At its heart, Citizen Kane is a fascinating and
accomplished mystery movie whose plot is an attempt to sum up a man’s life by
examining the people and events that are central to his existence. It’s a
remarkable jigsaw puzzle—a clever metaphor that is reflected throughout the
film—giving the viewer pieces of the title character’s life but never the
complete picture of who he is or was. Wealthy newspaper tycoon Charles Foster
Kane (played by Orson Welles, who also directed, produced, and co-wrote the
film) dies at the start of the film, and ostensibly, the rest of the narrative
is a series of interviews and flashbacks that viewers must use to try assemble
into a coherent story. The film has deservedly been hailed as one of the
greatest ever made, and every element of it (plot, acting, cinematography,
etc.) is first-rate.
Early in the film, a News
on the March newsreel gives some highlights of Kane’s public life, but the
dissatisfaction with that version of events prompts the quest that makes up
much of the rest of the narrative. We never learn any information about Kane
directly. All of the details are presented from the perspective of various supporting
characters, and none of them are particularly reliable as narrators. Mr. Bernstein
(Everett Sloane), Kane’s business manager, is a sycophant who is always loyal
to his employer. Kane’s second wife, Susan Alexander Kane (Dorothy Comingore),
is a resentful drunk who has twice suffered public embarrassment due to Kane’s
actions. His friend Jedidiah Leland (Joseph Cotton) doesn’t speak with Kane for
years after the publisher fires him. Walter Parks Thatcher (George Coulouris),
the banker who sparred repeatedly with Kane over his expenditures, has already
died, but we still learn his opinions from unpublished memoirs in his library,
perhaps the most intriguing way that the film calls into question the
reliability of people’s descriptions of others. Even Raymond (Paul Stewart), the
butler who speaks to the reporters at the film’s end, only knew him later in
life and cannot truly shed much light on who Kane is.
Interestingly, Welles as Kane doesn’t appear in the film for
almost 25 minutes. Welles, a young man who was making the transition from
theater to film, has to progress from a young, dashing man interested in
conquering the world to an old, tired man who has lost everything and everyone
important to him. Welles is perhaps more successful in portraying the older
Kane, but he is ably supported by a uniformly great supporting cast. Agnes
Moorehead as Kane’s mother has a relatively small part but is impressive as
always, able to convey a wealth of emotion with only the slightest of facial
expressions. Ruth Warrick as Kane’s first wife, Emily, gets a great humorous
sequence involving a series of meals at the family table. Cotton brings a great
charm and sense of humor to his part as Leland; Cotton was, in my opinion,
always somewhat underrated as an actor. The greatest revelation, though, is Comingore
as Susan. Whether she’s playing sensitive and weak or shrill and strong, she’s
mesmerizing. The film requires her to portray both an inept opera singer and a
drunken nightclub owner wistful and bitter about her years with Kane, and
Comingore excels at depicting every aspect of the character.
The film also features amazing art direction, set
decoration, editing, and cinematography. Much has already been written about
the technical mastery of Welles and his colleagues, such as the use of deep
focus, for example, but the film’s skillful use of these techniques is perhaps
best enjoyed by looking at specific instances. Take the opening sequence’s use
of a series of dissolves to move viewers from a golf course to a zoo to a light
in the window of Kane’s bedroom. Or look at the way that the interviews the
reporters in the film conduct with Susan Alexander Kane in her nightclub, the
El Rancho, are set up. We watch as the camera pans up to enter through the
skylight during a rainstorm. It’s quite dazzling and one of the best
representatives of the remarkable camerawork that elevates the film’s overall
quality.
The film also uses editing techniques to reveal details
about Kane’s life and his interactions with others and then to raise questions
about those very details. Susan’s debut as an opera singer is shown twice from
different perspectives. During the version that shows what happens from her
perspective, Kane is sad. When it is shown from Leland’s perspective, Kane is
angry. The use of superimposed images during these sequences also reveals the differing
emotional responses of various characters. One of my favorite sequences is the
montage of Kane and his first wife having dinner together. As their
relationship begins to disintegrate, the table gets longer and longer and the
distance between them gets greater and greater. It’s a delightful use of visual
images to punctuate the progress of their relationship.
The first half of film, roughly, covers Kane’s rise to
prominence as a newspaper magnate and political provocateur. It reveals his lifelong
penchant for collecting: newspapers, reporters from competing newspapers, artwork
from Europe, and wives. It’s an intriguing depiction of how one’s background
can lead to the overaccumulation of objects to fill a void left from the loss
of something important in one’s life—in Kane’s case, his mother, who sent him
away as a young boy to live with Thatcher and become educated. The second half
primarily focuses upon what Kane loses as his hubris grows, and it is quite an
extensive list: a gubernatorial race, his first wife, his best friend, the respect
and friendship of many of his colleagues, his second wife, and ultimately, any
interest in even his own life.
Kane never seems to get the love that he wants in life. He’s
alone by the end of the narrative being recounted by everyone, surrounded only
by servants he pays to care for him. Citizen Kane seems to ask what good
is the acquisition of wealth and power if you wind up having no one with whom
to share? Does the accumulation of treasures and influence fill that emotional
void? That’s why the revelation of what the word “Rosebud” (the last word that
Kane utters before he dies in the film’s opening sequence) is so touching, and
the final image of the film is so resonant. (One question that has never been
answered to my satisfaction: How does anyone know what his last word is? He’s
alone when he dies if the beginning of the film is to be believed.) Learning
what Rosebud refers to does require some remembering on the part of the
audience, but it represents the last piece of the puzzle the film is willing to
reveal about him.
There is, of course, the controversy over whether Welles and
the other filmmakers were trying in Citizen Kane to criticize and/or
ridicule newspaper magnate William Randolph Hearst. It isn’t necessary to know
all (or even any) of the details about the controversy or Hearst’s life to
enjoy the film. Knowing that Hearst was personally offended by the film and
tried to have it shelved adds an interesting layer to the mythology that has
grown up around the film. There’s a great documentary about the controversy, The
Battle over Citizen Kane, Oscar-nominated for Best Documentary Feature
of 1996, that provides some context to anyone interested.
Oscar Win: Best
Original Screenplay
Other Nominations:
Best Picture, Best Actor in a Leading Role (Orson Welles), Best Director, Best Black-and-White
Cinematography, Best Black-and-White Art Direction-Set Decoration, Best Sound
Recording, Best Film Editing, and Best Scoring of a Dramatic Picture
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