"The unexamined life is not worth living." Socrates

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• General Notes 
• Citizen Kane WebQuest
• Resources

• Charles Foster Kane - Orson Welles
• Jedidiah Leland - Joseph Cotton
• Susan Alexander Kane - Dorothy Comingore
• Mary Kane - Agnes Morehead
• Emily Monroe Norton Kane - Ruth Warrick
• Jim W. Gettys - Ray Collins
• Mr. Bernstein - Everett Sloane
• Walter Thatcher - George Coulouris

 
• Screenplay - Herman J. Mankiewicz & Orson Welles
• Director - Orson Welles

These are scenes to look for in the film. They are listed in chronological order.

• First scene: "No Trespassing." The camera (and you, the viewer) ignore the sign.
• Camera draws closer to the window of Xanadu. The window stays in the same place but it gets closer as you pass many of the items that will be mentioned in the newsreel to come.
• Kane's lips say, "Rosebud."
• The nurse is seen in the broken glass ball.
• "News on the March." An imitation of a typical newsreel such as "Time on the March" that might have been shown in movie theaters around the country. This is Charles Foster Kane as history might know him.
• What is the setting of the movie? What is it you are supposed to be looking at? First we see a bedroom, then a movie about Kane, and then the newsreel stops and suddenly you're in a small screening room. If you feel disoriented and don't know where you are in the movie, don't feel bad. You are supposed to feel out of place and off balance. At any point in the movie you can't tell where you are in the story and do not know how far you are from the end. As a matter of fact, if you should come into a screening of this movie someday, you still won't know where you are in the movie, beginning, middle or end, even if you have seen it before. You are outside time.
• Faceless men discuss the newsreel. Mr. Thompson is introduced. The search for "Rosebud" begins. You will never see Mr. Thompson's face.
• The camera goes through the skylight during the storm. Early special effects.
• Susan Alexander Kane, Kane's second ex-wife, is introduced.
• The Thatcher Library. Walter Thatcher is introduced. Thatcher is revered almost as an icon. Note the sunlight that streams down on the table and the caretakers of the "The Book."
• Kane's childhood in Colorado. Mary Kane gains the money because a boarder left the deed to a "worthless" gold mine as payment for the rent. The mine turns out to be "the Colorado Lode" and worth millions.
• Listen to the mother's voice as she yells, "Charles." It is shrill and harsh. (By the way, that's Agnes Morehead playing the mother. She will become better known as Endora, the mother on the television show Bewitched.
• With what does Charles hit Mr. Thatcher?
• Kane is raised by a bank "where you can't get at him," Mary tells her husband Jim. What does that mean? Is the father ever mentioned by Kane or anyone else in the movie again? What should you make of this?
• What is the Christmas gift that Thatcher gives to Charles?
• "I think it would be fun to run a newspaper."
• Introduction of Mr. Bernstein. Note Bernstein's description of what a person might remember. It is one of my favorite stories (also Roger Ebert's).
• Kane turns against his guardian, Mr. Thatcher, and attempts to destroy him.
• Watch for the optical illusion while Kane signs away his ownership of much of his empire. Keep your eye on the window in the back of the room. When Kane is close to Bernstein, Kane appears large and the window seems small. When Kane walks to the back of the room he talks about what has happened to his power. Kane becomes tiny and the viewer realizes that the window is huge. This is a result of the "deep focus" technique of Greg Toland. Because objects in the foreground and the background stay in equal focus, the viewer has no depth perception to tell what is supposed to be close or far away except for the relative size of the object. When the viewer has no idea what the size of the object is, the viewer can be fooled.
• "You know, Mr. Bernstein, if I hadn't been very rich, I might have been a great man," Kane says. . . .

"What would you have liked to have been?" Thatcher asks Kane.
"Everything you hate," is the reply.
• The first days of the newspaper. Kane says that he wants to make the Inquirer as important to the people of the city as the "gas in that light." Gas lights will become obsolete very quickly.
• Note the Declaration of Principles and who wants to save them.
• Leland says that he has a hunch that it will become important like the Constitution or the Declaration of Independence - "or my first report card." Leland wryly indicates a bit of cynicism.
• Watch the portrait of the Chronicle staff as they become the Inquirer staff. It is a great effect, even today.
• The birthday party for Kane. Listen for what Kane says about his promises. Listen to the conversation between Leland and Bernstein about principles and what "we stand for."
• Kane marries the niece of the president, Emily Monroe Norton. According to the news reel, Emily will die in a car crash with their son. The fate of these two characters is not mentioned outside of the news reel. Notice how little is said about Kane's son.
• Breakfast between the Kanes. It is the beginning and the ending of a marriage in less than two minutes. It is wonderful movie making. At the end Emily is reading the Chronicle.
• Kane meets Susan Alexander. Watch for the items on Susan's bureau. You will see the glass ball for the first time. Listen for the reason Kane is out that night. Listen for the reason Susan wants to sing opera. "You know what mothers are like," she says.

