Cotten
- Orson Welles
- Paul Stewart
- Philip Van Zandt
- Ray Collins
- Roland Winters
- Ruth Warrick
- Sonny Bupp
- Walter Sande
- William Alland