The Yale Record’s Official Review of Citizen Kane 2

BY BENJAMIN HOLLANDER-BODIE STAFF REPORTER

“Remember always that you have not only the right to be an individual; you have an obligation to be one.” Eleanor Roosevelt said that, presumably when Citizen Kane 1 first hit the big screen back in 1941. This message of unshakable individualism and selfsufficiency is at the core of Orson Welles’ seminal classic, and it is more relevant than ever in the twenty-first century.

Citizen Kane 2 challenges what was previ- ously thought possible, pushing the limits of the cinematic medium. The film is a striking and razor-sharp and deeply compassionate love letter to the individual, the singular great man who braves the hoary winds of a chaotic and uncaring world and comes out on top.

Even from the title, the brilliant minds behind Citizen Kane 2 draw our attention to this conflict. There is one citizen, one man, whose identity and whose self are intermeshed within each other. Yet that same self-identity is also an echo of another, the first “Citizen Kane.”

Kane’s struggle to establish himself as the sole sovereign over his own identity thus forms the stakes of the plot; stakes that have never been so acutely high.

Brennan ColumbiaWalsh as the titular Citizen Kane offers a captivating performance.

His voice, his movements, his strained facial expressions — all convey flawlessly this struggle of identity that Citizen Kane must undergo to establish his true independence in an increasingly interconnected world.

Avoiding any spoilers, it must be said that the stunning final scene represents the greatest triumph of any one man since the time of Charlemagne. ColumbiaWalsh’s Citizen Kane is the new millennium’s long-overdue ideal male role model.

Ultimately, Citizen Kane 2 should not simply be viewed as a movie. It is the first step on the long road towards a new world. It is the drop whose impact will cause ripples going on to infinity. A new generation of people will be defined by Citizen Kane 2, and it will be a better generation.

Citizen Kane 2 promises hope, salvation, recycling, truth, for all of us. Or at least those of us who are ruggedly individual badasses. And that’s what movies are all about.