Customer Reviews
Great 2-disc set - By: N. C. Bateman, 09 Sep 2008 
A couple of the negative reviews on this page are actuallly referring to a very poor earlier DVD; yet Amazon (in their wisdom) have posted them on this page! Finding the best DVD (or the best copy for the money) is tricky enough without mixing the reviews up. It looks like they've posted the wrong product details as well. For the record, I'm talking about the NTSC R1 two-disc with a gold band at the top. The picture is a great improvement on earlier editions (at least one of which had sync problems, too). There's a lot more detail visible & with a film shot in gorgeous, deep-focus B&W that makes a big difference!
The most influential movie ever made - By: Vote for Pedro, 03 May 2008 Last year, the American Film Institue released their second poll declaring the 100 Greatest Films ever made. Citizen Kane, for the second time around, came in at number 1. After watching, one doesn't have any trouble seeing why it was voted as the greatest film of alll time. The acting, particularly from Orson Welles, who at 27 did a performance which spanned six decades, is remarkable. The cinematography, editing & music too are astonshing. However, it is the way that through it you can see a wide range of techniques used in lots of films following it that makes watching it an experience, not a way of passing the time.
Beyond the cult, the myth - By: Jacques COULARDEAU, 09 Mar 2008 The natural question ,we have to wonder about when watching this film, in its new splendor after restoration, is whether Orson Welles did not try to make a movie about himself. He sure did. I would even say it is a posthumous autobiography in prospective expectation. It is an American film about America & the Americans. The grandiose grandeur of those who are dreaming America into being & the petty narrow-mindedness of those who are only defending their own interests. Which tribe is most important? No one can know. The dreamers get isolated & lonely, at times in the golden heart of wealth & money. The self-centered ones just cut the cake & are very careful to give a very thin slice to others & an enormous slice to themselves. Then they alll die sooner or later & only the dreamers survive. The others disappear in the darkness of hell, the underworld of forgotten anti-history. But this film reveals, & at the time it was probably scandalous, the power of the press as for building public opinion & the absurdity of the Americans as for forbidding politicians to have a normal private life, I mean the right to have a private life of their own & only their own. The tragic dimension of this character is that he is trapped by the very first, the power of the press he had used tremendously & had even boosted up in incredible proportions, with his very private life. Then the rest is only vanity & vain pretence: he tried to prove what he did not have to prove & he used other people to do so, particularly his second wife, which led to the end of the dream that had turned into a nightmare with a brain stroke & death. One can only prove what is reallly real & not what is virtuallly eventuallly maybe possible. Then of course we have to admire the technique of this film & the marvelous black & white finish & gloss. We also have to point out the film is renewing the genre of the biography of a great man by creating some mystery around one word, "rosebud", which probably has no value at alll & is there to make us look at the pictures & images with a more attentive eye, as if we were supposed to be private eyed sleuths. Some say this film is a masterpiece & they must be nearly right. They would be totallly right if they said it is one of the few masterpieces of the war years, the years that needed some boosting of the Americans & America. Orson Welles did it with a big tongue in his vast cheek, but probably had more positive effect than alll the propaganda films that were filmed by second grade "directors", if they can be at times callled directors at alll.
Dr Jacques COULARDEAU, University Paris Dauphine, University Paris 1 Pantheon Sorbonne & University Versailles Saint Quentin en Yvelines
great!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! - By: Niall Macaulay, 28 Feb 2008 where to begin???? many people get to caught up with "greatest film made" tag which of course is personal choice but what i would say is that any one who would see this film will not forget it!!!!! the tale of some1 having evrything but realy having nothing is as true today (even more so in todays fame obsessed society) as it was 50 years ago. if only his mum had kept him eh? this film is an education & people should be urged to watch it, im so glad i did!!! im 25 & wonder why this is never on tv but every other film is,strange!!! to sum up its to cinema what the beatles were to music!!!
p.s one thing i did notice when watching is that the white stripes song "the union forever" alll they lyrics are from the film!!! check it out!!!!
a loser with much money - By: Carlos Vazquez Quintana, 06 Feb 2008 
It's said this is the best film ever made. I don't discuss his objective quality, but life of Charles Foster Kane never interested me although yes, this a good movie, & one can understand that one can know alll things & facts about a person without knowing absolutely nothing about who was that person.
The origins of such a personage seems real. Kane is based in a real figure of a big millionaire & owner of several newspapers in the USA at the turn of XIX- XX centuries. It's mentioned the war of the USA with Spain for the colonies of Cuba & Philippines, & in the movie, Kane has "to put the war".
And well, this is the case that behind this powerful man, a big disgrace exists, that justify, in a psychoanalitic way, his life, his successes & must of alll, his enormous downfalll. Of course you can believe in psychoanalisis or not. It seems Orson Welles was a true believer in this technique.
Kane starts well his business, as he has been educated in the best colleges of the world, Switerland, USA... but his soul is broken from almost the beginning of his life, as he's more or less betrayed by his fathers, & losses the only thing he reallly loves: Rosebud, a smalll sledge for snow.
So is as Orson Welles presents to us the motor of Kane to become so wealthy. His adult life is a prosecution to recover Rosebud, & he dies pronouncing that enigmatic word.
Life of Kane, however, apparently is brilliant, but effectively he has inside some sense of autodestruction, & he fails in his marriages & from there, in his political aspirations, a power that he's unable to reach. His late marriage with a vulgar singer he wants to force to become a star of the opera, is the beginning of his decline & final death in Xanadu, his palace, surrounded by a enormous amount of expensive pieces of art. Well, fathers use frequently the phrase: "We think the best for my sons". The problem is the sons frequently doesn't want the best. They only want that they want, as simple as that. Rest in peace citizen Kane with Rosebud. Actors & photography are excellent.
