Citizen Kane

Often cited as the greatest film ever made Citizen Kane is one of those films that even those who have not seen it know it by reputation. Personally I think Casablanca is the better film overall but I cannot deny that Citizen Kane is the better made film. Orson Wells, given carte blanche to make his first film his way with no studio interference used that freedom to create a film riddled with innovation, special camera tricks, a timeline that jumps around a lot, and a story that ultimately got him in a lot of trouble with William Randolph Hearst, a media baron who didn’t take too kindly this quasi-biographical film purportedly about himself. He went to great lengths to keep this film from being released. When that failed he tried to sink it in the eyes of public opinion with a flurry of bad press that initially kept people from going to see it. None of this kept it from having longevity through rereleases and it has managed to endure to this day as a cinematic masterpiece.

The film opens up with a brief look at Xanadu, the mansion of media baron Charles Foster Kane (Orson Wells) who is lying on his death bead. As he dies he utters just one word, “Rosebud.” A newsreel reporter, Jerry Thompson (Williams Alland) is tasked with uncovering the meaning of Rosebud after the news of Kane’s death becomes a global sensation. Thompson sets out to interview Kane’s friends and associates and the information he gleans from these interviews paints a picture of the man that became Citizen Kane. He learns about how, when Kane was a young child,  gold was discovered through a mining deed belonging to his mother, Mary Kane. She hired a man named Thatcher to set up a trust for Charles that would provide a good education for him with Thatcher assuming guardianship over the young boy until he is of age. Charles, unwilling to go with Thatcher and leave his carefree childhood behind, strikes him with his snow sled and tries to run away.

By the time Kane is 25 and gains total control of his trust Thatcher has managed the money from the gold well enough to make Kane one of the richest men in the world. Kane uses this money to obtain a newspaper, The New York Inquirer, that publishes scandalous articles, attacking business interests of Thatcher and himself. When the stock market crashes in 1929 Kane hands over financial management, but not operational control, to Thatcher since the crash has left him without cash. Kane marries Emily Norton (Ruth Warrick), the niece of the President of the United States but that marriage disintegrates over the years as Kane starts an affair with amateur singer Susan Alexander (Dorothy Comingore). After divorcing Emily, when the affair became public and ended his aspiring political career, he marries Susan and uses his influence and power to promote her as an opera singer even though she has neither the talent nor the ambition for it. He builds her an opera house and thousands gather for her humiliating performance. This experience, and her increasingly frustrating relationship with Kane, leads her to attempt suicide. Eventually she too leaves him.  All of Thompson’s interviews paint a picture of Kane from that childhood with the snow sled to the old man dying in his bed but none of it explains what the word “Rosebud” meant to him, only that in a fit of anger he destroyed Susan’s room calming only when he saw a snow globe. The snow globe reminded him of something from his past and as he grabbed it he utterer the word “Rosebud.”

Being granted full control of his first film is something almost unheard of even back in the 1940’s. Charlie Chaplin would have had that type of control over his films but he also ran the studio that made those films. For someone like Wells it would have been unprecedented. Yet that is the deal he struck with RKO Radio Pictures and Mercury Productions. He had a keen eye for style and cinematography that was unlike anything being produced at the time. This can be seen in several instances where the camera is clearly placed below floor level and angled up creating the illusion of Kane being larger than life. Noticeably, ceilings are visible in many shots, something avoided in studio pictures because they would interfere with the necessary lighting rigs. Wells managed to do this without sacrificing the lights or his vision of the shots. It gives Citizen Kane a unique look and visual style that many modern audiences may now overlook but was groundbreaking for audiences of the time. 

Makeup was used to take Wells from twenty-five years old all the way to his waning years. This makeup effect is nearly perfect at presenting the young actor across all the decades. When the elderly Kane is trashing Susan’s room it is impossible to tell that this is a young man in make-up. The same cannot be said for Joseph Cotton who plays Kane’s best friend and associate Jedediah Leland. When Thompson is interviewing Leland at a nursing home the makeup is poor enough to betray the effect. Joseph Cotton himself was displeased with the way it looked and complained about how all the work was done to make Kane look old and no effort went into his own appearance.

The film explores ideals like isolationism and the news media’s ability to sway public opinion. Charles Foster Kane dies alone surrounded by years and years of stockpiled junk. These symbols of his wealth get unceremoniously tossed into an incinerator after his death alongside an important symbol of his lost youth, a youth traded away by his mother for his education and wealth. His newspaper manipulates public opinions on the Spanish-American War. Later he will pressure Leland when the man refuses to write a positive review on Susan’s operatic performance. He fires Leland, yet finishes the article in the same way Leland had intended to write it. At the time these were powerful themes but now they are dated as the current moguls like Rupert Murdoch have this kind of media manipulation a thousand times more powerful than Charles Foster Kane ever did.

The release of Citizen Kane was racked with controversy. Delays forced an early screening to be limited to a rough cut that columnist Hedda Hopper attacked immediately for what she conceived was an attack on William Randolph Hearst. Louella Parsons, a columnist who worked directly for  Hearst, felt humiliated by the film and made threats intent on preventing the film’s release. Parsons was under attack from Hearst, himself, for not being the one to bring the film to his attention and she went on the offensive, threatening to sue if the film was released. These threats were expanded to include exposure of studio head’s private affairs should the film continue forward. This attack’s intention was to put pressure on the Hollywood studio heads to force RKO to pull the film from distribution. An offer was made to pay RKO back their entire financial investment on the film in exchange for destroying the prints and burning the negative. Ultimately a concession was made, three minutes of footage was edited out to appease Hearst and the film was released on schedule with one of the largest promotional campaigns in history.

All that controversy amounted to almost nothing after the film released to mostly glowing reviews but also a fair share of negative ones. Hedda Hopper of course trounced it and there were still some theaters that elected not to show it but that didn’t stop it from releasing nationwide. With all the bad press from Hearst and the campaign to bury the film it was a hard sell to the public and didn’t turn a profit until it rereleased years later. Its status as one of the greatest films of all time came later. Citizen Kane may have barely made it into theaters back in 1941 but it has managed to endure. It was nominated for nine Academy Awards, winning just one for the screenplay. Looking back on the awards retroactively it’s clear that Citizen Kane was better than its competition but Hollywood at the time didn’t see it for what it was. How Green Was My Valley took home the top prize and, even though it is a great film in its own right, it’s no Citizen Kane.

Academy Award Nominations:

Outstanding Motion Picture: Orson Wells

Best Director: Orson Wells

Best Actor: Orson Wells

Best Original Screenplay: Herman J. Mankiewicz and Orson Wells (won)

Best Scoring of a Dramatic Picture: Bernard Herrmann

Best Sound Recording: John O. Aalberg

Best Art Direction - Black and White: Perry Ferguson, Van Nest Polglase, Al Fields and Darrell Silvera

Best Cinematography - Black and White: Gregg Toland

Best Film Editing: Robert Wise

____________________________________________________

Release Date: September 5, 1941

Running Time: 119 Minutes

Not Rated

Starring: Orson Wells, Joseph Cotten, Dorothy Comingore, Everett Sloane, Ray Collins, George Coulouris, Agnes Moorehead, Paul Stewart, Ruth Warrick, Erskine Sanford and William Alland

Directed By: Orson Wells