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CITIZEN KANE : Key Facts Full Title · Citizen Kane Director · Orson Welles Leading Actor/Actresses · Orson

Welles,

Joseph

Cotten,

Dorothy

Comingore, Everett Sloane Supporting Actors/Actresses · George Coulouris, Ruth Warrick, Agnes Moorehead, Harry Shannon, William Alland, Ray Collins Type Of Work · Full-length feature film Genre · Drama Language · English Time And Place Produced · 1940–1941, Hollywood Awards · Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay, New York Critics Award fo Best Picture Date Of Release · May 1, 1941 Producer · Orson Welles Setting (Time) · Approximately 1860 to 1950 Setting (Place) · America Protagonist · Charles Foster Kane Major Conflict · Kane tries to control press coverage of his political career and suppress his affair with Susan Alexander. Rising Action · Kane’s political rival, Jim “Boss” Gettys, forces a showdown between Kane, Kane’s wife, and Susan Alexander in an attempt to force Kane from the governor’s race. Climax · Kane chooses to stay with Susan and sends his wife away while daring Gettys to expose him by threatening impotently that he’ll make sure Gettys goes to prison. Falling Action · The papers are filled with the news of Kane’s “love nest,” and he loses the election. Themes · The difficulty of interpreting a life; the myth of the American Dream; the unreliability of memory

Motifs · Isolation; old age; materialism Symbols · Sleds; snow globe; statues Foreshadowing · The snow globe. Also known as the glass ball, the snow globe first appears in the dying Welles’s hand at the beginning of the movie and foreshadows the later flashback to his abandonment as a child. Chronologically, it first makes its appearance in Kane’s life the night he meets Susan. The snow globe belongs to her and is sitting on her dressing table. We see it next when Susan leaves Kane and he destroys her room. After this episode, Kane is left only with the snow globe, which foreshadows his lonely death. · Rosebud, the sled. We don’t know its name when we see it at the scene of young Kane’s abandonment by his mother, but it foreshadows the film's final scene, when we finally learn the meaning of Kane's last word. · Crusader, the sled. Given to young Charles Kane by Thatcher, this sled foreshadows Charles’s later crusading work against Thatcher and his business enterprises. · Kane’s statement to Thatcher that if his paper lost $1 million a year he could still run it for sixty years. This cocky comment foreshadows Kane’s bankruptcy and the selling of his assets to Thatcher. · The scene in which Leland, in conversation with Bernstein, questions the new staff’s loyalty to Kane. Kane has just stolen them from the rival paper by offering them more money. Leland wonders if this is enough to make them loyal to Kane. Leland’s doubts foreshadow the departures of Leland and Susan from Kane's life.

Plot Overview Citizen Kane opens with the camera panning across a spooky, seemingly deserted estate in Florida called Xanadu. The camera lingers on a "No Trespassing" sign and a large "K" wrought on the gate, then gradually makes its way to the house, where it appears to pass through a lit window. A person is lying on a slab-like bed.

Snowflakes suddenly fill the screen. As the camera pulls back, a snow-covered cabin comes into view. The camera pulls back more quickly to show that what we have been looking at is actually just a scene inside a snow globe in the hand of an old man. The camera focuses on the old man’s mouth, which whispers one word: "Rosebud." He then drops the globe, which rolls onto the floor and shatters. Reflected in the curve of a piece of shattered glass, a door opens and a whiteuniformed nurse comes into the room. She folds the old man’s arms over his chest and covers his face with a sheet.

In the next scene, a newsreel entitled News on the March announces the death of Charles Foster Kane, a famous, once-influential newspaper publisher. The newsreel, which acts as a lengthy obituary, gives an overview of Kane’s colorful life and career and introduces some of the important people and events in Kane’s life. The newsreel plays in a small projection room filled with reporters. The producer of the newsreel tells the reporters he’s not happy with the film because it merely recounts Kane’s life, instead of revealing who Kane truly was. He notes that Kane’s last word was "Rosebud" and wonders if that may hold the key to Kane’s character. He decides to stall the newsreel’s release and sends a reporter, Jerry Thompson, to talk to Kane’s former associates to try to uncover the identity of Rosebud.

