I realize that in any kind of a ranking system, the level of subjectivity will always vary from person-to-person. Wilt Chamberlin people will always resent Michael Jordan people and vice versa, when the subject of the greatest basketball player of all time comes up. There will always be a Team Chevy vs. Team Ford rivalry as long as there are cars. And I will be worm-food before I agree with Rolling Stone’s assertion that “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band” is the greatest album of all time. As tempting as the notion was, I am not seeking to convince anyone that the AFI was right or wrong in declaring “Citizen Kane” the greatest film ever made. I am just going to analyze it the same way I have all the others on this list. There are moments of undeniable genius and there are flaws as well, and I hope to cover all of them.
Since I always dissect these films according in sequence from beginning to end, now seems as appropriate a time as any to just say right away that this movie’s chronology sucks. I won’t deny that the narrative of one man’s life told in a series of flashbacks by different people at different times is a creative and unique approach- but I feel like it is done to such an extent in this film that you could literally watch it on shuffle and not have it effect the flow all that much.
Also, I make it a rule to not discuss anything I might know about the production aspect or behind-the-scenes stories in these films because I am analyzing all of them solely on their merits as a stand-alone work of art and want to preserve the same level of knowledge anyone else seeing them for the first time may have. However, to think I could get through this entire blog without acknowledging that the film is meant to be a thinly veiled attack on publishing magnate William Randolph Hearst and in fact goes into some extremely specific elements of his life, then I would have to be a complete moron. With that in mind, that will be my first and only mention of Hearst/Kane comparison and contrasts. This is a blog not a film class essay question.
The film opens with several shots from different angles of an eerie, ominous castle called Xanadu. There are a number of exterior views leading up to the first reveal of the interior of the building. Symbolically, the very first image is of a “No Trespassing” sign outside the mansion (considering Kane made his fortune trespassing in other people’s lives)- as each shot takes us further inside Xanadu’s walls, it is evident that the viewer is doing just that in a sense. The camera pans up the chain link fence as if it were climbing over it. Next is a barbed-wire fence, then a full-on wrought-iron gate, a moat, an archway, a main-gate and then a stairway. The entire ascent towards Xanadu is a metaphor for the life of the home’s owner and the film’s principal character Charles Foster Kane (Orson Welles): alienation as a result of shutting people out. Kane’s first onscreen appearance comes at the final moment of his life, clinging to a snow globe and uttering his symbolic last word “Rosebud.”
After Kane’s death, a newsreel film is shown depicting a summarized rendition of his publishing, political and personal life. It is done in the style of a wartime propaganda film and ironically gives Kane’s life the same treatment he tended to give others: very sensationalistic and focusing more on the negatives than the positives of his life. Not only do they mention his failed marriages, political ventures and business endeavors, they also show him acting chummy with historical figures as diverse as Teddy Roosevelt and Adolf Hitler (in footage very similar to “Forrest Gump” Welles is superimposed into real film of these people). The most amazing thing about the opening sequence is that it manages to spoil pretty much everything about the movie; his affair with Susan Alexander (Dorothy Comingore), his rags-to-riches story, his ill-fated Gubernatorial campaign, even the death of the main character, and still it makes the disheveled timeline somehow still interesting and compelling as the movie progresses.
Once the newsreel wraps, a cluster of reporters discus the news that Kane’s dying breath was the utterance of “Rosebud” and speculate as to what it could mean and why it could be the last thing on the mind of such a titanic historical figure. One of the reporters is tasked by his editor to track down everyone who knew Kane in order to find out what he can about him, but more specifically, to gain some insight as to the meaning of Rosebud. From here on, the reporter assumes a sort of first-person protagonist role. Though he is never really shown very clearly, the viewer almost feels as though they are seeing the entire film from his perspective, as the remainder of the narrative will be told to him from other characters in flashback mode. Thus, we learn everything the same way he does.
The first interviewee is Susan Alexander, the disgraced opera singer and mistress who becomes Kane’s second wife. She runs a nightclub in Atlantic City and has become a nasty, manic depressive drunk. Susan refuses to speak with the reporter and he is essentially forced to leave with no information, though he does manage to bribe Susan’s valet into telling him he or Susan seem to have no answers in the Rosebud mystery.
