Following the classic format of world literature’s greatest tragedies, Citizen Kane explores how a character’s flaws lead him ever deeper into an inescapable despair.  The flaw in this case is complete selfishness, catalyzed by a loveless childhood.  And the character being explored is Charles Foster Kane (Orson Welles).

The film opens with Kane alone in a dimly lit bedroom within an expansive estate.  He lies in bed, clutching a snow globe.  He utters one word: “Rosebud”.  And then he dies.

Why a man who rose to tremendous heights of fame and fortune in his life would die so alone, with such an enigmatic final word, is the subject of a newspaper’s investigation.  Reporter Jerry Thompson (William Alland) interviews several people who were central to Kane’s life in the hopes of discovering who or what “Rosebud” was, and as each person responds to the reporter’s questions, we flash back to the relevant moments in Kane’s life.

Kane’s history begins with his childhood at his parents’ boarding home in Colorado.  The conversation is somewhat elusive, but from what I can gather, Kane stands to inherit a sizable fortune from some stocks that his mother received as payment from a boarder.  In an effort to keep the boy’s legacy out of the hands of her husband, Mrs. Kane (Agnes Moorehead) signs her son over to the care of Walter Parks Thatcher (George Coulouris), a banker.  In effect, Kane is adopted by a corporation.

Kane spends his years as a minor in Thatcher’s care.  Lacking parental guidance and nurture, he is a wild and prodigal youth.  Physical adulthood fails to lead to mature character, and Kane becomes merely a grown-up version of his intemperate adolescence.  He freely squanders his inheritance on whatever comes to mind, such as the purchase of a newspaper, which he commandeers to print whatever he desires, including stories that may or may not be entirely true.

In line with his impetuous personality, Kane marries twice, first to Emily (Ruth Warrick), a woman who would have made a wonderful wife and mother if Kane had taken the time to notice.  As his marriage begins to bore him, Kane turns to Susan (Dorothy Comingore), a pretty young thing he passes one day, and the affair leads to divorce and the second marriage.  But this marriage collapses also, because although Kane dotes upon Susan to no end, paying for her operatic career and even building the marvelous Xanadu estate just for her, Susan wants real affection, something Kane does not understand or know how to give.

It is Kane’s desire to receive and give love – or what he thinks is love – that leads to the alienation of just about everyone who would befriend him.  Lifelong companions desert him, his newspaper empire falters, and his political campaign dissolves in the wake of his scandalous activities.  In the end, he spends his last days alone in a palatial estate that has nothing to offer him but the echoes of his footsteps.

 

And so we now must answer the central question foundational to this review’s purpose: Why is this film held in such high esteem?  Without re-writing all the books that have covered this question, let me put forth some brief thoughts.  These will perhaps not be in the same order others would propose, but I have my reasons.

First, and perhaps the reason with the least impact, is its notoriety.  Though Orson Welles (The Third Man) never admitted it out loud, it was obvious that he was presenting a thinly disguised and highly scathing biography of newspaper mogul William Randolph Hearst.  It is not a scene-by-scene parallel of Hearst’s life, but the comparisons between Kane and Hearst are too numerous to be coincidence, and Hearst knew it.  He did everything in his power to ruin Welles and prevent the film’s release, but even his vast fortune and leverage could not stop it from reaching the public.

While that history is interesting, I assign it the lowest significance because Hollywood is regularly churning out films that anger people.  If Citizen Kane had had nothing else in its favor, the publicity inadvertently afforded it by Hearst would not have been enough to sustain its power up to the present day.

Second, and decidedly more amazing, is the fact that this was Welles’ first film.  Given the tremendous skill that even some of the worst directors must possess to get a film finished, Citizen Kane represents an astounding achievement for someone whose previous experience had been entirely in radio and theater, and who was only in his 20's when he began production on the film.

Third, Citizen Kane represents great leaps forward in cinematic creativity.  My guess is that this has to do with Welles’ inexperience: He was not bound to the conventions of contemporary cinema because he had never been trained in them, so he did things that went thoroughly against the grain.  Perhaps the most frequent defiance of convention is the film’s numerous long takes with deep focus.  We’re getting into film jargon, so let me explain.

A standard film lens focuses on one particular distance, while everything else falls out of focus to varying degrees.  But a deep-focus lens, together with appropriate lighting, will keep everything on screen in focus, from the closest to the furthest objects.  The film’s cinematographer, Gregg Toland, was a pioneer of these lenses and the subtle effects they could create.

