A common theme in Citizen Kane is working and pulling ahead in the business world. The movie is about Kane’s life which is consumed by work, and gaining power. Although there have always been big business people that spend the majority of their time working. This has been common amongst Americans, with women in the business world, the economy crash and a variety of other reasons Americans have been working a ton. This goes along directly with Kane’s lifestyle, after his second wife leaves him your really see that Kane does not know how to have a relationship, he only knows how to work. This brings up an interesting question; at what point do we stop working, and save time for other activities? Even though Citizen Kane came out in 1941 the heart and meaning of the story are still relevant to people in the U.S. today.

In the film another obvious thing is that Kane has no shortage of stuff as seen in the finale scene with the crane shot showing his statues, furniture, and other random items just stored in the his Manson, although most people don’t have the extreme amount of stuff Kane has, it brings up yet another issue today in the U.S. and that is people depending on and defining themselves on their material good. Everything in Kane’s world revolves around money and showing he has a lot of it (his estate, building and opera house, ect). While in America today people also want material goods and know our culture is built around that, between the internet, and cell phones. The Movie Citizen Kane show how that money, and goods can’t bring you happiness and they don’t make your life perfect sometimes they are just a distraction from the pain people feel, as we see in kane when he realizes he has lost his childhood.

http://www.bls.gov/tus/charts/work.htm ( American working hours )

http://dangerousintersection.org/?p=737 ( Material goods)

_{http://www.ombwatch.org/budget/images/Wall_street_floor.jpg} ( picture)