What I know going in
I
have seen the film once before, but it was around 4 years ago.
Immediate reaction
I’m
totally not intimidated at the prospect of having to talk about such a great
film!
Citizen Kane is one of
the first films, if not the first, to deal explicitly with both the subjective
nature of storytelling and our own largely subjective perception of the world
itself. The film opens with a “No Trespassing!” sign, a slow pan up a
mountainous chain face, and then a few establishing shots of the foreboding
Xanadu. The film then cuts to Kane on his death bed as he whispers his last
word “Rosebud!”
This
is to be the last thing we learn about Kane from the man himself. Every other
fact about Kane’s life we learn is either from newsreels, personal diaries, or
retold by the people who knew him. We learn that Kane is many things to many
people. To the public at large he was a brash, idealistic newspaper-man who had
a fall from grace and eventually became a recluse, in the vein of a William
Randolph Hearst or Howard Hughes. To Thatcher he was a failed heir who threw away
his fortune on political pursuits. To Bernstein and Leland he was someone to
look it to, who eventually forsook his ideals to live a life of isolation and
pleasure. To Susan he was a charming stranger and then an overbearing,
emotionally-isolated husband. Finally, to Thompson, he was ultimately an
enigma. The reporter neatly lays out what the film has been saying all along
with the following: “I don't think any word
can explain a man's life. No, I guess Rosebud is just a... piece in a jigsaw
puzzle... a missing piece.”
Because
films are a visual medium, and we humans are programmed to take things we see
as real, I don’t think this fact really hits home until a second viewing, or at
least until the very end of the film. For example, on my first viewing, my eye
for film wasn’t nearly as developed as it is now and I missed several visual
motifs that give away Citizen Kane’scentral
theme. One of the most repeated, expressive shots in the film is of two people
conversing with Kane placed firmly in the background. This style of shot makes
it seem like Kane is a memory or dream that two people are conjuring long after
they met the man. Examples of this include the scene at Kane’s childhood home
where his parents converse with Mr. Thatcher about the young man’s future while
the boy can clearly be seen outside, framed by both the window and the people
talking. Kane’s father even closes the window, trying to put his son’s life out
of mind at the prospect of $50,000 per year.
Another example comes when Thatcher and Bernstein are discussing
Thatcher’s will and Kane walks way into the back of the room (in what has to be
a forced-perspective shot), looking tiny between his colleagues’ heads. There
is even a scene where a reflection of Kane is placed between Leland and Bernstein,
which takes the dreamy nature of this shot to another level.
Beyond
that, the film uses long takes and an almost-invisible editing style to make
the whole thing feel like one long continuous take. I often found myself in the
middle of a scene wondering how long the current take had gone on and when the
last cut was. Examples of this include the smooth transition from the outside
to the inside of Susan’s nightclub, the cut from the white snow to the white
paper that moves Kane from boy to adulthood, and the maybe-a-bit-too-clever
transition from a picture of The Austin Chronicle team to Kane’s ownership of
them. Even when the movie transitions in and out of the various retellings,
cuts that could feel very abrupt and disruptive, it’s careful to do so very
evenly by employing slow-fades and superimpositions. This can be seen in
Thompson’s discussions with Leland, which, whenever they move in or out of his
reminisces, have him imposed against the scenes set in the past. Leland is also
revealed to be senile; another way the movie reminds us that not everyone shown
should be taken at face value.
As
with any great film, it isfun to play spot-the-influence, and it’s especially
fun with Citizen Kane because you can
go both ways. Citizen Kane is famous
for taking the film techniques and style that had been developed up to that
point, adding a dash of new technology, and using it to tell a new type of
story. In addition, the film landscape is littered with visual and structural
reference to Orson Welles first film. The foreboding, establishing shots of
Xanadu look like something out of a German Expressionist film and the rapid
editing in the opening newsreel and in the progressively hostile conversation
between Kane and his wife are straight out of Soviet montage films. There is
even a shot that quotes The Passion of
Joan of Arc. It comes when the camera pans slowly across The New York
Inquirer crew while the dancers are in the background. The dramatic shadow
play, such as when Thompson enters Thatcher’s library, simultaneously looks
back at films like Sunrise and looks
forward to the darkness of noir films. I could probably write a whole other
article charting the impact of Citizen
Kane, instead, I will just quickly mention a few movies that owe a debt to
the film. Echoes of Kane’s story
structure can be seen in the subjective, head-spinning masterpiece Rashomon and in the nesting-doll-like
narrative of The Grand Budapest Hotel.
