A Filmmaker's Guide to: "Citizen Kane" (1941)

In this chapter of ‘the filmmaker’s guide’ we are going to explore some of the films that have changed our outlook of the possibilities in cinema in some way, shape or form. These can include, but are not limited to: revolutionary cinematography, narratives that challenge the social structure and the common view, trademark styles of auter cinema, brilliant adaptations of novels and other works, films of philosophical value and films that touch our hearts and souls with their incredible underlying messages and morals. Within each of the films in this chapter there is a certain something that makes them special and a certain something that makes them linger long after we have watched them for the first time. Lasting impressions are difficult to create, but I think that the films we will briefly touch on in this chapter are some of the films we will never ever forget.

“Citizen Kane” (1941) dir. by Orson Welles

Orson Welles, or as some have called him in the past, the “One Man Band” (the same title as a biography written about him), was a celebrated actor, writer and director but his best efforts in the first and third field have definitely been within the realms of the dialogue of “Citizen Kane” (1941). The reason I say first and third is because I do believe that this film was co-written even though Orson Welles did receive the writing credit for it at the following Academy Awards. Be that as it may, this film is still in the history books as one of the greatest films ever made because of its purely revolutionary storytelling style through montage, match-on-graphics, match-on-actions and various fade-ins and outs that make the film an amazing experience to watch.

Various parts of the movie stand out but none stand out in dialogue quite like the “News on the March” obituary for Charles Kane. Though a lengthy scene filled with narration, subtopics and drawn-out sequences, the dialogue is still brilliantly written and satirically so even though you may not notice its relation to the satire aspect of the media the first time around. The way in which the fact manifests itself is through the irony of Charles Kane’s death being broadcasted by the news.

The other thing that I think makes the movie stand out is the way in which we discover that the story is not really about the discovery of the ‘rosebud’ item, but rather the discovery of who Charles Foster Kane is himself. The ‘rosebud’ item is something secondary and something that links the old Charles Kane to the new one. It is something that constantly draws us back to the child Kane rather than the one who is old, living in a half-built super-mansion and the story expresses that upon his death, he seems to return to the childlike nature he once was denied. It is a constant battle of sympathy in the film in which the audience are torn between having it and not having it. Only upon his death and the revisiting of the ‘rosebud’ can we truly have sympathy for him because he recalls the world he once knew and loved in comparison to the one he grew within. It is truly a grand experience with many detailed layers and levels to explore.

Legendary was Xanadu where Kubla Khan decreed his stately pleasure dome. Today, almost as legendary is Florida's Xanadu, world's largest private pleasure ground. Here, on the deserts of the Gulf Coast, a private mountain was commissioned and successfully built. One hundred thousand trees, twenty thousand tons of marble are the ingredients of Xanadu's mountain. Contents of Xanadu's palace: paintings, pictures, statues, the very stones of many another palace — a collection of everything so big it can never be catalogued or appraised, enough for ten museums — the loot of the world. Xanadu's livestock: the fowl of the air, the fish of the sea, the beast of the field and jungle. Two of each, the biggest private zoo since Noah. Like the pharaohs, Xanadu's landlord leaves many stones to mark his grave. Since the pyramids, Xanadu is the costliest monument a man has built to himself. Here in Xanadu last week, Xanadu's landlord was laid to rest: a potent figure of our century, America's Kubla Khan, Charles Foster Kane.