An American Parable: The Enduring Legacy of Citizen Kane

By Josh Hornbeck

The following essay was originally published in quiet SHORTS.
After a quick glance at lists of the world’s great films, we find that Orson Welles’s first feature, Citizen Kane, is in first or second place in nearly every instance. It’s routinely heralded as the greatest American film of all time. And it’s a movie that has so thoroughly permeated our cultural psyche that even if you haven’t seen the film, you instinctively know what the word “Rosebud” means.

How could an untested theatrical artist’s directorial debut become such a cultural touchstone? How is it that this one movie could have so radically altered the ways we view film and influence generations of filmmakers to come? How was Citizen Kane even made in the first place?

Truth is Stranger Than Fiction Orson Welles was an artistic visionary. Founder of the Mercury Theatre in 1937, Welles became known for daring and bold projects. His 1937 production of Williams Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar reset the play in a modern, fascist Rome – echoing the rise of Mussolini in Italy – and his 1936 production of Macbeth transported the play to Haiti and featured an all-black cast. “The Mercury Theatre on the Air,” which started broadcasting in 1938, brought radio versions of Dracula, Treasure Island, and the infamous broadcast of War of the Worlds – updated and played out in a series of news reports which caused mass hysteria among many of its listeners.

His radio celebrity and artistic vision caught the eye of RKO Pictures, who offered the young Welles an unprecedented deal. The first-time director would have complete artistic freedom to write, direct, and star in two productions for the studio. His original intention was to film Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness, which he had previously adapted for the radio. But eventually he and screenwriter Herman J. Mankiewicz settled on fictionalizing the life of publishing mogul William Randolph Hearst (combining Hearst’s life with that of several other wealthy Americans of the day) and both wrote drafts of the script which would become Citizen Kane.

Welles hired mostly unknown actors for his first feature – all members of the Mercury Theatre. To make certain the studio didn’t interfere he said that the cast and crew were in rehearsals for the first days of shooting, keeping studio executives off his set. And as no one was allowed to view rushes of the film besides Welles, the twenty-four-year-old filmmaker was left with total artistic control, virtually unheard of in the days of intrusive producer David O. Selznick and the constrictive studio system. But one man did try to interfere with Welles’s vision for Citizen Kane, the film’s unofficial subject – William Randolph Hearst.

Hearst was one of the most powerful men in America. He owned more than twenty major papers, as well as radio stations, movie companies, and a host of other assets. When word of the film reached Hearst’s ears, the tycoon was infuriated. He did all he could to keep it from reaching the public. He tried to strong-arm Welles and RKO. He accused Welles of being a Communist. He threatened to expose all of Hollywood’s darkest secrets if the film was ever shown. At one point Welles was warned that Hearst had sent a naked woman to the hotel in which he was staying and had a photographer waiting to take pictures which would discredit the filmmaker. Welles stayed somewhere else that night.

The controversy surrounding Citizen Kane kept it from being released as scheduled in February of 1941. Hearst offered to purchase all prints of the film from RKO in hopes of destroying the footage. But eventually Welles won out. The film was released in May of that same year to critical acclaim. Hearst didn’t allow advertisements for the film (or any others produced by RKO) to run in his papers and forbade his critics to review it. But Citizen Kane was released all the same.

With all the furor and uproar Kane caused, one would think it would have been a rousing box office success. Sadly, it wasn’t. Most filmgoers avoided the film, and those who did hated it. In fact, during the Academy Awards for that year, each time one of Citizen Kane’s nine nominations was mentioned, the film was greeted with jeering and booing from the audience. Citizen Kane closed and wasn’t shown again for another fifteen years. But European critics adored the film, causing American audiences to reconsider this masterpiece of cinema.