The dreamy, half-remembered mood can be felt in fellow Sight and Sound listees8 ½,Taxi
Driver, and Mulholland Drive. And
visual quotes from the film pop up in everything from Persona to The Shining.
Further thoughts
In
the beginning I was worried I wouldn’t have enough to say about Citizen Kane. Now I’m worried I don’t
have enough space to say it all in. First, I would just like to say that Roger
Ebert’s commentary for the film is outstanding. Not only does he give an
excellent, informative overview of the film’s themes style, special effects,
and history, but he also does so with such gusto that it is impossible not to
get swept up in his geeky movie-love. Speaking of special effects, Like Sunrise, Citizen Kane features a lot of complicated, but invisible, effects
work. The only technique I mentioned in my earlier review was the use of deep
focus. That was because the other special effects are so seamless that I didn’t
notice them. A few neat tricks I learned from Ebert are:
-
The film frequently deploys matte drawings to
make certeain set appear much larger than they actually are (Xanadu, the New
York Inquirer bulding)
-
Welles and Toland were able to create the
illusion of huge spaces from small sets with the use of clever angles and
lighting (Susan’s opera house, the interiors of Xanadu)
-
Optical printing was used to combine multiple
images when keeping several planes in focus wasn’t possible (Susan’s suicide,
Leland’s firing by Kane)
Of
course, what makes Citizen Kane a
great film isn’t its special effect, but the way in which they are used to tell
the story more economically, advance the themes and mood of the film, and
reveal more about the characters.
Another
aspect of the film that I glossed over is the use of sound and dialogue. In the
instances where an edit isn’t eased by a visual cue, Welles uses dialogue,
sound, or music to push the viewer into the next scene. This can be seen during
the sequence when Kane grows up and Welles links the two scenes by having
Thatcher say “Merry Christmas” and then complete the phrase with “Happy New
Year” after the cut. An additional, advanced use of sound is the way the
characters talk over each other. Even though I had seen the film once before,
this surprised me since (now being more familiar with cinema of the time) I
know that overlapping dialogue was not common back then. This gives the film a
screwball vibe that also predicts the chaotic language of Altman and Cassavetes
films from the 60’s (more influences!).
Reflecting
on the film, I appreciated how easy it was to get lost in it. The multiple
flashbacks go on for so long that it’s simple to forget when you’re in a
memory, when you’re not, and whose you’re in. This isn’t helped by the fact
that some of the scenes set in “real-life” are so stylized that they break with
reality. I had to look up what happened in Bernstein’s and Leland’s flashbacks
because the two had fused together in my memory.
I’ll
leave with one last thought. I have been reading a lot of Jim Emerson’s blog
(Scanners) over at Ebert’s website. Something he frequently rails against in
modern films is the “one-thing-at-a-time” style of shooting, or what David
Bordwell calls “intensified continuity”. Basically, the terms refer to films
that use quick-cutting and ample re-focusing shots that forego the more
complicated and economical compositions in films like Sunrise, Citizen Kane, and, one of Emerson’s examples, Alien. Emerson often discusses the
pleasure of letting your eyes wander and soaking up small details in these
films. That was something I really appreciated about Citizen Kane on my re-watch. It is true that Welles uses small
movements and subtle character positioning to draw your eye to different parts
of the frame, but I intentionally broke that during my second watch. This
worked even for a scene as small as the one where Thompson first talks to
Bernstein is visually pleasurable. There are multiple elements in this scene
that are interesting to look at. You could notice the way Kane’s picture looms
over the room, the way Bernstein’s chair seems to tower over him, bliss out to
the patter of rain outside, or watch his reflection in the desk.
Why is the film on this list?
I
don’t know what else can be said, so I’ll put it simply. Citizen Kane is fan-fucking-tastic.
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