The magician & the Mass media

Citizen Kane (1941) James Naremore The magician & the Mass media

Context • The work of the young Orson Welles • Proto-Fascist demagogues • After the whispered “Rosebud,” is “Don’t believe everything you hear on the radio.” • Against one of America’s most wealthy media moguls • Mrs. Kane sits at the right foreground, her face the very image of stern puritanical sacrifice • The mise-en-scène under fairly rigid control

Scene

Analysis • Two snow sleds • The first is named “Rosebud” & is given to Kane by his mother • The second is a Christmas present from Kane’s guardian, Thatcher • Which is called “Crusader,” is presented fully to the camera • The title character has not only two sleds but t & two friends • In its last moment, the film shifts from intellectual irony to dramatic irony, from apparent skepticism to apparent revelation

Analysis • Voyeurism inherent in the medium, and each leaves Kane an enigma • In the first shot, we see a “No Trespassing” sign that the camera promptly ignores • All the while encountering a bizarre montage: monkeys in a cage, gondolas in a stream, a golf course • As voyeuristic as anything in a Hitchcock movie • Like Kane’s own newspapers, the camera is an “inquirer,” are like teasing affronts to our curiosity • Aligning himself first with the progressives & then with the Fascists

Analysis • As a mythical character like Noah or Kubla Khan • Everybody is involved in a dubious pursuit • It’s a film about complexity, not about relativity • Once again the search for “Rosebud” seems tawdry • ex. Thompson’s abortive interview with Susan • She never heard of Rosebud • With a mild shock or a witty image at the beginning & a joke or an ironic twist at the end

Analysis • In a charmingly exuberant & altogether anti-realistic montage, he constantly turns to face the camera, muttering in disgust as the young Kane grows up, founds a newspaper, & then attacks Wall Street • Capital, it seems, is always in charge of Kane’s life • Kane and Leland in The Inquirer offices • Bernstein always places personal loyalty above principle • Bernstein’s reminiscences are chiefly about adventure & male camaraderie

Analysis • As the doggedly loyal Bernstein • Hinting that his involvement with Kane has sexual implications • Where Kane unsuccessfully tries to interest Leland in a woman, but even without that scene he seems to have no active sex life • It is Leland, not Emily Kane, who behaves like a jilted lover

Analysis • The comic toothache scene is Susan Alexander’s apartment • The closing line of Susan’s song concerns the theme of power; it comes from The Barber of Seville, & roughly translates “I have sworn it, I will conquer.” • Large-scale effects with a modest budget • Painted, Expressionistic image suggesting Kane’s delusions of grandeur & the crowd’s lack of individuality. • Everything is dominated by Kane’s ego: the initial “K” he wears as a stickpin, the huge blowup of his jowly face on a poster, & the incessant “I” in his public speech • Occasionally we see Kane’s supporters isolated in contrasting close-ups; but his political rival stands high above the action, dominating the frame like a sinister power

Analysis • Just at the moment when Kane’s political ambitions are wrecked, the film shifts into its examination of his sexual life • His tyranny is his treatment of Susan • An absurd plagiarism case against Welles & Mankiewicz • She represents for Kane a “cross-section of the American public.” • When Kane meets her, she is a working girl, undereducated & relatively innocent, • his relationship with her is comparable to his relationship with the masses who read his papers • “you talk about the people as though you owned them,” Leland says. Kane’s treatment of Susan illustrates the truth of his charge • Susan is reduced from a pleasant, attractive girl to a near suicide

Analysis • Begin the arduous, comically inappropriate series of music lessons • She attempts to quit the opera, but Kane orders her to continue because “I don’t propose to have myself made ridiculous.” • In a scene remarkable for the way it shows the pain of both people, his shadow falls over her face – just as he will later tower over her in the “party” scene, when a woman’s ambiguous scream is heard distantly on the sound track • Personal concerns, how the public & the personal are interrelated

Analysis • Throughout, Kane is presented with a mixture of awe, satiric invective, & sympathy • The surreal picnic, with a stream of black cars driving morosely down a beach toward a swampy encampment, where a jazz band plays • Both shots are impressive uses of optical printing. In response, Kane blindly destroys her room & remembers his childhood loss • Thompson becomes a slightly troubled onlooker • Here it might be noted that Welles was uneasy about the whole snow-sled idea

Analysis • A child-man, he spends all his energies rebelling against anyone who asserts authority over his will • Imprisoned by his childhood ego, Kane treats everything as a toy: first the sled, then the newspaper, then the Spanish-American War • Ultimately settling on the “No Trespassing” sign outside the gate. We are back where we began. Even the film’s title has been a contradiction in terms

Conclusion • Richard Nixon, the “Hotel Xanadu” • In translating Hearst into a creature of fiction, he & Mankiewicz borrowed freely from the lives of other American capitalists (among them Samuel Insull & John McCormack). • They salted the story with references to Welles’s own biography • at several junctures they departed from well-known facts about Hearst • The Hearst press, this in contrast to the Hearst-Davies relationship • Most of these changes tend to create sympathy for Kane • By showing Kane as a tragicomic failure

Conclusion • Kane clearly does satirize Hearst’s public life • Kane’s manipulative interest in the Spanish-American War • In the election scenes it depicts the corruption of machine politics with the force of a great editorial cartoon • The film is explicit in its denunciation, showing his supposed democratic aspirations as in reality a desire for power. We even see him on a balcony conferring with Hitler • Kane suggests that the process of discovery is more important than any pat conclusion • Watching a movie rather than reality itself

Conclusion • Because of the power he wielded in Hollywood • The paradox is that Welles had no desire to wreck the motion-picture industry. • Kane was held to a relatively modest A-picture budget • Industry bosses perceived Welles as an “artist” & a left-wing ideologue who might bring trouble • He would never again be allowed such freedom at a major studio

The magician & the Mass media