Tuesday, July 12, 2011

ET 16: Citizen Kane



What is Citizen Kane about and how is it about what it’s about?

           This is a rather subjective question and can be looked at from many different ways. Citizen Kane was THE movie that not only skyrocketed Orson Welles to fame, but also destroyed him. So, what is Citizen Kane about? It’s about Charles Foster Kane, Rosebud and the cause and effect of the choices a person takes in life. In my view, Rosebud in itself is enough to explain what Citizen Kane is about. This is because this one word is enough to not only symbolize who the man was, but also the cause and effects of his actions. Everything originates around this one word- Rosebud, which also happens to be the hook or McGuffin of the film that sets the entire plot in motion.  From the audience’s knowledge, we all know that Charles Foster Kane is a character referring to the popular figure at the time in America- William Randolph Hearst, but albeit that, Citizen Kane is really about KANE and nobody else. Citizen Kane is about numerous interlinked subjects which revolves around this one man, told from the perspectives of the people who knew him but never from his point of view.  

          The beginning starts off in a very expressionistic way, all we see are shadows and lastly, the dying words of a man- ‘Rosebud’. But before all that, we see the sign – ‘No Trespassing’. We are about to enter the world of a man , but not just any man, a public icon who was in the public’s eye during his rise and fall. We enter into a forbidden place that he doesn’t want to expose and throughout the show we see that in Kane as well. He never explains his actions to anyone, for example; during the scene where he made the choice to stay in the election and lose his son, he said that only he can decide what he would do, and when you think about it, we never actually know exactly why he made the choices he made. We are never fully able to ‘trespass’ into his heart. Since the man is linked to Rosebud, the audience is immediately hooked and this starts the story, and also holds the plot together. The next part becomes very realistic and documentary-like. The audience is then introduced to the man who uttered the words- Charles Foster Kane. We see him through the eyes of the public, just like a celebrity, we see snip bits of his life, his huge castle- Xanadu, all his property, basically we see the man that the world sees. We are introduced to Kane, but only from the standpoint of what the rest of the world sees, which doesn’t represent who he actually is.

           Citizen Kane is about Rosebud. Rosebud was his dying words, and it represents something valuable to Kane, more than just a mere sled. That one word already shows the man’s personality to a certain extent because it carries a story on its own, it explains to a certain degree why he made certain decisions and why he chose to do what he did. We are firstly introduced into Kane’s personal life through the writings of his guardian- Thatcher. We see Kane through a non bias perspective as a young boy playing with his sled in he snow, we see him being carefree and happy but simultaneously we also see his mother preparing to send him away to live with Thatcher. Time skips and we then see Kane when he’s 25, young and charismatic and at the beginning of starting the Inquirer, we witness his uprising, fame, we see his marriage slowly falling apart at the same time, we also see him changing as a person, from someone so loving and carefree to an old man who wants only his way. We see bits and pieces of who he is and we see the turning point of his life when he chooses to stay with Susan Alexander and leave his son and in doing that, he not only loses his son but he also loses the boy in his heart. All in all, we see his life through the eyes of the people close to him- Thatcher, Bernstein, Leland, Susan, and the butler yet we never see it through his eyes. By watching and learning about Kane from their perspectives, we see something that the public eye does not, and in a way, through each of their stories, we as the audience judges as well. In a sense, our judgement towards the type of person Kane is changes as the person telling the story changes.

       This happens throughout the entire film up till one point towards the end when Susan decides to walk out on Kane. At that moment, after he throws things around and releases his anger, the camera zooms in for a close up shot of his face and the audience identifies with him. On his face, we see pure sadness in his eyes, tears that stay and refuses to fall, we see him striving to hold on to his ego and then we watch as he walks away facing a mirror with reflects deep into his heart portraying loneliness, and emptiness. We feel deep pity and sadness for Kane. As what Aristotle said, tragedy is not about death but about suffering and in order to pity him, you must like him first. From the very beginning, the audience is somehow drawn to Kane’s character and we do indeed like him, therefore making us feel an emotional connection to him. It’s almost as if, throughout the movie, it was a process of getting to know him and going through what he went through, we not only observe but we become part of it as well.

            In contradiction to what the reporter said at the end of the film- about how one word- Rosebud is not enough to sum up a man’s entire life. On the contrary, it is.  It’s the missing piece of the jigsaw puzzle, and the jigsaw puzzle being Kane’s life. Rosebud didn’t signify the sled, it signified the event that occurred at the time, when everything important to him was taken away- his mother’s love, his childhood, and his sense of being carefree. Rosebud being his last words could mean that all this while, he tried to replace that emptiness inside with material things, even attempting at buying love with money

1 comment:

  1. Another superb essay. You are right to focus on that one close up of Kane's face. If there is any moment in the film where the tragic catharsis occurs, that is it. I don't think your last sentence does justice to your thesis: "money can't buy you love" is far too simplistic. I think before that close-up,we are spectators looking from many points of view. But there ... yes ... we see it all. (perhaps :)_)

    8/8

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