The sled/Rosebud thing is a red herring and is irrelevant to what makes the film great. The actual subject of the film is the modernist mode of storytelling - collecting fragments and seeing how they are interrelated and whether the same event can be seen differently from different people. It’s praised because it was a huge influence on other filmmakers and opened up new avenues of cinematic storytelling.
The film is truly awful, and one of the best examples of “Emperor’s New Clothing” ever devised.
Yeah.
The topic is movies ruined by bad endings.
I wouldn’t say it was ruined. But the ending was kind of silly.
Fred’s comments about the Rosebud inside joke are probably true.
In the movie the Rosebud as last word was instigated by him looking at the snow globe. At the end, finding out it was a sled doesn’t really do anything to provide psychological or other insight.
I don’t have the same negative feelings about it as Fred.
I also think it is a lot more than simply and technical exercise, and if that’s all it were, it wouldn’t be a particularly good movie. But the “mode of storytelling” as you put it, is integral to the overall aesthetics of the film and it’s experience.