This film is therefore called the best in the history of cinema, that it still remains unknowable both in terms of philosophical content, and in terms of art - the unity of thought and its embodiment. As in any great work, in Welles’s picture perfection is embodied in a special material substance, not material, but solely an artistic substance-the organic nature of the idea and image, the astonishing magical act of transforming the amorphous intangible fog of the author's inner world into building the space of cadres and moving them into each other. Perhaps, there is nothing surprising in the fact that the director staged such a brilliant tape at the age of only 25 years. Moreover, only a young man could achieve this. Only a fresh look and an uncontrollable, not freshened-up fantasy with an unbearable thirst to say one's words could overturn the tradition and accomplish what will be called "ahead of time" years later. Undoubtedly, the new cannot be created without a memory of the old, and here we see the techniques of the past, but in themselves, they are empty, therefore they can serve only as a means to fix creativity, which in its pure form is always original.
The film buries its hero, leaving behind him a train of understatement. The final shots do not dispel the darkness of mystery and, it seems, of the incomprehensible depth of personality. The viewer remains in ignorance to the same extent as at the very beginning of the fictional chronicle, but this ignorance takes on a different form, which is more important than unambiguous clarity. After we have examined the life of the character to the smallest nuances, we realize the main thing - its fundamental unknowability, which is the true essence of human nature.
Like any great work, "Citizen Kane" goes beyond the boundaries of art and continues already inside the viewer, becoming an external embodiment of self-knowledge.