 

Then there are the long takes, or shots.  A fairly standard pattern for any basic conversation scene is to start with a shot that lets us see where everyone is standing, and then as the scene progresses, we cut to closer shots of the individuals in turn as they speak or react.  Citizen Kane ignores this and is packed with shots that do not cut for sometimes over a minute, keeping all the major characters on screen.  Welles’ experience as a stage director no doubt gave him great training in staging these shots, guiding the actors so that they would move, look, speak, and pause at all the right times to let us viewers know where our attention should be.

Despite Welles’ lack of cinematic background, he was a prodigy on the radio, and it was his experience and philosophy of excellence that guided many of his innovations.  This was the man who so successfully imitated emergency news broadcasts in performing The War of the Worlds that he caused real panic among listeners.  In the same way, the opening news reel in Citizen Kane is crafted to mimic the style and idiosyncracies of actual news reels that would play in theaters before the feature.  The film was deliberately scratched, dragged across the floor, run through sandbags, and otherwise abused so that it would look like real clips spanning the many years of Kane’s life.  I remember watching for the first time and being confused because here was all this “authentic” news footage of a man I was certain was fictional.  I’m fairly sure Welles would have felt satisfaction on hearing that.

No single reason supports the film’s status by itself, but my fourth reason holds the most weight in my opinion: It’s a powerful movie!  Certainly it is old, and we have made vast improvements in film stock, sound recording, editing, and all the other technical aspects of production.  But Citizen Kane rises above its archaic facets with a strong story told well.

In the same way we suffer as we watch Hamlet lose himself to his vengeful obsession, or feel horror creep over us as we realize the heinous crimes Oedipus the King has unknowingly committed, we watch with sadness as Kane blindly sinks because of his own selfish choices.  He buys a newspaper because it feeds his ego, he marries Susan because it makes him feel good, he lavishes gifts upon her because he wants to feel loved.  Kane is a man who never learns to shed childhood impulse; he is classic self-absorption – Me, Me, Me! – from beginning to end, even when he sincerely believes that he is doing things for other people.  Deprived of love in his youth, he craves it desperately; but he never comes to the realization that true love is not focused inwardly at all, but outwardly.

Perhaps a few lines by Jed Leland (Joseph Cotten) summarize it best: “You don’t care about anything except you.  You just want to persuade people that you love ‘em so much that they ought to love you back.  Only you want love on your own terms.  It’s something to be played your way according to your rules.”  By the time Kane accepts this (if he ever really does), it is too late.

This tragedy is expertly played out by Welles and his cast, most of whom were part of his radio troupe and joined him on the silver screen for the first time.  Joseph Cotten (Shadow of a Doubt) plays Kane’s school buddy Leland, who slowly becomes disenchanted with his friend as Kane shifts from a Socialist idealist to, frankly, an arrogant ass.  In one scene, showgirls perform a song that Kane wrote for his own glory, and while Leland goes through the motions of clapping along, Cotten brings a look to Leland’s eyes that reveal his growing doubts.

Dorothy Comingore gives one of the stronger performances in the film as Susan Alexander, the young girl Kane falls for when his marriage is in the doldrums.  As almost a companion to Kane’s character arc, Susan goes from young and idealistic to older, wiser, and downtrodden.  Comingore’s cinema history is less than noteworthy, which is surprising given her full range of character delivered here.  Apparently Welles saw more in her than studio executives did.

The supporting cast is impeccable, with Everett Sloane and George Coulouris giving the performances that stick most in my mind.  However, I find Agnes Moorehead’s performance strangely wooden; and while I can only assume Welles wanted it that way, it adds a layer of surrealism to her scene that makes the bizarre event of a woman signing away her son to a banker even more unfathomable.

 

I’m not going to delve into the technical arts of the film any more than I already have.  Let it suffice to say that everything in the film, from the lighting to the editing to the music score, is a product of that fertile creativity Welles brought to Hollywood.  Innovations abound, many we are not even aware of when watching.

If you’ve tried Citizen Kane and gave up or dismissed it, or if you’ve never even bothered because it was just “some old movie,” let me encourage you to try it again with these ideas in mind.  Check out some books on Welles’ journey in making the film.  Or, if your reading time is slim, find the DVD edition that features Roger Ebert’s commentary.  Within a compact two hours, Ebert brings up some interesting anecdotes about the making of the film, and points out many of the tricks and techniques that Welles and Toland invented.

And then back up, close out all other distractions, and really watch it for what it has to say about humanity, particularly the difference between love and selfishness.  In my opinion, this more than anything is what gives the film its richness and longevity.  As long as we remain a race of self-absorbed beings, the warnings from Kane’s tragic plight will be potent and poignant.