In order to break up the one-on-one interview motif that will dominate the latter part of the movie, the second lead the reporter follows is a visit to the Walther Parks Thatcher Library where he has unprecedented access (as the stern librarian reminds him) to Thatcher’s memoirs where he documents Kane’s early years and how he came to be Kane’s legal guardian. Mrs. Kane, suddenly rich after being given the deed to what was supposed to be a worthless mineshaft that turns out to be The Colorado Lode, one of the most prosperous gold mines in the west, makes arrangements to send young Charles to Chicago under the care of Mr. Thatcher. Charles’ father pleads with Thatcher and Mrs. Kane to let the boy stay in their care and is completely ignored. Mrs. Kane’s cold demeanor and schoolmarm appearance first indicate that she is simply just uncaring and wants Charles out of her way. However, the script is flipped somewhat when Charles reacts angrily to the news that he is being sent away and attacks Thatcher with his wooden sled (I’m not spoiling this for anyone at this point in history, so I will just get this out of the way now- the sled he hit’s Thatcher with is Rosebud). Mr. Kane indicates that his son needs to be severely beaten, at which point Mrs. Kane reveals that his abusive nature is the real reason she is sending Charles away.
The next several scenes indicate how difficult Thatcher’s relationship with Kane will be: a bratty reaction to a newer, nicer sled than he is shown to have previously and an exasperated Thatcher, years later, learning that Charles wants to run a down-and-out newspaper called the New York Inquirer simply because he thinks it would be fun. Almost immediately after taking control, Thatcher is even more perturbed to learn that Kane has transformed the paper into a scandal sheet that even operates against Kane’s own interests by smearing New York’s public transit system, in which Kane is a major shareholder. Their face-to-face confrontation at the offices of the Inquirer give us the first glimpse of Kane at about the same age as Welles would have been at the time the film was made and effectively portrays his arrogance. He dismisses his extreme conflict of interest by claiming to also have a moral obligation to expose corruption at the corporate level because he is an advocate of the working class. While it is never explained whether he truly feels this way or is just cultivating a “man of the people” image knowing that he intends to run for office someday, I believe it is left ambiguous on purpose so that the viewer can decide for themselves. It is also a good litmus test to see how cynical you are by what you actually choose to believe.
”You're right, I did lose a million dollars last year. I expect to lose a million dollars this year. I expect to lose a million dollars *next* year. You know, Mr. Thatcher, at the rate of a million dollars a year, I'll have to close this place in... 60 years.” (Charles Foster Kane, “Citizen Kane”)
The other reason this scene is so pivotal is because it also introduces two more major characters, Jedediah Leland (Joseph Cotton) who is Kane’s best friend from college and now a reporter for the Inquirer and Mr. Bernstein, an older friend of Kane’s who is also something of a personal assistant. In a very subtle way, they are both shown to be enablers as they do not object when Kane decides to fabricate a war in Cuba simply for the sensationalistic story (an obvious reference to the Spanish American War). The scene then transitions to much later in the future, where Kane is beaten down, old and defeated. He is forced to sign away control of his empire back to Thatcher, who berates him on his financial recklessness, very much still playing the role of father figure to Kane. After having pored over every account of Thatcher’s time with Kane, the reporter leaves, again defeated having gained no further insight.
The next interview is conducted with Mr. Bernstein, who remained loyal to Kane for the entirety of his life. So much so that he even has an enormous portrait of Kane as the centerpiece of his office. Despite coming across as a little senile, he offers interesting and slightly foreshadowing insight as to what Rosebud could mean when he references a girl he saw decades ago for a split second but never forgot; implying that Rosebud could be something small and insignificant in the grand scheme of things.
True to his character, Bernstein’s flashbacks are much more lighthearted and humorous than previous accounts, including Kane moving into the Inquirer building upon taking the paper over, and a lot of slapstick involving the paper’s very vaudevillian editor. However, there is also some seriousness as well as more foreshadowing in the scene where Bernstein, Leland and Kane discuss the future of the Inquirer and Kane reveals his “Declaration of Principles” in which he promises readers to be their uncorrupt champion (intentionally ironic considering his obvious propensity for yellow journalism).
