I completely understand why people who watch Citizen Kane would find it boring. Compared to movies made in this day and age it is very boring. However, this movie was made in 1941 and was groundbreaking in many ways.

The cinematographer Greg Toland was a master who could have worked on any film he wanted. He chose to work with 25 year old first time director Orson Welles. He was tired of the Hollywood movie studio BS and saw that this kid wanted to do something revolutionary. Over 50% of the movie contains special effects most of which had never been done before. If you watch this movie next to any other movie of that era it is amazing how much different the style, camera angles, shots, etc are comparatively.

All of the American movies at the time (and this pretty much holds true even today) had someone who started with nothing and became successful or won against all odds etc. Citizen Kane flips this and takes one of the richest men in the world who starts out as the hero and turns him into the villain who ends up sad, bitter and alone. Again this is much different than other films of this era. I would argue that it is still much different to the vast majority of films today.

Charles Foster Kane is clearly supposed to be William Randolph Hearst who was the media mogul of the time. They made a movie about one of the most powerful people of that era and make him look like a sad douchey a–hole. The writer Mankiiewicz was someone who regularly attended the parties at Hearst Castle and many details in the movie are spot on about Hearst’s real life. Rosebud (Kane’s final word and the plot device for the film) is supposedly Hearst’s nickname for his wife’s private area. Hearst did everything he could to stop this movie from playing in the theaters and was pretty successful in ensuring it lost money at the box office. It wasn’t until about 10 years later when people in Europe started watching and appreciating the film that they decide to re-release it in the US. By this time Hearst was dead and there is no campaign against the movie. This is when it really gets wide recognition as a great film.

So basically a 25 year old upstart took on the most powerful media mogul of the day with a movie that had groundbreaking special effects, style, and story line. I can’t think of any film to this day that can compare to these accomplishments. Many of the worlds greatest film makers were inspired by this movie. It is for all these reasons why it is looked at as one of the best movies ever made and shown to all film students.