"Yes," he replies. Welles says volumes with a look. This scene links the glass ball, Colorado, Kane's mother and Susan Alexander. It is key to understanding why he takes up with Susan.
• Kane is campaigning. We see Junior for the only time in the film. The only other time Junior will even be mentioned is by Susan Alexander who thinks Charlie should consider him when dealing with Gettys blackmail.
• Emily Monroe Norton Kane meets Jim Gettys and Susan Alexander. Notice who the least important person in the room is. She is merely a pawn for all the other players to manipulate. Notice also how civil Gettys and Norton are to each other. They respect and understand each other more than  they respect and understand Charles Kane.
• Headline: "Kane Caught in Love Nest with 'Singer.'" What do the quotes around "Singer" mean?
• After the election, look for the scene that makes Leland and Kane look like giants as they talk. In order to shoot this scene Greg Toland had to dig into the floor of the set put the camera at floor level. Welles also had to put a ceiling into the set because the camera was shooting up. Kane says, "A toast, Jedidiah, to love on my terms. They're the only terms that anybody ever knows." Where do you think he got this philosophy?
• Wedding day: "We're going to be a great opera star."
• Note the reaction of the two stage hands to Alexander's opera debut.
• Note that the opening of the opera is shown twice. What do you learn during the second that you don't learn in the first?
• Declaration of Principles and $25,000 are returned.
• "My reasons satisfy me, Susan. You seem unable to understand them. I'll tell them to you again. You will continue singing." Good reasons.
• "You don't know what it means when people just don't, the whole audience just doesn't want you," Susan says.

"That's when you've got to fight them," Kane replies. His mother sent him away. Thatcher never wanted him. How does Kane see the world?
• See the size of the mansion. Kane and others are dwarfed by the scale of the rooms, especially the fireplace. What does this indicate about Kane?
• The small picnic in the country. Note what Susan and Kane say about love. Note Susan's voice. Does she sound like the mother who yelled, "Charles!" out the window in Colorado?
• Watch for the pteradactyls in the picnic scene. A story I read, but can't track down, is that Welles used background scenery from King Kong to represent the swamplands of Florida.
• As the Kanes argue there are screams coming from the picnic. The screams seem to be ignored. There is nothing in the world except them. These two are completely self-centered.
• The cockatoo screeches. Who does this sound like? Mother? Susan?
• Susan leaves him.
• Kane wrecks the bedroom after Susan leaves. What does he pick up that stops his anger?
• Kane leaves the room and passes the mirrors. How many Kanes do you see? What do you think the director was trying to get you to understand about the movie, or about Kane?
• About "Rosebud," Raymond says, "I heard him say it the other time, too." Though Raymond does not appear in the scene, it seems he is the source for the newspaper story about Kane's last word.
• Look at the basement of loot. Note the scope of that scene and imagine that there had to be somebody who had to set the stage for that scene and place key bits of props from earlier scenes where the camera would pick them up for the audience to see.
• Listen to Thompson's remarks about finding "Rosebud" and what it would say about a person's life. Do you agree?
• Find "Rosebud." Well, are you satisfied or not? Now recall what Thompson had just said about finding "Rosebud."
• The secret of "Rosebud" goes up in smoke. What else will never be known about Kane?
• Last scene: "No Trespassing." What is the director trying to say?

Questions:

• What does this movie say about a person's life? What does it say about what we read in the newspapers or see on television about people's lives? Whose point of view do you not have in this movie about Charles Foster Kane?
• Trace the references to Charles' mother or mothers in general throughout the movie. How many do you have and what do they say about the other characters and what motivates them. For instance, what did Charles' mother have to do with his affair with Susan Alexander?
• Why do you think the mother wants to get Charles out of Colorado?
• Kane states, "If I hadn't been rich, I might have been a really great man." What do you think he means by this? Do you agree?
• You are the best friend of Charles Foster Kane that you can be. Choose a crucial time in his life when you would advise him. What time in his life would you choose and what would you advise him to do?
• Kane states, "A toast, Jedidiah, to love on my terms. They're the only terms that anybody ever knows." What is your reaction to this statement? Do you agree with it or not and why?

Resources

 Citizen Kane - An Atlantis Enterprises Special Selection

This is a metapage for the movie and Orson Welles.

 Citizen Kane

A film guide by Jim Emerson describing why Citizen Kane is considered one of the cinema's great films.

 "Citizen Kane"

This site is also a film guide, but has links to all of the stars and the major players in the film crew.

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