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STUDY GUIDE Ch #12 Citizen Kane: SYNTHESIS

Citizen Kane is the life story of a powerful newspaper magnate, Charles Foster Kane. It is a
fictionalized biography of the ruthless publishing baron, William Randolph Hearst (18631951). In actuality, the characters in the movie are composites, drawn from the lives of several
famous American tycoons, but Hearst was the most obvious.
Photography
Gregg Toland, the cinematographer for Citizen Kane, considered the film the high point in his
career & thought he might learn something from the boy genius (Welles). Welles, used to
setting up his own lights in the live theater thought the movie directors were also responsible for
the lighting. Toland would let Welles determine the design of most of the lights, but quietly
instructed the camera crew to make the necessary technical adjustments.
Welles was drawn to the lighting theories of two successful theatrical designers & many of the
techniques of German Expressionism. He was also influenced by the moody, low-key
photography of John Fords Stagecoach.
Citizen Kane did not look like most American movies of its era. Each image was well thought
out. No shot or sequence was taken lightly. The use of deep-focus, low-key lighting, rich
textures, audacious compositions, dynamic contrasts between foregrounds & backgrounds,
backlighting, sets with *ceilings*, side lighting, steep angles, epic long shots, juxtaposed
with extreme closeups, dizzying crane shots, special effects galore--none of these were new,
but Welles used them in such profusion.
Photographically, Kane ushered in a revolution challenging the classical ideal of a transparent
style that doesnt call attention to itself. In Kane, the style was part of the show.
The lighting in the movie is generally in mostly high key in those scenes depicting Kanes
youth & dealing w/his years as a crusading young publisher (the happier part of his life).
As he grows older & more cynical, the lighting grows darker, more harshly contrasting.
Kanes home, the palatial Xanadu, has a very unwelcoming, dark, dank atmosphere,
impenetrable.
Spotlights are used in closer shots for symbolic effects. Sometimes Kanes face seems split in
half w/one side brightly illuminated, the other hidden in darkness (Chiroscuro lighting Rembrandt). When Kane tells Bernstein & Leland of his intention to publish a Declaration of
Principles on the front page of his newspaper promising his readers he will be an honest &
tireless champion of their rights as citizens & human beings, his face if fully lit. When he leans
down to sign the proclamation, his face is suddenly plunged in darkness--an ominous
foreshadowing of Kanes later character.
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Welles used low-angle shots as a *motif* throughout the picture, especially to emphasize
the awesome power of the protagonist. Combined w/the perspective-distorting wide-angle
lens, such low-angle shots as the one filmed from below the floor, portray Kane as a towering
colossus, capable of crushing anything that gets in his way.
Deep-focus involves the use of wide-angle lenses, which tends to exaggerate the distance
between people--an appropriate analogue for a story dealing w/separation, alienation &
loneliness. Deep focus photography allows many spatial planes to be captured simultaneously
in a single take, maintaining the objectivity of the scene. The audience is encouraged to be more
creative in understanding the relationships between people & things in the shot.
In the scene involving Susan Alexanders suicide attempt, a cause-effect relationship is
suggested in the opening shot. The layering of the mise en scene is a visual accusation: 1) the
lethal dose was taken by 2) Susan Alexander Kane because of 3) Kanes inhumanity.
The American cinema of the 1940s was to grow progressively darker, both thematically &
photographically, thanks in part to the enormous influence of Citizen Kane. The most
important style of the decade was film noir--a style suited to the times.
Mise en scene
Coming from the world of live theater, Welles was an expert at staging action dynamically. Long
shots are more effective & more theatrical medium for the art of mise en scene so the movie
contains relatively few close shots. Most close up shots were reserved for Susan Alexander
forcing us to become more involved with her feelings. Most of the images are tightly framed
& in closed form. Most of them are also composed in depth, with important information in the
foreground, midground & background. *The proxemic ranges between the characters are
choreographed to suggest their shifting power relationships.