What’s in a Story? Citizen Kane opens with a haunting and beautiful sequence. A “No Trespassing” sign hangs on a chain link fence. Slowly, we move onto the property and closer to a mansion sitting alone on a hill. A single light shines through one of its windows. Soon, we’re peering through the lighted window and into a man’s bedroom. In a slow dissolve, we suddenly find ourselves inside the room, watching as a dying man clutches a small snow globe and breathes his last breath, uttering the word “Rosebud.”

Who was this man? And what does “Rosebud” mean? Immediately we are rushed into a frenzied newsreel attempting to cover the man’s life in the space of a few moments. Charles Foster Kane, we learn, was a wealthy businessman and media mogul. Though his newspapers often shaped public opinion, he was never elected to public office. He had two wives, both of whom divorced him. He was a friend to celebrities and politicians and built the infamous Xanadu, a personal resort which was never completed. In the end, he died alone, a sad recluse.

A dark, smoky room full of newsmen watches the footage. They all agree that it’s an accurate factual summation of the man’s life, but it doesn’t delve into who the man really was. One of the voices mentions the man’s last words. That one word could be the key to uncovering the truth about Kane’s life. So Mr. Bernstein, one of the faceless reporters, is given his assignment – talk to anyone who knew Kane and find out what “Rosebud” means. The rest of the film is conducted in a series of interviews with the key people in Kane’s life. Bernstein reads the unpublished memoirs of Charles Foster Kane’s one-time guardian. He talks to Kane’s living ex-wife, now a lounge singer in a seedy bar. There’s the interview with Kane’s business manager and the conversation with Jedediah Smith, Kane’s closest friend.

Over the course of these interviews, we begin to catch glimpses into the man Kane truly was. We see his boyhood and we see him ripped from the home of his mother and father. We see him as a young man, taking charge of his first newspaper, “The Inquirer,” with idealistic zeal. We see the loves of his life and his bid to run for governor. And we see him slowly become the kind of man he always despised.

It’s All About Technique While most of Kane’s admirers praise the film’s technical achievements, it should be noted that, with the exception of their use of universal focus (a technique which allows a filmmaker to keeps everything onscreen in focus, regardless of its distance to the camera), most of the techniques used in the film were being used by other filmmakers on other projects. It was the way Welles used these techniques that was truly revolutionary. His marriage of technical elements to content and meaning is beautifully realized.

Welles’s use of sound throughout Citizen Kane owes a great debt to his background in radio. He was one of the first directors to effectively use sound effects as a way to transition between scenes, allowing the audience to be seamlessly guided from one moment to the next. He also used sound effects to comment on the scene, whether realistically or fantastically. Consider the opening moments as Kane lies dying. He drops the snow globe and it shatters. The cracking glass becomes the sound of his death. Then there’s the sequence where Kane tears apart his ex-wife’s room. Each crash and clang is amplified and echoes the collapse happening within Charles.

You would expect the film’s sound design to be stellar, considering Welles’s time in radio. But the remarkable thing about Kane is the fact that the film’s visual elements are just as impressive. Welles displayed unusual confidence in his use of camera angles and shots to tell his story. For example, strong characters – characters we are supposed to like and identify with (flawed though they may be) – are always shot from lower angles, making them appear larger and more impressive. Weaker characters are always shot from a higher angle, making them seem small and meek.

However, what truly set Citizen Kane apart from the dearth of films which came before it are Welles’s tight scene compositions. Every element within the camera frame is intentionally placed. Because the film is a series of recollections about this larger than life individual, Kane’s presence is felt in every shot. In one of the first scenes we see his parents discussing the boy’s future with his new guardian. Young Charles is outside, playing in the snow. But throughout the entire scene he remains visible in the outside window. In another sequence, two of Kane’s friends talk while Kane is seen dancing, reflected in the window behind them. The entire film is made up of these extraordinary visual compositions.

While many of these elements were already in limited use, it wasn��t until Orson Welles brought them together in service of his story that the true potentials of film were discovered. It was the first film since Birth of a Nation to truly synthesize the techniques of the day, and no film since has had as much influence on the way films are made and the way we view them.

