I rewatched Citizen Kane today, having recently bought the DVD. It is a long time between viewings, almost 40 years, but I had forgotten most of it (except the first impression made) and of course, the bits that get replayed whenever Welles or the the movie are topical. These days this is hardly ever, since a lot of time has passed and the huge influence the film made has become a part of the historic woodwork.

Still, it is extraordinary on so many levels that the moniker of the greatest movie of all time is well-earned and impervious, seemingly, to the march of the years and the huge improvements in technology. Theatrical it is, bold and inventive cinematically, and unravelled in a way that even Bertolt Brecht might have appreciated. 

And yet the story is fairly simple, and the conceit for telling it, who or what is 'rosebud', brilliantly direct, keeping the madness of Kane's life in perspective and within the bounds of narrative storytelling. I think that it will pay watching again soon and if the critics are correct, again and again.