Thompson first interviews Kane’s ex-wife, Susan Alexander Kane, who works as a dancer and singer in a dingy bar. Susan is drunk and uncooperative. A waiter hovers over her and tells Thompson that Susan has been unwilling to talk about Kane since he died, although she spoke of him often when he was alive. The waiter also says he

asked Susan about Rosebud after Kane died and she claimed she’d never heard of Rosebud. Thompson then goes to the bank that houses the memoirs of Kane’s childhood guardian, Walter Parks Thatcher. As Thompson begins to read these memoirs, the image of the page dissolves into a flashback to Kane’s childhood.

A roughly chronological series of flashbacks tells Kane’s life story from five different points of view. The first flashback shows how Thatcher meets Kane. Kane’s mother, Mary, runs a boarding house in rural Colorado. In lieu of a payment, one of her tenants gives her some stock in what she thinks is a worthless mine; it turns out to give her ownership of the Colorado Lode, a working gold mine. Finding herself suddenly wealthy, she decides to send away her son, Charles, to be raised by her banker, Thatcher. Charles is understandably upset and whacks Thatcher with the sled he's been happily riding when Thatcher shows up to escort him away. Kane’s relationship with Thatcher never improves. Vignettes from their years together show Kane engaging in questionable journalism, wasting money, and constantly enraging Thatcher.

Thompson interviews other people who were close to Kane, and these characters relate their memories of the man through flashbacks as well. Thompson speaks first with Kane’s good friends and employees, Mr. Bernstein and Jedediah Leland, and has one more conversation with his ex-wife Susan. Most significantly, Thompson interviews the butler, Raymond, who remembers Kane saying “Rosebud” following a violent episode after Susan left him. Each person gives his or her own version of an abandoned, lonely boy who grows up to be an isolated, needy man. All reveal in some way that Kane is arrogant, thoughtless, morally bankrupt, desperate for attention, and incapable of giving love. These faults eventually cause Kane to lose his paper, fortune, friends, and beloved second wife, Susan. Thompson, the reporter, never does find out what Kane meant by "Rosebud." Giving up the quest, Thompson is leaving Kane’s abandoned castle, Xanadu, when the camera pans a scene of workers burning some of Kane’s less valuable possessions. In the fire is the sled that

Kane was riding the day his mother sent him away. Painted on the sled is the name Rosebud.

Character List Charles Foster Kane Played by Orson Welles

Wealthy newspaper publisher whose life is the subject of the movie. When Kane’s mother comes into a seemingly limitless fortune, she sends Kane away to be raised by her banker, Thatcher. Kane resents being taken from his home and the security he felt there and never reconciles himself to that separation. As a result, Kane grows up to be an arrogant and callous man. Ultimately, his attitude alienates him from everyone who cares about him, and he loses his newspaper, his fortune, and his friends. Read an IN-DEPTH ANALYSIS OF CHARLES FOSTER KANE.

Jedediah Leland Played by Joseph Cotten

Kane’s college friend and the first reporter on Kane’s paper. Leland admires Kane's idealism about the newspaper business when they start working together. However, their principles quickly diverge, and Leland becomes more ethical as Kane becomes more unscrupulous. Over time, Kane’s questionable morals and paternalistic attitude disturb Leland to such an extent that Leland eventually requests a transfer to Chicago to escape Kane. Kane ultimately fires him for writing a negative review of Susan Alexander’s disastrous operatic debut. Read an IN-DEPTH ANALYSIS OF JEDEDIAH LELAND.

Susan Alexander Kane Played by Dorothy Comingore

Kane’s mistress, who becomes his second wife. When they meet, Susan seems soft and sweet to him, but her true nature turns out to be whiny and demanding. Kane never sees her for what she is. He pushes her to sing opera because her success would justify his interest in her, even though she’s not a particularly talented singer. The more he manipulates her, the further their relationship deteriorates, and she finally leaves him. She’s the original owner of the snow globe. Read an IN-DEPTH ANALYSIS OF SUSAN ALEXANDER KANE.

