10 Obscure Background Movie Clues That Explain Everything

Regardless of how well it is revered, it's a widely held belief that the entire premise of Citizen Kane is built on a plot hole. The story revolves around a reporter digging to find out what Charles Foster Kane's (Orson Welles) last word before he died meant, but there's an apparent issue.

It doesn't appear that there was anyone with him when he died, so how would anyone have known what he said? It's easy to see why such a misconception has been born.

Kane's death is shown in the opening scene of the movie, where he drops a snow globe and whispers "Rosebud", the word that begins the entire mystery, but there is no one else shown in the scene with him. The shots were really only close-ups of his mouth and the snow globe before a nurse entered to find him dead. However, although this suggests that he was alone, it is far from concrete evidence.

In fact, during an interview with reporter Jerry Thompson (William Alland), Kane's butler Raymond (Paul Stewart) recounts the events of his death exactly. After he said Rosebud and dropped the snow globe, he said nothing more and Raymond knew he was dead. It's made perfectly clear from this brief conversation that Kane's final word was heard by his butler, even if he wasn't shown in the scene himself.