Is That All There Is? While the technical aspects of Citizen Kane are certainly important and a definite factor in the film’s longevity, if the film’s only lasting value was as a technical exercise, I doubt it would be ranked among the greatest films of all time. It would be a curiosity at best. There must be something more than technique, something with a deeper, lasting resonance – something that still touches and speaks to us decades later.

Many see Citizen Kane as a tale of corruption. Here, in two hours, we are given the story of a young, idealistic man who loses his battle with morality. His wealth eventually corrupts him and he turns his back on the ideals which made him a great man. When he runs for governor, he campaigns against the entrenched system of graft that has been in place for years. But eventually he finds that he has become just as corrupt as the system he fought.

Another take on the film says that it illustrates the difference between success and virtue. In America, success is seen as the ultimate good and failure the ultimate sin. But Kane was ridiculously successful and lived the last days of his life in misery. As much as he might try to be a good and virtuous man, his success and his wealth kept him from true greatness.

These are both valid ways to view the film – as are the countless other interpretations. But more than anything else, Citizen Kane is a story that speaks to our need and our desire to be loved. This is where the film achieves lasting resonance and avoids remaining a simple exercise in technique. Every action Kane takes during the course of the film is motivated by his desire to be loved – the need to be loved – by anyone and everyone around him.

His boyhood may not have been entirely pleasant, but it was the only home life Charles had known. He loved his mother and she surely loved him. His father is referred to as an abusive drunk, but he still had a measure of tenderness and compassion for the boy. When Kane is ripped from the home of his parents and sent to become the ward of Walter Parks Thatcher, he loses everyone who loves him. Throughout the rest of his life Charles attempts to recapture that love.

Kane undertakes these attempts by trying to prove that he worth loving. When he takes over “The Inquirer,” he takes up the cause of the helpless and downtrodden so that the huddled masses will love him. His first act upon publishing “The Inquirer” is to lay forth a set of moral guidelines the paper will live by, again, to win the affection of his readers. And the only reason he runs for governor is to bask in the glow of people’s adoration.

The real problem isn’t that he wants love, but that he wants love on his terms. Charles’s friendship with Jedediah is based solely on Jedediah’s willingness to put up with Kane’s eccentricities. When Jedediah, as the drama critic for one of Kane’s papers, dares to pan a performance by Kane’s second wife, Susan, Kane fires Jedediah and never speaks to him again.

The wealthy mogul builds an opera house for Susan. He pushes her to become a real opera singer, only to prove to the rest of the world that Charles Foster Kane is a man of distinction and taste. Because she had once expressed an interest in singing, Kane believes the best way to earn Susan’s love is to pay for the best instructors, build the best opera houses, and publish the only good reviews of her wretched performances. When his second wife finally gives up on singing, Charles tries to earn her love by building an immense palace for her.

Sadly, by the end of the film, Kane’s quest to find love fails. Everyone who may have cared for him has left (or has been pushed away). The large halls of his mansion are empty. The only people remaining are the men and women he pays as servants. When he dies, he is completely alone.

Isn’t that one of the sad truths about American culture? We all have this intense desire to be loved, but we rarely know how to go about finding affection in healthy ways. So we change our appearance, buy the next toy, or join the next club all so we can feel loved and cared for. We manipulate the people in our lives so they will never leave us. We throw money at all of our problems, at all of the disconnection and loneliness in our society.

Yes, Kane was corrupt and lost his innocence and idealism. Yes, he was successful but wasn’t virtuous. Though the film is critical of Kane and his actions, it always sympathizes with Charles, even when he’s at his worst. Citizen Kane looks with care upon this man who wanted nothing more than to be loved. After all, it’s what we all want.

Citizen Kane was originally going to be called The American, a fitting title for this examination of our culture’s seemingly hopeless quest. This is the real reason the film has lasted as long as it has – the reason it’s an enduring classic of American cinema.

(Posted 09/29/2009)