Citizen Kane

Following the notoriety of his 1938 War of the Worlds radio broadcast, the 24-year-old Welles was courted by RKO Pictures with a contract that scandalized the industry. While most directors were subject to studio oversight, Welles was granted "final cut" privilege, the right to select his own cast and crew, and total artistic control—provided he stayed within a $500,000 budget.

This autonomy allowed Welles to treat the RKO lot like "the greatest electric train set a boy ever had." Because he was a newcomer to film, he was unburdened by "the right way" to make movies, leading him to experiment with deep focus cinematography and non-linear storytelling that seasoned directors of the era likely would have deemed too risky or technically impossible.

Welles and co-writer Herman J. Mankiewicz set out to create a "failure story" rather than a traditional narrative of action. The plot follows a reporter’s search for the meaning of "Rosebud," the final word of media tycoon Charles Foster Kane. Instead of a chronological biography, the film is a mosaic of conflicting perspectives from Kane’s associates, suggesting that a single life cannot be fully understood through a newsreel obituary.

The character of Kane was a thinly veiled composite of American barons, most notably William Randolph Hearst. The "Rosebud" mystery—revealed to the audience as a childhood sled—symbolizes the innocence and maternal security Kane lost when he was traded away to a bank for a fortune. It suggests that despite his immense wealth and power, Kane remained a boy striking out at the world that took him from his home.

William Randolph Hearst was so offended by the film’s parallels to his private life that he prohibited any mention of Citizen Kane in his chain of newspapers. This media blackout, combined with the film’s unconventional structure, led to a disappointing box office performance. Although critically acclaimed upon arrival, the film failed to recoup its costs and quickly faded from public consciousness.

The suppression was nearly successful until the mid-1950s. The film’s "resurrection" began in France, where critics like André Bazin praised its technical depth. A 1956 re-release and subsequent television broadcasts allowed a new generation of filmmakers and scholars to rediscover its innovations, eventually cementing its reputation as the foundational text of modern cinema.

Citizen Kane is celebrated as a "precedent-setting" film largely due to the collaboration between Welles and cinematographer Gregg Toland. They popularized "deep focus," a technique where the foreground, middle ground, and background are all in sharp focus simultaneously. This forced the audience to look around the frame for meaning, rather than being told where to look by the camera.

The film also integrated Welles’s background in radio. He used "lightning mixes" to link different scenes through continuous sound and employed a complex narrative structure that jumped through decades. From Robert Wise’s sharp editing to Bernard Herrmann’s evocative score, every department utilized the studio's resources to push the boundaries of what 1940s technology could achieve.