Isabel Maria C.

Fernando

12 September 2014

2012-24189 BA Speech Communication

Film 100 FRU
One Man, Many Stories
The first scene of Citizen Kane shows a decrepit Xanadu. We are
shown a large piece of land, which used to be paragon of beauty and
grandeur, in a neglected state. Golf courses, pools, lakes, preceded
by shots of a fence (allowing the audience to gather that all the
things were in one place), implied the luxury of the place, while the
lack of people and the presence of overgrown trees and broken objects
are signs of abandonment. The use of the dissolve transition, which
indicates the passage of time, reveals that Xanadu was in that state
for a long time. After showing the surroundings, the castle is given
emphasis, with only one room lit in the whole structure. Another
dissolve to the window, and to the inside of the room. An old man
whispers Rosebud and drops a snow globe, which shatters.
The man is revealed to be the titular character: Charles Foster
Kane, a rich, powerful and influential man who has dabbled in the
news industry, tried his hand in politics, and has had two wives.
This implied that Kane had a very public life. This was revealed
through an on-screen documentary, watched by journalists who want
their own slice of the action that Kane's death provided. Their plan
was

to

tell

the

story

of

Charles

Foster

Kane,

zeroing

in

on

Rosebud, the last word he ever utters. This quest to find who or
what Rosebud means is what drive that moves the film's narrative.
Thompson, one of the journalists attempts to interview Susan
Alexander, Kane's 2nd wife, but is unsuccessful, and instead goes to
look through Thatcher's diaries. Thatcher was Kane's guardian after
his parents, and the failure to interview Kane's wife implies that
we, as an audience, are to go with Thompson, and uncover Kane's life
chronologically, beginning from when he was taken into Thatcher's

care.
The different people Thompson interviews have varying degrees of
closeness to Charles Foster Kane, and the order in which they were
interviewed

corresponds

to

the

different

stages

in

Kane's

life.

Thatcher is a banker who was his guardian, and through his written
memoirs, we gain an idea of Kane's childhood: how he was sent away by
his parents, how he came by the large fortune, how he was as a child.
Next are Mr. Bernstein and Jedediah Leland, who talk about Kane's
rise as an influential man in the newspaper industry as well as the
political

world.

Bernstein

talks

about

Kane

as

if

he

were

an

eccentric man to be impressed by, while Jedediah talks about the sour
side of the man. Thompson then converses with Susan, who talks about
her extra-marital affair with the Kane, his apparent fascination with
her (amateur) singing, and finally how their relationship came to an
end at Xanadu. Finally, Thompson talks to the butler, who tells him
when he heard the word Rosebud spoken by Kane.
Throughout the film, it is noticeable that Charles Foster Kane
is almost never alone. Because the narrative is always told from
another person's perspective, we have reason to doubt that the Kane
we are presented with is the man himself. Kane is dead for the
entirety of the story, and so we never see his own motivations and
reasons for his actions.
Among the many scenes that tell the story of Kane's life, I will
focus on three. First is the scene wherein we watch as Kane's mother
converses with Thatcher regarding Kane's education and the fortune
she accidentally came across. One of the most prominent mise en
scenes is where there is a use of deep focus where everything from
background to foreground is clearly shown. In the background, through
the window, we see a young Kane, playing with his sled in the snow.
From middle to foreground we are watching and listening to Kane's
mother and father disagreeing about Kane's future.
The second is the scene wherein we are shown the deterioration
of his relationship with his 1st wife, Emily Monroe Norton, over time.

There is heavy use of the dissolve transition here, to indicate

passing time. We are shown snippets of their meal conversations,
usually about Charles' absence or presence at a meal. Emily starts
out worried and understanding, and her speech slowly becomes more and
more clipped and annoyed. Another interesting thing to note about the
scene is the music slowly darkening in tone, corresponding to Emily
and Kane's relationship slowly falling apart.
The third scene is where we are shown Susan Alexander's forced
operatic career. Before this particular montage, we watched as a
multitude of people set up for her debut, and as she begins to sing,
we see 2 workmen in the rafters looking at each other and shaking
their heads, implying that her performance was less than stellar.
After which we saw that Kane forced Susan Alexander to continue
singing, despite the complete disaster her debut was. What follows is
a series of repeated snippets of the debut scene, interspersed with
shots of a lightbulb growing brighter and brighter. Eventually, the
as

the

music

dies

out,

so

does

the

bulb,

leaving

behind

the

afterimage of a glowing wire.

The quest for the meaning of Rosebud culminates at Xanadu, where
Thompson concludes he will never be able to find the meaning of
Rosebud, that the solution to that mystery died with the mysterious
Kane. We are shown the vastness of Kane's possessions with a camera
zooming

out,

such

that

we

can

no

longer

see

the

people

in

the

mountain of objects. The last scene involves men throwing (assumedly

worthless) objects into a furnace, and we see a sled being thrown in.
The sled is brought into focus, and we see engraved rosebud.
The last scene of the movie bring everything into focus: the
symbolism behind the snowglobe, the meaning of rosebud. The sled
Rosebud

represents

Kane's

childhood:

we

are

brought

back

to

the

moment he was taken in by Mr. Thatcher; the scene where he is busy

playing in the snow in the background. The snowglobe he found while
smashing up Susan Alexander's room in anger is what reminded him of
that fateful snowy day he was taken away from his childhood home

the only time and place he was truly happy.

References:
Bordwell,

D.

and

Kristin

Thompson.

(2013).

Film

Introduction, 10th Edition. New York: McGraw Hill.

Welles, Orson. (1941). Citizen Kane [Motion Picture].

Art:

An