The camera looks up at Charles Foster Kane and his best friend Jedediah Leland and down at weaker characters like Susan Alexander Kane. This was a technique that Orson Welles borrowed from John Ford who had used it two years previously on La Chevauchée fantastique (1939). Welles privately watched the movie about forty times while making this film.
Despite all the publicity, the film was a box-office flop and was quickly consigned to the RKO vaults. At the 1941 Academy Awards, the film was booed every time one of its nine nominations was announced. It was only re-released to the public in the mid-1950s.
Throughout production Orson Welles had problems with various film executives not respecting his contract's stipulation of non-interference and several spies arrived on set to report what they saw to the executives. When the executives would sometimes arrive on set unannounced the entire cast and crew would suddenly start playing softball until they left.
The audience that watches Kane make his speech is, in fact, a still photo. To give the illusion of movement, hundreds of holes were pricked in with a pin, and lights moved about behind it.
William Randolph Hearst was so angered by the film that he accused Orson Welles of being a Communist in order to keep the film from being released.