Kane’s ambitions are further illustrated in one of the greatest scenes in the whole film- Bernstein, Leland and Kane are shown in the front window of the Inquirer building which advertises its 26,000 issue circulation; a pretty pitiful number in New York City. The three men then visit their closest rival, the well established New York Chronicle, boasting a circulation of almost half a million. Bernstein points out a photo in the lobby of the Chronicle’s staff, which they proudly advertise as the Greatest in the World. The camera zooms in on the photo of the 10 reporters, then freezes as it transitions to a live action shot of the same 10 men in the same configuration but in different clothes, indicating that Kane has not only poached the entire Chronicle staff and recreated the same photo for HIS lobby, but in doing so, has gone straight for the jugular and clearly intends to wipe out rather than compete with the rival paper.
To celebrate his newly acquired staff as well as circulation totaling almost 700,000, Kane throws himself a victory party at the Inquirer. While the scene involving dancing showgirls and opulent ice sculptures seems harmless and good natured, it serves as an indicator for how gluttonous and self-indulgent Kane has become- punctuated by an entire musical number about himself capping off the party.
Yet another passage of time is illustrated as Leland and Bernstein talk about Kane who is conspicuously absent, and his obsession with buying material things, particularly paintings and sculptures. This is the first indication as to how out of control he is about to become, not just as a consumer but as person in general. Though no specific time-frame is given for Kane’s absence, he does appear older and heavier when he returns, albeit briefly, to hand-deliver his engagement announcement to Emily Norton, the niece of the President of the United States. The flashback scene with Bernstein is bookended nicely with a prophetic reiteration that Rosebud could be something that Kane lost along the way.
The next interview is conducted with Leland at a retirement home (as is evidenced by the elderly, significantly alone patients sitting in wheelchairs visible over Leland’s shoulder as he is interviewed. Though they are sitting in beams of light from dramatically large windows, their heads and faces are noticeably in shadows, which seems to indicate that life for the residents is solitary and depressing- a theory reinforced by Leland’s overt chattiness, as if the visit from the reporter is the first human contact he has had in ages. Leland’s reminiscences of Kane are of darker times in his life; further illustrating the ongoing pattern of Kane being depicted in accordance with his relationship to the person describing him. Leland mentions that the two had not been friends for some time, thus setting the stage for more negative portrayals of Kane to contrast Bernstein’s loving and supportive ones.
Leland’s flashbacks jump right into one of the most skillfully crafted scenes in any movie. The dissolution of Kane’s marriage to Emily Norton is essentially depicted in just a few brief time lapses. The newlywed Mr. and Mrs. Kane sit close to each other at the breakfast table while Charles buries Emily in compliments. She voices disappointment with his having to return to work but the conversation is still good natured and affectionate. The scene then transitions to a later point where the two are now sitting across the table from each other and bickering more seriously, as the time lapses continue the conversations become less and less civil and the table grows longer to illustrate that they are literally as well as figuratively growing apart. In the final scene of this montage, Emily is seen staring spitefully across the table while reading the Chronicle instead of her own husband’s paper, though he is so detached he doesn’t even seem to notice.
Leland then regales the reporter with the account of how Kane first met his second wife Susan Alexander. While on his way to a storage unit containing his now deceased mother’s belongings, Kane meets the much younger Susan as she passes him on the street, laughing at him having just been splashed by a carriage. She takes him to her apartment to clean himself up and he in turn amuses her with shadow puppets and the two talk about their respective pasts. Her uncontrollable giggling and being amused by childish things serve to depict the significant age difference between the two, but their body language and intimate conversation indicates attraction if not love at first sight. While this scene is significant in framing the relationship between Kane and Susan, it is much more important to point out that this represents a dark turning point in Kane’s life. Not just because his eventual affair with Susan will lead to his political downfall, but because were it not for Kane’s lecherous intentions that night, he would have wound up at the storage unit and likely found Rosebud, the missing piece of his youth that might have kept him grounded.
From here, the downward spiral continues for Kane. He gives a speech at Madison Square Garden just days before the New York gubernatorial race that he is convinced he will win. However, his incumbent opponent Jim Gettys, probably through a combination of playing politics as well as tired of having his name drug through the mud in Kane newspapers, reveals Kane and Susan’s affair to Emily and threatens to go public with it if Kane doesn’t drop out of the race. Kane stubbornly refuses and winds up losing the election.
