Citizen Kane

Citizen Kane was released seventy years ago on May 1, and I feel a little silly in even attempting to write about it. What's left to say? It's certainly the most written about film of all time, and generally acclaimed as the greatest movie ever made. What can I add to the discussion?

Instead of commenting on the history of its making, the supposed connections to William Randolph Hearst, or the smears by gossip columnists that doomed its reception, I'll write about what was going through my mind when I watched it for the most recent time, Saturday night. I've seen it probably half a dozen times, but this time listened to no commentaries, watched no extras. It was Citizen Kane, straight with no chaser.

I suppose the first time I saw it was in high school, on TV. I did see it at least once on a big screen in a film class I took. I think film academics drool over it so much because it is so amazingly visually interesting. Just consider the opening few minutes, when we get the "No Trespassing" sign (which also ends the film), and then the view of Xanadu. There are several perspectives of the building, even one reflected in water, but the placement of the light in the window on the screen never changes. And then the almost surreal death of Kane: the whispering of "Rosebud," the dream-like tumble of the snow globe, the nurse's reflection in a piece of its broken glass. Nothing in American movie history had ever been like it.

Welles is co-billed in the closing credits with Gregg Toland, his cinematographer (Welles lists himself last in the cast of characters). Toland is as much a hero of this film as Welles is, for his revolutionary use of deep focus. The scene most often cited is the one in which Kane, as a young boy, is seen playing outside in the snow while in the foreground his parents sign his life away to a banker. This is repeated throughout, and when deep focus was impossible, such as the scene in which Kane finished Leland's bad review of Susan Alexander's opera debut while Leland is deep in the background, the result was accomplished with an optical printer, splicing the scenes together.

There are so many other jaw-dropping visual moments: the tracking shot through the skylight at Susan Alexander's nightclub; the reflection of the dancing Kane in the window as Leland expresses doubts to Bernstein about the future; the legendary breakfast montage, to show the increased estrangement between Kane and first wife; Kane's rage after Alexander leaves him, when he trashes her room and then staggers through the hallway of mirrors. All of these were such master strokes of telling a story in visual means that its still exhilarating to watch them, even after many viewings.

But, here's my problem with Citizen Kane. I don't list it as among my favorite films, though it is vastly entertaining and flies by breathlessly. I admire Citizen Kane, but I don't love it. And I've always felt that it was because the movie, like the Tin Man, had no heart.

The spine of the film is that Kane is a man who had everything but then lost it. Fair enough, but just what are we supposed to make of that? Are we to have empathy for him? I certainly don't. There's also a title card at the beginning, after newsreel footage shows him being accused of being both a communist and a fascist, of his statement that he is nothing other than an American, which he later repeats in an interview. Is this Welles' summation of the American dream? Kane is a multifaceted fellow, but he never struck me as being a villainous representation of American capitalism. He's probably no better or worse than any other captain of industry. As a man he's not exactly a pillar of respectability toward women, but his heart always seems to be in the right place, such as his attempt to bring down the corrupt Jim Gettys and his loyalty to Susan, despite her flaws as a singer (of course, this misplaced loyalty ends up being a kind of cruelty).

Maybe this is intentional. After all, the entire film is a reporter (played by William Alland, whose face is never clearly seen) trying to find out who the real man is, chasing down the meaning of Rosebud and never getting the answer. The film is really a whodunit without a solution. (Quick story--when my friend Bob was in high school, he mentioned to a teacher that he was going to watch Citizen Kane on TV that night for the first time. The teacher promptly told him what Rosebud was. Bob is still mad about that).

Thus it's difficult for me to hold dear a film whose central character remains an enigma. I suppose I don't buy the conceit of what Rosebud stands for, despite Mr. Bernstein's speech about the girl on the ferry that he's never forgotten. Instead, I enjoy Citizen Kane as a masterpiece of visual storytelling, a terrific yarn, and a landmark of cinema history.