Mary Kane Played by Agnes Moorehead

Kane’s mother. Mary gives her son away when she comes into a fortune. Trim and carefully controlled, she shows little emotion when turning Kane over to Thatcher. She’s also emotionless toward her husband, Jim, and she suspects he will hurt the young Kane, although Jim seems quite kind to him. We see so little of Mary that we never fully understand why she abandons Kane. Mr. Bernstein Played by Everett Sloane

Kane’s friend and employee. Bernstein, a bespectacled Jewish man, is the only character who loves Kane unconditionally. He completely overlooks Kane’s faults and is loyal to him regardless of the circumstances. He wants only for Kane to be happy. He’s also the only character who understands that underneath Kane’s arrogant façade is a lost, lonely boy. He may seem to be the quintessential yes-man, but he behaves that way out of loyalty, not out of a search for personal gain. Walter Thatcher Played by George Coulouris

The banker who becomes Kane’s legal guardian. Although Thatcher seems to have a genuine affection for Kane, Kane never overcomes his resentment of Thatcher for taking him from his childhood home. A big reason Kane goes into the newspaper business is to harass Thatcher with front-page attacks on banking trusts, which are Thatcher’s business. Thatcher appears to be doing his best, but he never manages to forge a bond with Kane. Emily Monroe Norton Kane Played by Ruth Warrick

Kane’s first wife and the niece of President Monroe. While Kane ostensibly marries Emily because of her connection to the presidency, he does seem to love her genuinely. Later, she wearies of his devotion to his paper and his friends. In one of the most effective sequences in the movie, a montage of breakfast table scenes traces the breakdown of their marriage over a period of years. She and Kane separate after she finds out about his mistress, and a few years later she is killed in a car accident along with their only child, a son. Jim Kane Played by Harry Shannon

Kane’s father. Jim provides a contrast to Mary’s precise, emotionless actions. Rumpled and common, he vacillates between wanting to raise his own son and wanting the money he’ll get for staying away from him. Mary’s contempt for Jim is mirrored in Kane’s contemptuous treatment of virtually everyone he comes in contact with as he grows up. Jerry Thompson Played by William Alland

The reporter in charge of finding out the meaning of Kane’s last word. Thompson's investigation of “Rosebud” is the catalyst for everyone’s

recollections in the movie, and his presence in the flashbacks provides the continuity that ties the disparate perspectives together. We see him only in shadow or with his back turned to the camera.

Charles Foster Kane Kane's mother sends him away when he is only eight years old, and this abrupt separation keeps him from growing past the petulant, needy, aggressive behaviors of a pre-adolescent. Kane never develops a positive emotional attachment to his guardian, Thatcher, and he rejects Thatcher's attempts at discipline and guidance. As an adult, Kane has a great deal of wealth and power but no emotional security, and this absence of security arrests his development and fuels his resentment of authority. Because of his wealth, Kane has no motivation or incentive to subject himself to social norms. He has no reason to move beyond his resentment and his sense of himself as the center of the universe, and he never takes his place as a virtuous, productive member of society. Kane seems idealistic when he first begins to run his newspaper, but his primary reason for becoming a newspaperman is to manipulate his political and social environment in order to gain total control over it. Kane’s quest for power makes him charismatic, but he eventually drives away the women and friends he attracts. As those close to him mature in a way that he cannot, they must move away from him to preserve their own selves. Kane is not a likeable man, but Welles presents his life in a way that ultimately shrouds Kane in pathos and pity. Kane is dead when the film begins, and we learn about him only through the accounts given by his old friends and lovers. Each person has a different perception of Kane, and his or her memories are not fully reliable. A fragmented picture, not a fully fleshed-out man, is all we get. However, we know enough about Kane to know he deserves sympathy. Kane’s obsessive spending and collecting reveal that he is trying to fill an empty space inside himself with objects instead of people. He buys things for the sake of having them, not because they give him any particular joy. Kane is fundamentally lonely, and, intentionally or unintentionally, he drives away everyone who cares for him.

His attempts to control those he loves always fail. When his second wife Susan prepares to leave him, he says angrily that she can’t do that to him. She firmly responds, “Yes, I can,” and then walks out the door. Critics generally accept that Welles based the character of Kane on publishing magnate William Randolph Hearst and other powerful men of his time, but Welles certainly based the character on himself as well. He, like Kane, was around eight years old when he lost his mother, though Welles’s mother died and Kane’s mother leaves by choice. Welles’s mother gave him an inflated sense of his own importance that was encouraged by his school administration and his guardian after her death. As an actor, Welles naturally imbued Charles Foster Kane with some of his own experiences and characteristics. The parallels between Kane and Welles helped Welles give a remarkable performance. Welles didn’t just act the part of Kane: in many ways, Welles was Kane.