Movement
Welles was a master of the mobile camera. In Kane, camera movements are generally equated
with the vitality & energy of youth. As a young man, he was a whirlwind of energy. As an
old man, he almost groaned w/each calculated step. At that age he was filmed in stationary
positions or sitting down.
Welles used crane shots like no one else. He also used traveling shots.
Like all films, Kane has a few flaws--Kanes destruction of Susans room after she left him. The
violence of Kanes rage wouldve been more effective if filmed w/the camera closer in & edited
more to convey the idea of fragmentation & confusion.
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Editing
The editing style in Kane is a display of virtuosity, leaping over days, months, years. Welles
often used several editing styles in the same sequence.
Many of the editing techniques work in concert with the sound techniques. Often Welles used
editing to condense a great deal of time, using sound as a continuity device as in the
breakfast sequence. Welles frequently leaped from one time period or location to another with a
shocking sound transition---opening prologue, Kanes death to the assault of the voice of God
newsreel.
Bernard Herrman assigned musical motifs to several characters. The Rosebud motif is
played at certain levels during the film & is brought up when the mystery of Rosebud is
disclosed not to the characters, but to the audience.
Acting
Welles had his own stable of actors, writers & assistants & brought most of them to Hollywood
with him. None of the 15 actors were well known & Welles was known for his radio drama, War
of the Worlds broadcast of 1938 which panicked thousands of Americans who believed we
actually were being invaded by creatures from Mars. Welles got his picture on the cover of Time
magazine at age 22.
Citizen Kane was the first movie for most of the actors. The outstanding performances by
Welles, Joseph Cotton, Dorothy Comingore, Joseph Cotton, Everett Sloane & Agnes Morehead.
Welles performance as Kane was highly praised. D.W. Griffith described it as the finest
performance he had ever seen. Welles was equally convincing as a brash young man, a rigid
autocrat in middle age, and a burned out, hulking septuagenarian.
Maurice Seidermans makeup artistry took Kane believably from 25 yrs to 45 yrs to 75 yrs
& he created a rubber suit that gave Kane the increasingly flabby torso of an older man.
Drama
Live theater was Welles first love. He attended a prep school where he directed & acted in over
30 plays. In 1930, at age 15, he left school & directed & acted in many stage classics at the Gate
Theater in Dublin. 1933 he returned to America & toured w/Kathryn Cornell, one of the major
stage stars of the era.1935 in New York, w/aspiring actor (later actor/director) John
Houseman who in 1937 formed their company, The Mercury Theater.
Welles financed the theater with his earnings from his earnings as a radio star---in the 1930s he
was earning $3,000 per week!
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In the area of art direction, Welles was able to save hundreds of thousands of dollars by showing
only parts of sets rather than entire rooms. Welles was able to count on RKOs special effects
department to create an epic canvas through such techniques as animation, matte shots &
mineatures. 80% of Citizen Kane required some kind of special effects work. The exterior
of the palatial mansion Xanadu was actually a matte painting.
The total production cost of Citizen Kane was under $700,000, which even in those days was a
very low expenditure.
Edward Stevensons costumes adhered closely to the actual styles of each period. Because the
movie traverses 70yrs in time & events are not chronologically presented so the costumes
had to be instantly recognizable for the audience to know the period of each scene.
Costumes are symbolic as well as functional. As a crusading young publicist, Kane favors
whites. He often removes his jacket & tie while working. Later in life, he almost always is
in black business suits & ties.
Story
Welles sharpened the original story line presented by Herman Mankiewicz by scrambling
the chronology of events through a series of flashbacks, each narrated from the point of
view of the person telling the story. He & Mankiewicz introduced a note of suspense. In
his final moments of life, Kane mumbles the word Rosebud. No one knows what it means &
a newspaper reporter, Thompson, spends the remainder of the movie questioning Kanes former
associates about this mystery, which he hopes contains the key to Kanes conflicting character.