Back at Kane headquarters/the Inquirer office, Kane and Leland have a very blunt conversation where a drunk Leland finally has the courage to point out many of Kane’s flaws as a caring friend rather than a spiteful enemy. This is the first exchange between the two where it becomes clear that some kind of falling out is in the works for them down the road. During the entire dialogue where Leland dresses down Kane, the camera remains close to the ground, looking up at Leland and Kane, which gives the impression that Kane looks down on the world as Leland describes the way he has always manipulated people and viewed them as property. Leland asks to be transferred to the Chicago Kane paper, showing both a desire to be free of Kane but also still a sense of loyalty to him.
”A toast, Jedediah, to love on my terms. Those are the only terms anybody ever knows. His own.” (Charles Foster Kane, “Citizen Kane”)
With his personal relationships falling apart and his political career all but over, Kane focuses on making Susan a bona fide opera star; considering the headlines announcing their wedding read “Kane marries ‘singer’” it is apparent that this will not be an easy task. This suspicion is all but confirmed in a montage that depicts Susan’s professional debut at the Opera House Kane builds for her in Chicago. Her exasperated vocal coach is clearly not pleased with her progress even as they are getting ready to raise the curtain. As she launches into the opening aria, a very creative upward wipe takes the camera up the length of the set and into the rafters where two stagehands are shown looking at each other in such a pitiful fashion it can only mean that Susan sounds terrible.
Following Susan’s debut, Kane arrives at the office of the Chicago Inquirer where Leland has been transferred. It isn’t until Bernstein tells the other newspapermen that the two men haven’t spoken in years that we realize just how much time has elapsed since Kane decided to pour all his efforts into the hopeless fantasy of Susan’s musical career. Kane finds Leland passed out drunk over his typewriter and discovers that he is writing a brutally honest review of Susan’s performance. Despite the universal understanding that her debut was a flop, everyone else at the paper is willing to delude Kane into believing that she was a huge success besides Leland. Though it is implied that he only wrote the bad review to get it out of his system and planned on writing a dishonest good one (seemingly more out of a strange loyalty to Kane rather than for fear of losing his job) this scene is important because it revisits the concept that Leland is the only one in Kane’s entourage who is willing to be honest with him; albeit only when drunk, which suggest a certain cowardice.
In distinctly un-Kane-like fashion, he completes the review in the same sharp-tongued manner that Leland began it rather than altering it to fit his agenda. Leland speculates to the reporter that he only did so to prove that he was honest, but given his manipulative nature, it seems entirely possible that he is also trying to prove to Leland that he doesn’t need him (especially considering he promptly fires him) or that he is simply trying to spite him.
When the reporter is finally able to get Susan to talk about life with Kane, she tells pretty much the same story, complete with some of the exact same scenes from the montage when Leland told the story, however, Susan’s account includes the aftermath of Leland/Kane’s bad review. She screams at Kane about how bad of a friend Leland is for panning her performance, though she is unfazed by all the other non-Kane papers that did, which means she is not only aware that she is not as gifted a singer as Kane believes her to be, but also that she has similarly warped principles as Kane does by simply expecting a good review from Leland.
While Susan continues her shrill, ignorant sounding tirade, Kane receives a telegram from Leland containing the $25,000 severance check Kane sent him torn to pieces, as well as the original copy of Kane’s Declaration of Principles from when he first took over the Inquirer. This not only reflects Leland’s sentimentality, but also serves as the final time Leland will be honest with Kane by blatantly rubbing his face in the fact that he has violated every one of his principles over the course of his publishing career. Furious over the disintegration of his friendship with Leland, Kane angrily informs Susan that, against her wishes, she will continue her singing career despite her utter humiliation. As he menacingly approaches Susan, who is sitting on the floor, his entire shadow envelopes her, reminding her as well as the viewer that she is literally and figuratively in Kane’s shadow.
As Susan’s singing career continues to fail at gaining momentum, despite all the undeserved glowing reviews in Kane papers, it becomes evident just how concerned with keeping up appearances Kane really is when Susan attempts to commit suicide. Despite the doctor knowing the Susan has attempted to poison herself, Kane pathetically tries to explain it away as an accidental overdose. Though the suicide attempt does convince Kane just how bad Susan doesn’t want to sing anymore, his solution is to move her into the ridiculously extravagant mansion, Xanadu and essentially keep her captive. Much like the breakfast table montage illustrates the demise of his marriage to Emily, a series of scenes depicting Susan doing jigsaw puzzles with different outdoor images on them indicates the passage of time via the corresponding seasons in the puzzles.
