charles foster kane who was he

Charles Foster Kane - Who Was He? The story of Citizen Kane drew
many people to the theatres since they wanted to find out who this Kane
fellow is or was. It is unarguably one of the best films ever produced.
Orson Wells portrays Kane as mysterious person but also a sad person.
The different accounts are shown throughout the movie through the
reporter wanting to find out who or what Rosebud is. Rosebud was
Kane's last dying words. The first person the reporter Jerry Thompson
sees is the owner of Walter Parks Thatcher's estate and holdings.
Thatcher is long dead and who? visits his library and is allowed to inspect
the financier's memoirs in manuscript. Through Thatcher's words we see
Kane as a boy playing with his sled on a snow-swept Colorado farm.
Through his mother, the boy has just inherited a great fortune. Unable to
settle his bill, a prospector who boarded with the Kanes left behind stock
certificates that make Mrs. Kane the sole owner of one of the world's
great silver mines. She then makes her son the ward of the bank that
administers her estate, and Thatcher, whom the angry young Kane
bashes with a sled, takes the boy East to be raised. The movie then
shows Kane growing up, making life miserable for Thatcher. The mature
Kane decides to take direct control of a small, struggling newspaper, and
immediately begins using it to attack Thatcher and others among
America's financial elite. This displays the mystery with Kane as he
wants to expand on something small into something big, but we don't
know what. The next account was given by Bernstein, Kane's devoted
assistant. He explains the beginnings as a newspaper czar and his
takeover of the New York Enquirer, in which he fired its editor, hired an
expensive, top-notch staff, and enlisted his college friend Jedediah
Leland as the drama critic. Kane is at first a crusader for the
understanding, opening his first editorial with a "declaration of principles."
He becomes a champion of the little person, hyping his circulation with
juicy scandals, crime exposes, etc. In a surprise move Kane marries
Emily Norton, the president's niece. For the first time here we see Kane

starting a love story. However this wasn't to last and it paved the way for
the second-love. The reporter then visits a half-drunk Susan Alexander
in a nightclub. She recalls her meeting and eventual affair with the
married Kane and their discovery by Leland, who is led to their love nest
by Kane's political rival, "Big Jim" Gettys. Until that point, Kane is heavily
favored to defeat Gettys in an upcoming senatorial election, but Gettys
warns that unless the publisher withdraws from the race, he'll take the
story to the media. Furious, Kane refuses, and the following day his
political aspirations are dashed by newspaper accounts. He does not
have to deal with an ugly divorce, however, since his wife and son are
killed in an auto accident. It seems that the love story began to intensify
at this point since his first wife was now dead and he begins a new love
with Alexander. However, Kane had to realize that her singing talents
were not the best and despite building Xanadu their lives would become
miserable and hapless. At the conclusion, we find out what Rosebud
was and how Kane's last requests were not fulfilled. He was betrayed by
all and no one cared for the last wish. By the end, we can see Kane as a
depressed, unsatisfied man brought up with power and greed but no love.
Overall Citizen Kane was a mysterious man with ambitions to become
famous, a lover to things and people, and a sad man without satisfaction
in life.