Welles claimed that the Rosebud motif was merely a plot gimmick to hook the audience on a
dramatic question thats really a wild goose chase. Without this gimmick, the story would have
remained rambling & unfocused. The search for the meaning of Rosebud shapes the narrative.
Like a number of Welles other movies, Kane begins w/the end--the death of its protagonist
when he is about 75. With his last dying breath, he utters the word Rosebud. Then the glass
snow globe he was holding in his hand crashes to the floor & shatters. The plot of the movie is
structured like a search for the meaning of the final utterance.
The flashback structure allows Welles to leap through time & space, cutting to various periods of
Kanes life w/o having to adhere to a strict chronology. To provide the audience w/an overview,
Welles introduced most of the major events & people of Kanes life in a brief news reel shown
early in the film. These events & people are explored in more depth in the individual flashbacks
that follow.
Writing
Citizen Kane is often singled out for the excellence of its screenplay. The scripts authorship
provoked considerable controversy. Herman Mankiewicz was a Hollywood regular, a notorious
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drunk, almost totally unreliable. When he approached Welles with the original idea for
American (later called John Citizen, U.S.A., and finally Citizen Kane), Welles asked his former
partner, John Houseman to help Mankiewicz write the screenplay
Welles made extensive revisions on the first few drafts of the screen play. Mankiewicz
denounced the movie because it departed radically from his scenario & did not want Welles
name to appear on the screenplay credit. He took his case to the Writers Guild which allowed
both of them credit, only with Mankiewicz receiving top billing. In short, Mankiewicz
provided the raw material, Welles provided the genius.
Thematically, Kane is so complex. Like most of Welles other movies, Citizen Kane might well
be titled The Arrogance of Power. He was attracted to themes associated with classical
tragedy the epic: the downfall of a public figure because of arrogance pride. Power &
wealth corrupts & the corrupt devour themselves. All of the characters Ive played are
various forms of Faust, Welles stated. All have bartered their souls & lost.
Because Kane is not told in chronological order & the protagonist dies in the beginning of the
film, we do not know what the protagonist wants or how he is going to get it. We are forced to
piece together his life from the points of view of others. This technique of multiple narration
forces us to gauge the biases & prejudices of each narrator--five different storytellers & each
tells us a different story---Leland, Bernstein, Thatcher, Susan, & Raymond, the butler &
each tells the story from a different perspective.
There are literally dozens of symbolic motifs in the movie. Some are technical (films
predominately low camera angles, others more content oriented as the series of fences the
camera must penetrate before we are able to see Kane. There are also persistent motifs of
stillness, decay, old age & death. **** The *two most important motifs in the movie are
Rosebud & the fragmentation motif--the fragmentation of a persons life & also, Susan is
always working on a jigsaw puzzle--symbolic of the fragmentation of a persons life.
Rosebud turns out to be a favorite childhood possession, but it is also a more generalized
symbol of loss--the loss of childhood innocence.*
Near the end of the movie, Thompson admits defeat. He never does find out what Rosebud
means & describes his investigation as playing with a jigsaw puzzle. The camera backs up to
reveal thousands of crates of artwork, memorabilia & personal effects--the fragmented artifacts
of a persons life. Thompson describes his investigation as playing w/a jigsaw puzzle. I
dont think any word can explain a mans life. Thompson continues No, I guess Rosebud is just
a piece in a jigsaw puzzle....a missing piece.
Ideology
Citizen Kane can be classified as liberal in its ideological slant, but definitely in the implicit
range in terms of its bias.
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The protagonist is a fighting liberal as a young editor. Jed Leland is his comrade in arms, his
conscience figure. But as he grows older, Kane moves further to the right, ending finally as an
authoritarian bully.
Kane believes that environment is a stronger force than heredity. He says he might have become
a really great man if he hadnt grown up rich.
He is a relativist in terms of his morality. His marriage certificate is merely a document.
Nowhere in the film does Kane express an interest in religion. He is a thorough a secularist.
