Critique of Citizen Kane - Essay Example

The film was produced by John Houseman and Mankiewicz's and was an ingenious way of attacking Hearst the newspaper mogul through an evolution character Foster Kane, and focuses on a fierce duel to expose dirty under deals of a society that was suffering from social morals and integrity among many leaders and business executives. The film satires and portrays the rise of the penny press, the power of political heavyweights, the rise of fascism, support for a Spanish – American War, and the growth in space for celebrity journalism.

The film aims at revealing the burial truth about Kane (Rudolf Hearst), a highly regarded lord and ruler of San Simeon against a young brilliant, and an ambitious boy who is determined to take Hearst down by exposing his dirty deals involving Hollywood and newspaper publications. Consequently, Hearst with all his power and might goes ahead to shut the film down, and even teams up with some Hollywood executives under the leadership of Mayor B. Louis who at any cost attempted to buy Citizen Kane from Welles to destroy it and protect Hearst’s reputation, characteristic of any respected leader in the American society. The story thus pitted two proud, destructive, and gifted geniuses against each other, leading to the destruction of each other to what the Producer Lennon Thomas remarked, "The fight that ruined them both was thoroughly in character with how they'd lived their lives" (WBGH, 2009). The war between the two daring old wealthy and respected newspaper magnates Hearst and a 24-year-old yet ambitious and determined news reporter ended destroying each other. However, Welles drove the point home after a long freeze of the film by Hollywood; Hearst incidentally built his vast empire selling papers with highly entertaining stories, which were scandalous to others, and sometimes were pure fiction. The ruthless, skillful, and open contempt for Hollywood thus led to the success of Welles, and in 1942, the film though named for seven categories lost all but the best screenplay after which the film was retied to its vaults.