The MoFo Movie Club Discussion: Citizen Kane

→ in
Tools    





I am half agony, half hope.
I stopped watching Citizen Kane after 15 minutes my first viewing. It was too strange. Then, I had to watch it for film analysis, and because I was looking for certain things, I enjoyed it very much. I've seen it twice more since, and I keep finding new things to marvel at and dissect. It really was full of surprises.
__________________
If God had wanted me otherwise, He would have created me otherwise.

Johann von Goethe



Happy New Year from Philly!
Ah, l'enfant terrible against le monstre sacre.

This film proves only one thing: if you want to get a guy's goat, go after his girl.

Rosebud, indeed!

Complex story telling, fabulous cinematography with a film noir feel, excellent character actors, the sensibility of a sardonic joker and the insane need to avenge the smallest slight made this film great art.

Mind you this recipe doesn't always work, but in this case it did.
__________________
Louise Vale first woman to play Jane Eyre in the flickers.




This film proves only one thing: if you want to get a guy's goat, go after his girl.

Rosebud, indeed!
Rumor has it, Rosebud was Willlian Randolph Hearst's pet name for Marion Davies' clitoris. Which could explain some of his fury at Orson.



Bright light. Bright light. Uh oh.
I've watched Citizen Kane all the way through quite a few times now recently, but I'm not posting anymore until somebody else adds something. The only thing I'll add is that my rating is
+, but that's because I'm jaded.
__________________
It's what you learn after you know it all that counts. - John Wooden
My IMDb page



Can I just say Ebert's commentary on the 2-disc is a real eye-opener for those who don't 'get it'.




I only made it half way through this movie on my first viewing about 5 years ago. I was overwhelmingly bored by it. However, reading through this thread (particularly Mark's contributions) has made me think about giving it another shot. Thanks a lot, Mark. As if I dont have enough movies to watch.
__________________
I confess I have yet to learn that a lesson of the purest good may not be drawn from the vilest evil. -- Charles Dickens



jet57's Avatar
Registered User
And so here we are again one and all. We are here to dissect the greatest movie of all time as some would have you believe. Where does one begin such an undertaking? Well, first off let me remind you (even though I find it a little ridiculous to do so for a 71 year old film) that this is a spoiler free zone. So if you've never seen this classic and plan to do so then; READ NO FURTHER.

Citizen Kane (Orson Welles - 1941)




Is this the greatest film that no one wants to see? I'm not to sure about that. I can say however in truth. This film leaves me cold. It has always left me cold and most likely (if I can ever be bothered to watch it again) will leave me cold once again in the future. That being said, I realize and freely admit that I understand very little about how a film is made and what it takes to make a shot "work" and so on and so forth. And from everything I have ever read about this film, I am constantly told how innovative and how marvelous the editing is and the camera work and etc, etc...

Does that make it a great film though? Seems to me that a lot of us are having the very same discussion about a little movie called Avatar right now. Avatar is pretty much all special effects and low on story and yet the majority of us love it. So, does that mean that Avatar could go on to become one of the greatest movies of all time? Maybe. Maybe not.



See, I just watch movies. I either love them, hate them, sort of like them. What have you. I can see that there were some very cool shots done in this film because I've seen a lot of 40's movies so I know what a lot of those films tended to look like but that still doesn't necessarily make for a great film. What really holds back this film for me is the story. I hated Charles Foster Kane. Yeah, hated him. People like this are the reason the world is the way it is today. Am I painting to broad of a generalization? Maybe, maybe not. I have my own ideas about the world and where its heading and films like this tend to make me worry about that. But I digress... I'll try to set my tangents aside.

I have to wonder aloud if I would have liked this film a lot more if Bogey played the lead role? I mean, I've only caught a handful of Orson Welles movies and I think he may be a fair actor. I thought he was really outstanding in Touch of Evil, but he also had a rather limited part in that film. Could Bogey have warmed up this cold fish of a film for me? I doubt it. I tend to believe that Welles was directly responsible for how dark and depressing the film is and I believe that's how he wanted it. Well, it worked, he got it.



So, what do you all think? Is this film all about the man Welles? Or was he honestly trying to "say" something about the world in general? What was the point of this film? Did Charles Foster Kane have any redeeming qualities? What were they? I missed them. See, I'm a simple guy for the most part. If he would have left his vast fortune to a puppy shelter or something at the end of the film I might have an entirely different outlook on the guy. Instead you see the staff throwing a bunch of his crap into the furnace which to me lends even more credence to the lack of point to it all. I don't know. I have to admit, the film does make you think about things and (obviously) can send a guy like me off on a tangent. But again, does that mean its a great film?



If I can compare this to what I truly think is a great film for a moment. I'm sorry if this bothers you, but it's just how I talk about movies. Casablanca, to me, is a great film. Why? The story is simple, elegant and well acted by some terrific players. Citizen Kane even (almost boastfully) admits at the end of the film that the majority of the actors in the movie have next to no experience. Why? Is this an example of Welles being Welles or is it a brilliant move on his part.? For the record, I really don't know enough about the man to say whether or not if I think he was some kind of egomaniac. The movie, at times, can certainly take one down that road (if you have a similar view of things as I do I expect) but, I may be completely missing the point too.