As a young man, Kane displays nothing but contempt for tradition, the past & authority
figures. Well into middle age, he is oriented more toward the future--building up his
newspaper, courting Emily (from a rich family), expanding his empire, running for
governor, guiding Susans career. Only as an old man does he withdraw from the arena of
life, shutting himself off from the outside world.
As a young man Kane emphasized the communal. His newspaper is a collaborative effort
w/him as the helm, flanked by his two faithful lieutenants, Bernstein & Leland.
As he grows older, he no longer consults his colleagues, only issues them orders. As a
young editor, he identifies w/common working people, promising to become their
spokesman. As an older man, he seeks out the company of important world leaders,
shakers & movers. He surrounds himself w/yes-men.
Citizen Kane is strongly feminist in its sympathies. The three main female characters are
all victims. Mary Kane is trapped in a loveless marriage & feels she must sacrifice raising her
son to get him away from his bullying father. Emily Norton Kane --Kane betrays her faith &
love because he got bored w/her. Susan Alexander Kane is the most sympathetic of the three &
the most ill-used. She endures great suffering & spiritual anguish all in the name of love. Susan
is the one of the few characters capable of forgiveness.
Theory
Citizen Kane is a masterpiece of formalism. There are some realistic elements in the film--the
newsreel sequence, the deep-focus photography.
Kane is the work of an indisputable auteur. Welles not only produced the film, he also
coauthored its script, selected the cast & crew, starred in its leading role, & directed the entire
production without interference. He was totally in command during the production of this film.
Shortly after the collapse of the Mercury Theatre, RKO offered the 24yr old Welles an unheard
of contract: he was to be paid $150,000 per picture, plus 25 % of the gross receipts. He could
produce, direct, write or star in any of his films or function in all four capacities if he wished.
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He was granted total artistic control, answerable only to George Schaefer, the enlightened head
of the studio.
RKO was in financial distress as it had been throughout most of its brief span. The studio was
founded in 1928 by the financier Joseph P. Kennedy, the father of the later president, & David
Sarnoff, the head of RCA, later NBC. Because of the constant reshuffling of management, RKO
fell on hard times. There was no continuity & unlike other majors, RKO had no consistent
identify or characteristic style. Sarnoff & his new partner, Nelson Rockefeller, wanted RKO to
produce sophisticated & progressive films.
When Welles arrived in Hollywood in 1939, there was a lot of resentment of him--he was given
films to make w/o having paid his dues working at lower levels first. He was an incorrigible
smart ass, flamobyant & regarded as arty, supercilious & arrogant by most industry regulars.
Citizen Kane was shot in absolute secrecy & when the syndicated Hearst gossip discovered the
picture was to deal w/her bosss private life, a campaign against the movie was launched. As the
film neared completion, Hearsts campaign got ferocious. He threatened the industry w/a series
of scandals & exposes unless the picture was destroyed before release. His stooge, MGMs
Louis B. Mayer, the most powerful man in the industry, offered to reimburse RKOs costs, plus a
tidy profit if the studio would destroy the negative, Hearst pressured the other studios to refuse
to book the film in their theaters. His newspapers attacked Welles as a Communist & suggested
he was a draft dodger (Welles was rejected for military service because of medical reasons).
Wells threatened to sue unless the movie was released & the studio finally decided to take the
risk.
The film received 9 academy award nominations, but Welles was booed whenever his name was
mentioned. The only Oscar that the movie won was for its screenplay.
Citizen Kane failed at the box office. It was the beginning of the end of Welles in Hollywood.
His next masterpiece, The Magnificent Ambersons (1942), Welles favorite film was cut by RKO
from 131 min to 88min & a happy ending tacked on the end. It also flopped at the box office &
both Welles & Schaefer were ousted.
Welles was an idolized source of inspiration for the critics at Cahiers du Cinema, who
spearheaded the French New Wave. Truffaut claimed that Citizen Kane inspired the largest
number of French filmmakers to begin their own careers.
The filmmaker who consistently receives the most votes as the greatest director in the history of
the cinema: ORSON WELLES