Citizen Kane (1941) from the mind of Orson Welles tells the story of Charles Kane, a newspaper tycoon based off the real life William Randolph Hearst. What made this film so revolutionary for its time, and what allows it to stand up today, is the way its narrative is shaped. In this film, the story of Kane is told starting with his death, then going through multiple flashbacks as a reporter in the real time tries to figure out what his last words meant. However, within this intricate lens of storytelling is one of the most basic and predictable narratives ever constructed.

The use of time to tell Kane’s story is quite impressive in this story. The first clip of the movie shows the gate of Xanadu and a Keep Out sign, and the final shot of the film pans out to reveal the same sign. That first shot is taking the audience into Xanadu, into the world of Kane, and the final shot is removing the audience from this realm after the story is finished. Then, almost immediately, Kane dies, uttering his last words “Rosebud”. The rest of the film follows a reporter going to members of Kane’s life and trying to figure out what the word Rosebud means. By going through his private journal, visiting his manager, best friend, and ex wife, the audience is taken through several flashbacks that exhibit a different time in Kane’s life. Between each flashback the time returns to the present and the journalist moves onto the next person, providing a continual back and forth from the present back into the past to further examine Kane. This fluidity in time allows the story of Kane to be told from the perspective of a reporter, someone trying to examine Kane’s life as someone who didn’t know the full details. This subsequently allows the audience to view Kane’s life through an in depth analysis of his character, getting to know Kane from a young boy all the way until he’s a lonely old man.

While this idea of playing with time builds the structure around the story of Kane, the story itself is incredibly basic and honestly quite boring. The A plot seems to be just a biography of Kane, while the B plot is the reporter trying to figure out what rosebud means, but it seems as though the B plot is only there to give reasoning as to why the A plot is being told, and to give the message at the very end of the film that money can’t buy happiness. However, in order to relay this very simple theme, the film must take the audience through a depiction of Kane’s life. This plot is so boring because we already know what’s going to happen for the whole movie, the only actual plot line is “Rosebud” and this takes a backseat to the mundane elements of Kane’s life. From the start, as the head journalist tells his employee Kane’s basic background information, and then describes how he’s going to find out his information. He lists the people that he’s going to visit. From his first visit it is clear that the journalist will go to one of the places or people that he mentioned, and then get a flashback of Kane’s life from the part of his life that the reporter is visiting. From this basic structure that is basically fully planned from the start, there’s no motive, set of objectives, or any major issues that would drive a plot. Instead there’s recollections of scenarios in certain times of his lives that shows his rise to fame and loneliness, none showing an end-goal that could fuel a plot. This basic story that doesn’t seem to have an end goal is somehow hid behind an incredible display of changing, exemplifying how narration is both attempted and failed in this movie.