So what do you think? What was the point? Why is this movie so hard to watch? If it isn't. Why is it so easy for you to watch?
Sorry about not including your pictures: the site said I din't have enough posts to make the reply (with links): <shrug>


Yeah. So I read your enquire and review with interest. I have seen the picture, I dunno ten times? This picture has a lot of inside meaning: Wells acted out the life of William Randolph Hearst. “Rosebud”: I’m convinced, represented some secret that Hearst must have had. It certainly was a secret with Kane. (A secret memory, a pleasure that he has never had again: an innocence . . .) Who knows? Rosebud obviously did.

Kane’s staff throws everything in the fire after he dies, simply because, nobody liked him. Nobody respected him. Nobody wanted to remember him. Yet everybody feared him: he made sure of that. He was an abusive person from the beginning. Just – like - Hearst.
Well’s innovations in filmmaking, at that time, and even now, go over like Stanley Kubrik’s work: nobody had command of a camera and what went into that frame better than Kubrick. And nobody has been able to duplicate it. Wells was an innovator: nobody had put a roof on a set until Wells. And such a simple concept, so overlooked, and so missing from reality set design. Let alone the lighting opportunities.

Because you don’t know much about filmmaking, you can’t observe the detail that Wells put into this picture. The picture itself, as I recall didn’t make that much money. But for people into movie making, at that time up until this, it was “zounds” ahead of it’s time.
Not using well known actors is a great trick for helping an audience believe the characters: they are more real if you don’t know who they are. Kubrick did it a lot: saves money and separates good direction from bad direction.
The picture ruined Wells: Hearst took all of his money and went after Wells with both feet. First trying to get the picture shelved, and then in shelving Wells: he died broke.

I would suggest that if you are really into it: you seem to want to be . . . Then read up on Wells, read up on Hearst and then Read up on Citizen Kane. And then, in front of no less than a 52” screen: watch it again. And before you read all of that; take a good long look at the best photography you’ve ever seen. Why do those pictures effect you? What makes them good? Do they communicate? The apply what you learn to Well’s photographic style in picture.
See what happens.



I've always thought that the 'Rosebud' mystery was a bit of a red herring.
I disagree--it was the motivation and final explanation of Kane's life. The newsfilm staff had an inkling with their guess that it was something Kane lost. Later Joseph Cotton's character says something about Kane was always looking for something in himself, that probably even he didn't know what was driving him. And the simple truth was that, to protect him, to give him the best in life, to show her love for him, his mother sent him away from the only place where we ever see him carefree and completely happy. As she makes her decision, we see young Kane in one of those famous shots where the foreground, midground and background are all in focus happily playing with his sled. And when he leaves, the camera cuts to his snow-covered sled tossed aside. The final scene brings the film full circle and connects everything to its beginning. That final shot is absolutely vital in connecting all the dots of what drove Kane.



Citizen Kane even (almost boastfully) admits at the end of the film that the majority of the actors in the movie have next to no experience. Why?
Oh, my. You missed the message on this one, PW. The cast was relatively new to movies, but they had lots and lots of acting experience both on stage and on radio in the same Mercury Theater productions in which Welles and John Houseman cut their acting and directorial teeth (Houseman never broke into movies as an actor until many years later in The Paper Chase.) All of the major actors and even some of the supporting actors in Kane went on to become longtime stars and outstanding character actors in the movies! What you're witnessing in that film is the start of several brilliant careers.

Why is this movie so hard to watch? If it isn't. Why is it so easy for you to watch?
I dunno. Why do I love escargot and oysters on the half shell and shucking boiled crawfish, but it gags my wife? All I know was that I was in my mid-20s when I first saw a screening of Citizen Kane, and it was like I was seeing a motion picture for the first time--everything filmed before or after was like finger puppets on the wall. It grabbed me from the getgo and carried me on one of the most fasinating voyages of discovery I ever had. Everyone talks about how fabulous the photography is, and they're right. But then there's also the use of backlighting and other lighting effects. The multiple reflections of Kane in the hallway mirrors and surreal nature of the mass picnic on the Kane estate with the black staff and muscians are like looking at impressionist paintings. And the use of dialog to transition to the next scene and illustrate the passage of time in the breakfast table meetings between Kane and his first wife was extremely innovative and was copied by others afterward. Plus the daring perspectives with cameras placed on the floor or dollying in through a broken skylight to pick up the characters below. There's a world of wonderful eye-candy in that film. So great cast, great photography, great sets and great use of special effects (with those giant fireplaces), great make-up in the aging of Kane and others. And it's a great story, telling of a man's fall from Grace like a Greek tragedy. It wonderfully and authentically depicts the various historical periods, which is vital to me. But best of all, it's a story of a newsman told from a newsman's point of view. I love the back-lit scenes of the news staff conference where you can't make out the features of the nameless reporters and editors picking apart and coming up with new angles to tell Kane's story. The editor's complaint that the newsreel doesn't tell "the story behind the man" is spot on. And the way the reporters fan out trying to run down all sorts of clues and interviewing everyone who might know something about Kane and their irreverent, smart-alec remarks in the process is exactly the way reporters always have been and the way we still are today. You see Kane's story from various viewpoints as the reporters dig it out. But it's a complicated story because people have complicated lives and Kane even more so because of his wealth and power, and in the end the reporters can't tie it together because they're missing the one vital fact--the Rosebud connection that explains it all.

