The American film drama Citizen Kane (1941) was directed, produced, and cowritten by Orson Welles, who also starred in the lead role. Citizen Kane has been acclaimed by many critics as the greatest movie ever made.
Welles’s much-analyzed drama centers on the rise and fall of a publishing magnate, Charles Foster Kane, who closely resembles William Randolph Hearst. (Hearst fought the film’s production from the start, though he was unsuccessful in his efforts to ban the film.) Kane’s life unfolds through flashbacks after a reporter tries to uncover the mystery surrounding the word “Rosebud,” which Kane utters upon his deathbed. It is eventually revealed that Rosebud is the name of the beloved sled of Kane’s childhood.
Welles was only 25 years old when he produced the film, and the movie’s groundbreaking techniques under his direction—primarily the innovative lighting and focusing methods of cinematographer Gregg Toland and the dramatic editing style of Robert Wise—still continue to influence filmmakers. The film was nominated for nine Academy Awards—including for Welles for best actor and director and for best picture—but won only one, for best original screenplay.