Once the puzzle montage is finished, we see a couple brief snippets of Kane and Susan’s life together which make it obvious that their relationship has ran out of gas. When Kane discovers that she has packed her things and is leaving him, rather than express concern about the end of their marriage, Kane is more concerned with the scene it will cause in front of their friends. Though Susan’s narrative of events ends with her leaving, she does encourage the reporter to talk to the butler at Xanadu which leads to the final interview of the film.
The butler recounts the day Susan left and for the first time we get to see a genuine emotional reaction out of Kane, though unfortunately it is visceral anger. Upon Susan’s departure, he violently begins to trash her bedroom, breaking everything in sight including pounding out mounted shelves with his bare hands. As he staggers past the entire gawking servant staff it is clear that he is in ill health. Though the time frame is rather ambiguous, it seems apparent that Kane doesn’t live much more than a few years after Susan leaves. The butler mentions that he heard Kane say “Rosebud” after he trashed Susan’s room and stormed off with a snowglobe, and again the day he died, which, when you flash back to the very beginning, makes sense since he utters the word as he dies, clutching the same snowglobe, which obviously reminds him of the sled.
”That's all he ever wanted out of life... was love. That's the tragedy of Charles Foster Kane. You see, he just didn't have any to give.” (Jedediah Leland, “Citizen Kane”)
There is a certain sketchiness to the butler that leads you to believe that there could be some inaccuracy in his account, especially considering he is the only person interviewed who seems interested in being paid for his information. He says he can explain Rosebud, but then all but admits he has no idea what it means. He also is never seen in close proximity to Kane but purports to have inside information on him. Regardless, he at least doesn’t give a fictional account of what Rosebud means, leaving the mystery as open ended as it was at the beginning- indicating that the reporter’s search has all been in vain.
As the cameras pull back further in the interior of Xanadu, the vastness of Kane’s material possessions becomes apparent. There are crates upon crates full of statues, paintings and other material goods, all of which failed to bring Kane happiness. As it turns out, probably the least expensive thing in his castle, the old sled Rosebud, ends up being the one thing Kane longed for; obviously, an metaphor for youth and innocence. The irony is also not lost on me that people poring over Kane’s belongings and inventorying them for auction are so obsessed with his rare and valuable possessions that they don’t even notice Rosebud, so much so that it is incinerated with the trash. There is so much symbolism in the final shot of Rosebud burning in the fires that it is almost overkill. It is heavy-handed with metaphors of life and death, fantasy and reality, good and evil, pretty much any way you want to interpret it.
At the end of the day, “Citizen Kane” isn’t considered to be the best movie of all time because of a stellar script, particularly remarkable acting or even because of its unique shooting style revolving around deep focus and unorthodox camera angles. It is respected because of the fact that every “great” movie since has borrowed some aspect of the film; be it the interspersing of the actors into real film of historical figures as in “Forrest Gump,” the nonlinear narrative of movies like “Pulp Fiction,” or the ending involving a sought-after relic being lost forever in a warehouse like in “Raiders of the Lost Ark.”
Contrary to popular belief, I don’t think “Citizen Kane” is a technically perfect picture. The characters are pretty much all unlikeable and do not develop at all. The story itself lacks originality considering it is in many ways a biopic, several elements of the film aren’t explained as well as they could be (the death of Kane’s first wife and son are never mentioned other than in the opening newsreel, indicating that it is clearly a device to advance the plot so that Kane can marry Susan Alexander). The narrative isn’t broken up well when you consider that for the entire middle section of the film, Kane is practically in every scene. However, even with all these faults, there is something about this movie that completely justifies the pedestal on which it has been placed. What the movie lacks in substance, it makes up for in balls. It takes great risks both stylistically and content-wise that mostly pay off.
Maybe the best way of putting it would just be to say that nobody ever said it was the greatest story of all time, but it’s hard to argue that it isn’t important and unique enough to be the greatest movie of all time.
