Citizen Kane: The Story Remembered

At Xanadu, a private castle on a man-made mountain in Florida, newspaper publisher Charles Foster Kane lies dying. With his final breath, he whispers, “Rosebud.” From Kane’s hand slips a glass snow globe containing a tiny cabin, which shatters on the floor.

A newsreel company prepares a film obituary of Kane. But Rawlston, the head of the company, is not happy with the production; it captures the highlights of Kane’s life, but not its meaning. So Rawlston dispatches reporter Jerry Thompson to discover the significance of Kane’s last word. “It’ll probably turn out to be a very simple thing,” Rawlston tells Thompson.

Thompson learns about the key events in Kane’s life from the recollections of five people: Walter Thatcher, Kane’s deceased lawyer (through his memoirs); and conversations with Mr. Bernstein (Kane’s business manager); Jed Leland (Kane’s former best friend); Susan Alexander (Kane’s second wife); and Raymond (Kane’s butler). Through these five people, Thompson learn’s about Kane’s successes, his failures, the bewildering conflicts in his personality, his disastrous marriages, and his decline into a discredited, lonely recluse.

After Thompson interviews Raymond at Xanadu, the search ends; Thompson cannot discover Rosebud’s identity. Thompson tells his colleagues, who have come to Xanadu to photograph Kane’s relics, that to Kane, Rosebud may have been “something he couldn’t get or something he lost.” In Kane’s life, Thompson says, “Rosebud is just a piece in a jigsaw puzzle— a missing piece.”

The reporters depart Xanadu, and the unwanted remnants of Kane’s life are burned in a giant furnace. A workman throws a battered sled from Kane’s youth onto the flames; across the front of the childhood toy is written “Rosebud.”