As befitting its status as “the Greatest Film of all Time”, the final film of the month is Orson Welles’ Citizen Kane (1941). And in these highly-charged political times Welles’ classic is, perhaps, a bit of a reminder of power, and the axiom that “absolute power corrupts absolutely”.  Citizen Kane screens at Arena Theater on Monday, February 25 at 7:00pm.

     Orson Welles, Hollywood’s then 26-year old wunderkind was already a household name by virtue of his work already in radio and theatre, and was ready to conquer film as well. While William Randolph Hearst is still recognized as one of the most powerful figures of the twentieth century, Welles chose to create a fictionalized version of Hearst in the persona of Charles Foster Kane. He charts the rise of Kane, using inherited wealth (as I said, there is familiarity with today’s political and media titans) to start a newspaper with his inherited fortune – Welles’ film is a classic story of the corrupting effects of power. Citizen Kane is rated PG and has runtime of 119 minutes.