Citizen Kane

Hello movie fans, so the movie in review today will be Orson Welles' Citizen Kane. I never watched this movie before actually, but i heard lots about it saying it was a total classic, and movie to watch, so i was looking forward to seeing it today. Welp, heres my thoughts.

Today I watched Citizen Kane for the very first time. I've heard a lot about this movie so I was looking forward to watching it. Throughout the movie I had a hard time identifying a theme/ main idea. It wasn't until the mansion scene with Charles and Susan that a theme finally sunk in my head. It was almost all surrounding money and what it can (and cannot) buy. The mansion was large and extremely lavish, but at the same time void and bleak. The hugeness of the mansion was only noticable because Charles and Susan were the only ones in it. It was filled with expensive yet, cold and inanimate objects. Susan was also depicted building puzzle after puzzle. The diamond studdend hands building the puzzles seemed awkward doing such a mundane hobby, yet it was the only thing she could do. It's kind of cliche but it seemed that money could buy a lot of material things but it could not buy one of things Charles needed the most. Love. I was actually pretty sad during the scene when Susan left, because I thought that Charles was finally being genuinely truthful to her, but it was already too late. The shot of Kane walking past the mirror and his image being reflected many times also hinted at his loneliness. At first glance, there might appear to be many people with him, but on closer inspection, the only real person is Kane himself. I really liked Kane as a character after the cleaning company started clearing out his mansion. He kept anything and everything. So many items, like the 'Welcome Back' trophy his employees gave him, to the bedposts of his bed from the office of the Inquisitor meant nothing to the public, but everything to Kane.
After looking back on my notes, I thought this movie was set up pretty interestingly. The audience discovers at the very end that Rosebud was the name of Charles' sled, the same sled he was seen playing with when the audience was first introduced to him as a young child. At the same time, the snowglobe that triggers his memory of Rosebud, is one of the objects on Susan's cabinet in the background when the audience is first introduced to her. Both of them were such simple and probably cheap objects, yet both came from a past that was simple and free.
Another line from this film which I found quite interesting was when one of the reporters trying to uncover the meaning behind the word rosebud said, "It'll probably turn out to be a very simple thing...." I remember when I wrote this I was thinking of what rosebud could possibly mean, and was sure that it was going to weave out some complex story. After re-reading my notes a few hours ago I was honestly surprised at how the newsreporter was right, but at the same time, to him Rosebud as a sled would have been seen as a simple thing, but to Charles Kane himself, a distant memory of a simpler life, filled with the love of a parent.