Jedediah Leland Jedediah Leland doubts Kane’s integrity from the early moments of their partnership. Leland is as giddy as Kane is about their newfound authority at the newspaper, but the men’s ethics quickly diverge. Kane signs a noble “Declaration of Principles,” which Leland asks skeptically to keep as a souvenir. He seems to have a premonition that Kane’s principles will be subject to interpretation. As Kane becomes increasingly despotic, Leland questions the unethical and immoral way in which they conduct their business. Leland also views Kane’s self-delusion as ridiculous, even though Kane remains oblivious to his own hypocrisy and the harm he does. When Kane’s staff celebrates the fact that Kane has stolen the entire editorial staff of their rival newspaper, Leland, for the first time, openly questions whether the end justifies the means and whether loyalty can be bought. Several years later, Leland has the same disagreement with Kane, which leads Leland to request a transfer to Chicago. He feels he can become an ethical, objective reporter only if he can escape Kane’s suffocating control. Just like the women in Kane’s life, Leland must leave Kane to save himself.

Despite his doubts and criticisms, Leland attempts to maintain his integrity without destroying his friendship with Kane, and he sustains his faith in Kane longer than any other character in the film, with the possible exception of Bernstein. When Kane builds his wife Susan an opera house in Chicago, the city where Leland now works as the drama critic for a Kane newspaper, Leland must choose loyalty or the truth after Susan’s horrendous opening night. Leland starts to write a negative review of Susan’s performance, but he passes out, drunk, before he can finish it. Kane arrives at the office and indignantly finishes writing the review himself to show Leland that he can be an honest man, but when Leland wakes up, Kane bluntly fires him. Leland has little reason to think any integrity or goodness lurks within Kane, but nonetheless he mails Kane the “Declaration of Principles” Kane signed so many years ago. The gesture is a rebuke, but it is also a way of suggesting it’s not too late for Kane to change. Kane tears it up, effectively slicing Leland out of his life forever.

Susan Alexander Kane Susan and Kane fall in love with each other under false pretenses, and though Susan eventually loses her illusions about the kind of man Kane is, Kane is never able to see Susan clearly. Susan and Kane first meet in the street: Susan has a toothache, and a passing car has splashed Kane with mud. Circumstances have diminished the social, age, and class differences between the two that may otherwise have thwarted their connection. Susan, usually screechy and overbearing, here seems soft-spoken, gentle, and naïve because of her toothache, and Kane’s helpless predicament makes her laugh. She has no idea who Kane is. Kane, charmed by her unselfconsciousness, believes he has found someone who will love him unconditionally. When Susan’s true nature emerges, Kane willfully ignores it. She grows bitter when he pressures her to become someone he believes is more suited to his station. Kane tries to force others to see her as he does, which nearly drives her to suicide. Kane’s attempts to completely control her almost rob her of her identity, and the only way she can save herself is to leave him. Susan's appearance in Kane's life is the fulcrum on which Kane's fortunes turn. Kane’s life before meeting Susan is very different from his life after meeting her, and Susan effectively splits the movie into two parts: the world of Kane’s rise and the world of his fall. Before Kane meets Susan, his story plays out in a world where he’s ruthless, successful, and respected. After meeting Susan, his story becomes inseparable from their relationship and their life together. Because of his relationship with her, his marriage breaks up, his political aspirations shatter, and he loses the respect of society at large. Susan represents Kane’s lost innocence and fall from grace. When Susan finally leaves him, the loss Kane feels mirrors the loss he felt when his mother left. He trashes Susan’s room and finds the snow globe, which

brings back long-repressed memories of his childhood. Kane has no one now that Susan is gone, and nothing to hold onto but the past.

Themes The Difficulty of Interpreting a Life The difficulty of interpreting a person’s life once that life has ended is the central theme of Citizen Kane. After viewing an in-depth, filmed biography of Kane’s life, the producer of the biography asks his reporters a simple question: Who, really, was Charles Foster Kane? The producer recognizes that a man isn’t necessarily the sum of his achievements, possessions, or actions, but that something deeper must drive him. His clue that Kane was more than his public accomplishments is the last word Kane uttered: “Rosebud.” Kane’s life story unfolds in layers through the reporter Thompson's investigation and is told by a succession of people who were close to him. These various points of view are imbued with people’s particular prejudices, and the recollections are ultimately ambiguous and unreliable. Kane never gets to tell his own life story, and we must wonder h...