Citizen Kane, it gives us the kind of central character we are immediately interested in; given Welles' opening newsreel montage, Kane is interesting simply because he has to be. No one who led such a life could possibly have been boring; he was a powerful man who lost everything, and that fascinates us for the same reason it fascinates the reporters in the film -- we don't understand how it could have happened, how Kane …
showed first 75 words of 1308 total

showed last 75 words of 1308 total
…now know almost everything, we still know nothing. It frustrates, it fascinates, and it cannot be pinned down. Whatever would have made Charles Foster Kane happy, whatever would have given him his soul back, was something he could not gain by material wealth, and in the end, even he did not know what it was. If Charles Foster Kane, a much-proclaimed Great Man, cannot make that discovery, what chance do the rest of us have?