May 1st marks the 75th anniversary of Citizen Kane, arguably the most important and influential movie of all time. Naturally, Citizen Kane retrospectives, homages, and celebrations are popping up all over the place, reminding those damn millennials of its everlasting greatness. To put it in perspective, 99% of movies that came out in 1941 are now completely irrelevant, despite Kane getting a cold shoulder from the masses upon its original release. Yes, Maltese Falcon, Suspicion, and The Wolfman are great, but if John Huston and Hitchcock were here in 2016, they would probably concede to Orson Welles’ opus. It was like 2016 Steph Curry to the rest of the NBA, even though Welles didn’t get much hardware for his work.
Much of Citizen Kane’s staying power is thanks to the film’s themes still looming large in our culture. Welles was onto something with the whole loved-to-be-hated rich guy story arc. Almost as if he could see the future of United States business and politics. Hollywood would reverently pay homage to Kane countless times, but one of the greatest parodies/homages to Citizen Kane came from The Simpsons in their season 5 episode titled Rosebud (a reference to Citizen Kane ((just watch it already c’mon)). This supercut above shows how Mr. Burns is analogous to Charles Foster Kane with loving detail.
*Don’t forget to with Citizen Kane a happy birthday by letting this picture of writer/producer/actor/director Orson Welles haunt you on this glorious day!
Orson Welles removes his make-up on the set of CITIZEN KANE pic.twitter.com/1qGnKvumTG
— GoldenAgeHollywood (@ClassicalCinema) May 1, 2016