The thing I like most about Kane is its complexity. It's not the kind of film where you can chat with your friends and eat popcorn while you're watching it. It demands your attention, your partipation, it forces you to think about what you're seeing on screen. And some folks just don't like to do that



Rumor has it, Rosebud was Willlian Randolph Hearst's pet name for Marion Davies' clitoris. Which could explain some of his fury at Orson.
Geeze, that old story has whiskers. Think a minute--who would know this other than Hearst and Davies????? It was one of those silly jokes that made the rounds back then.



I'm not really sure what the deal is with Hearst. Pauline Kael claims that she read a first draft copy of the script to Citizen Kane and that the only name on it was Herman J. Mankiewicz. She claims that it's 99% of what the shooting script was. It was only later that Welles' name was added to the credit. Maybe somebody else knows about this, but since I've been to Hearst Castle five times, I do know a lot about the man, and he's obviously a fascinating subject.
I read something somewhere that Mankiewicz modeled his original story on some personality he hated but it wasn't Hearst. In fact, as I remember it, the main character at first had no connection with newspapers and radio. It may have had something to do with the evangelical preachers who were doing a big business back then with traveling tent shows and radio programs, but I may be dis-remembering that. Anyway, at some point they kept the basics of Mankiewicz's original character and made him into a newspaper owner, so it really wasn't based on Hearst at all, as Welles always claimed. But apparently it was the Marion Davies connection that seemed to be paralleled in Kane with the untalented singer that everyone, including Hearst, focused on. The funny thing is that Davies actually wasn't a bad actress if you look at some of her pictures.



I've always thought that the 'Rosebud' mystery was a bit of a red herring.
I disagree--it was the motivation and final explanation of Kane's life. The newsfilm staff had an inkling with their guess that it was something Kane lost. Later Joseph Cotton's character says something about Kane was always looking for something in himself, that probably even he didn't know what was driving him. And the simple truth was that, to protect him, to give him the best in life, to show her love for him, his mother sent him away from the only place where we ever see him carefree and completely happy. As she makes her decision, we see young Kane in one of those famous shots where the foreground, midground and background are all in focus happily playing with his sled. And when he leaves, the camera cuts to his snow-covered sled tossed aside. The final scene brings the film full circle and connects everything to its beginning. That final shot is absolutely vital in connecting all the dots of what drove Kane.
I just meant that, for me, the film is about more than finding out what "Rosebud" is. That's what the characters in the story are looking for. It is, as you say, what joins the dots, but if that's all you get from the film I think you've missed a lot. A bit like only being concerned about the mystery of The Maltese Falcon.



I just meant that, for me, the film is about more than finding out what "Rosebud" is. That's what the characters in the story are looking for. It is, as you say, what joins the dots, but if that's all you get from the film I think you've missed a lot. A bit like only being concerned about the mystery of The Maltese Falcon.
Like the Maltese Falcon, Rosebud was "the stuff dreams are made of." And in both it's the telling of the story that unravels the mystery and establishes that truth that make those such great films.



I am Jack's sense of overused quote
Every art form has its "required material." If you consider yourself a fan of a particular art, you must be familiar with some or all of these works. Sculpture has The David. Painting has Mona Lisa. Music has Beethoven's Ninth Sympony. Theatre has Hamlet; writing has Ulysses.

For film, that work is Citizen Kane.



This is my favorite scene. This is the culmination of his personal mission--at this point he is loved by all. He is their savior. Kane is central on the screen--his giant visage behind him, a gargantuan example of his ego and inflated self worth. His arms outstrecthed in image of a crucified Christ--for CFK so loved the world he sent his only begotten self. The hubris displayed in this scene is his tragic flaw.

Citizen Kane is my favorite movie. A classic. It is the greatest American Film, and certainly makes a case as the greatest film. Beautifully shot. Well acted. Well directed. I cannot say too many good things about it.
__________________
"What might have been and what has been
Point to one end, which is always present." - T.S. Eliot



Bright light. Bright light. Uh oh.
Awesome.

I'm going to get back into this thread very slowly, at least until others have participated (and you know who you are...)

Who else saw Susan Alexander's eye (Dorothy Comingore's) dissolve into an eye on a stained glass window eye at Xanadu? That happened near the ending with the cut from Susan's interview to... no, you guys try to find it for now, although I'm sure that plenty have it memorized. I'll give you more clues, but it's not like you really need any...



As a journalist and a historian, I love the way Kane captures the spirit of Yellow Journalism of the late 19th-early 20th century when papers were as apt to print hoaxes as to expose them. There were cases of newspapers starting up with a bold declaration of principles and pledges to fight for the common man only to become entrenched representatives of the status quo as time went along. I love the way the story is told from the viewpoint of reporters trying to run down a story--I know those people. Hell, I am those people.