Citizen Kane is a historical landmark of a film. In addition to starring in the title role, Orson Welles also wrote & directed the feature. The film is about Charles Kane, a wealthy powerful man who ran a popular successful newspaper. Kane dies an old man, in the beginning of the film, right after uttering his last word “rosebud” which causes a media frenzy in search of meaning of the term. The rest of the film follows news reporters searching for what rosebud could have meant to Kane. They question everyone who loved and hated the man. Throughout the interviews we see flashbacks of Charles’ entire life, from when he was a child up until he died.
The ending of this film reveals the actual meaning of “rosebud”. It is arguably considered to be one of the earliest films that introduced the “twist ending”. Rosebud turns out to be the name (or brand) of snow sled that we see Kane using as a child. The meaning is so simple and something that was shown early in the film, anyone could of guessed it but didn’t because the drive of the film revolves around the big mystery of finding out the meaning so we’re lead to believe it’s something more significant to Kane.
A sled isn’t something you would ideally relate to a powerful business man but it’s only after the film when you realize why it had so much meaning to him. It represented his loss. When he was just a small boy he lost his parents, leaving him to be brought up by bank owners. His youth was thrown away as he was forced to grow up a wealthy life; A life that gave him every successful opportunity he had and ironically he hangs onto the memory of his lost childhood.
