Citzen Kane and the Isolation of Individualism

Film Streams, a theater that shows indie and classic movies in Omaha, has in the last few weeks has been showing a selection of movies directed by Orson Welles. The first one shown was Welles' 1941 classic Citizen Kane. For those who don't know, and hopefully that is very few, Citizen Kane is often considered one of the greatest movies of all time. It certainly belongs in the pantheon of great movies because it is at once accessible and exciting to watch and yet it reveals complex details with each viewing and like most great works of art, allows us to discover and experience great truths of humanity.
After watching Citizen Kane I became fascinated in what I saw in the movie as a stunning picture of that most grand of American ideologies, rugged individualism. Kane is the purest individual that one can find. He is not dependent on anyone and never was. He was removed from his family, he never had any real friends, he was never dependent financially on anyone. His independence comes not merely from his wealth, but rather his circumstances. A great many of the robber barons (Carnegie and Rockefeller) worked their way from rags to riches over their lives and were keenly aware that in their early years they depended a great deal upon others. This is what lead to their massive philanthropic enterprises in their later years. Even the children of wealthy families, though they themselves might not realize it, are incredibly dependent upon the wealth gained by their ancestors and their familial connections. Kane was neither, he was given a goldmine (by his mother, however he never interacted with her again) that automatically produced his wealth for him.
Throughout the movie, Kane's actions are always motivated by whatever grabs his fancy, and by whatever serves himself, the rest of the world be damned. His desires to be a newspaper mogul, and the governor of New York are motivated by a desire to be beloved by the people cleverly rationalized by himself to be for the people. Both his wives were ignored by him until he wanted attention which they are expected to gratify immediately. But of course like anyone whose only motivation in life is the satisfying their own desires Kane alienated by his choice and their choice, (the self-centered person is of course angry at the rest of the world for not fulfilling their desires) Kane spends his last days alone in his own palace surrounded by his many possessions (all that great art of course has to be owned by him it cannot be shared with anyone else). The "no trespassers" sign at the beginning and end of the movie a perfect symbol of the "My Way" attitude in its fullest.
Citizen Kane is a critique on the American lifestyle, but I don't think it is an attack. As stated before, the unique circumstances that allow Kane to be the pure model of individualism are just that, unique not even the richest American families have a similar experience. It however serves as a warning to us (Americans in particular) to realize that our worship of the rugged individual is not ideal and should be tempered with a realization that it is not the solution to all our problems and indeed has a host of problems all its own just now starting to become painfully clear in Western Civilization.