Welles, Orson. "Citizen Kane Is Not about Louella Parsons' Boss." Friday 14 Feb, 1941: 9.

After the premier of Citizen Kane, reviews of the film and coverage of the premier were published in the journal Friday. Orson Welles was displeased with the misinterpretations the he felt had been published. This piece is Welles’ response to the initial publications. his first concern is with their portrayal of him as a pleasure-seeking man lacking adequate work ethic. He responds briefly to this that if this were the case he surely would have been fired, and that he has been doing his job for RKO. The majority of the piece is dedicated to correcting several assumptions that Friday had made about Citizen Kane. Welles had been quoted in Friday as saying that the picture was in fact about Louella Parsons’ boss, William Randolph Hearst. He calls this unfair to both Hearst and Kane. He then goes on to clarify the goal of the movie as something other than a portrayal of William Randolph Hearst. He describes Citizen Kane as a mans [Thompson] search of the significance of Kane’s final word. This search provides him with five perspectives about the man, provided by five people that knew him well. Most importantly, Welles states that “He is never judged with the objectivity of an author, and the point of the picture is not so much the solution of the problem as its presentation.”

This conclusion provided by Wells supports Carringer’s view that ‘Rosebud’ should not be viewed as an answer to a puzzle, but as the process by which we can answer a question. It applies directly to my thesis by relating ‘Rosebud’ to a MacGuffin, or a plot device used in film to motivate the characters or advances the story. The details of this device are of little or no importance separate from the plot. ‘Rosebud’ motivates Thompson to interview people who were close to Kane, and in doing so assembles the pieces necessary to paint the most accurate portrait of him. However, aside from it’s motivational force, ‘Rosebud’ does not hold much importance.

Crowther, Bosley. "The Ambiguous ‘Citizen Kane’ :Orson Welles, in His First Motion Picture, Creates a Titanic Character Which Does Everything but Explain Itself ." New York Times (1857-Current file) [New York, N.Y.] 4 May 1941, X5. ProQuest Historical Newspapers The New York Times (1851 - 2004). ProQuest. Van Pelt Library University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA. 9 Apr 2008 http://proxy.library.upenn.edu:2100/

Bosley Crowther was a film critic for the New York Times. He is one of the first critics to call Citizen Kane the best movie of all time.

Crowther wrote a glowing review of Citizen Kane on May 2nd, 1941, the day after the premiere in New York. He was so impressed with the film that four days after the premiere, he wrote in this article that Orson Welles’s Citizen Kane could be the greatest movie of all time. He conceded that he might have been going out on a limb and that the felt slightly uneasy about this bold declaration, but that he knew that the film was vastly superior to average film of the day. He wrote that because the film maker was so young – only 25 –he was not sure how the future would fare for Welles. He commented about the movie’s hyped-up release and stated that at the premiere, the film was “riding the crest of the most provocative publicity wave ever to float a motion picture.” This wave of publicity was caused by Hearst’s insistence that the film be taken off of the market before it was even released. Crowther wrote about the viewers reactions to the portrayal of the media tycoon. Even though not a single “black mark” is made against the character, the audience still walked away with a vague idea of the rash techniques used by ruthless publishers. This juxtaposes the films portrayal of Kane as an honest publisher. Crowther then wrote about the ending of the film and how he felt that it increased the complexity of the film because the ending didn’t explain itself. He was of the opinion that Welles was a brilliant filmmaker, but because he was so young, he would need more experience in the discipline.

This article is groundbreaking with respect to the fact that it is one of the first to hail Welles’s movie as a masterpiece and one of the greatest movies ever made. In the years after the film, its popularity waned at first but then began to increase with time. When one looks today at various organization’s rankings of the best movies of all time (eg Time, AFI, IMDB), usually Citizen Kane tops the list. One might think that Crowther’s positive reviews of the film would inspire more viewership, however the film was not a blockbuster and it seems that Hearst’s attempts at suppressing it were effective.