Citizen Kane

See also: Kane

Citizen Kane is an American film of Orson Welles left in 1941.

Synopsis

Beginning of the Years 1940, Charles Foster Kane dies in his manor of Xanadu, by pronouncing in a last breath “ Rosebud ” (“rosebud”, in French). This last enigmatic word attracts the curiosity of the press. The Thompson journalist is in charge of the investigation. Several meetings then will take place with various people having côtoyé Kane. They are accompanied each time by flashback S which raise always a little more the veil on its life.

Heir to the fortune left by his mother, Kane becomes a large press baron. He marries the niece of the president, and hopes to make a political career, career which stops when it is learned that he misleads his wife with a pseudo-professional singer. The first requires the divorce, and Kane then marries the second, which will require finally, it also, to separate from him. Kane ends up only dying in its immense unfinished Manoir.

Each person having côtoyé Kane has a quite particular perception of the character, often very different from that of the others - the accounts, same intersected, do nothing but clarify certain specific aspects of Charles Foster Kane. Its mystery remains (almost) whole…

Comments

Citizen Kane is differently richer for its visual and sound aspects that for its Scénario. It is about a revolutionary film for the time. He is completely opposed to the American dream since we follow the life of a man who enjoys a great richness, but that this one does not fill therefore. Moreover, the character of Kane opposes to the president of the United States, it is never considering at the time.

The narrator

The narrator of Citizen Kane is omnipresent and omnipotent. In the first and the last scene of film attest. Thus, at the beginning of film, a sign filmed approximately plane prohibition “No trespassing” is immediately transgressed by the Caméra which crosses the grids of Xanadu. Then, the camera ends up arriving in front of the window of Kane, and by a field/reverse shot, passes in addition to this barrier of glass to involve itself in the life of the old man. In the same way, at the time of the conclusion of film, the camera describes arabesques in the middle of the innumerable objects left by Kane to lead simply on a Luge whose seizes itself a domestic workman/to deliver it to the flames. The eye of the camera will still have time sufficiently to approach the inscription which the toy carries before the action of heat definitively does not make it disappear: “Rosebud”, the word which had pronounced dying it.

Flashbacks

Contrary to the traditions of the time, Welles decides to tell the life of Charles Foster Kane in the form of flashbacks. However, in order not to lose the spectator, the realizer takes the trouble to carry out a “synopsis” thanks to the scene of the band of topicality, which summarizes the life of Kane. In addition, the flashbacks will take again an chronological order, with in the worst of the cases of the superpositions (for example between the testimony of Leland and that of Susan).

The rupture of Susan with Kane is thus told successively in flashback by two different protagonists, Susan itself and the majordomo of Xanadu. Kane and Susan know their last dispute, and Kane, impotent, looks at Susan leaving the part and moving away while crossing various openings. The last tallying plan Susan can take all its dimension insofar as it is it which reports their separation. Thompson questions then the majordomo whose memories are the subject of the flashback according to, which begins in an abrupt way (by a cry of Perroquet) at the time when the majordomo sees Susan leaving. Welles thus chooses to cover the end of the connection between Kane and Susan Alexander by two different characters. Construction in flashbacks fills its office here because it authorizes a variation on what had already been known as before by sparing a new point of view. More precisely the rupture already known at the time of the preceding flashback but was perhaps seen in all its continuity thanks to the presence of the majordomo who ensures his fluidity the narration.

Depth of field

The recourse to the Depth of field is omnipresent in Citizen Kane. As for the flashback, it is the systematization of the process more than the process itself which marks a date in the history of the cinema.

A plan become for this reason exemplary that of is discovered suicide attempt of the woman of Kane. The image shows out of starter glass and the flask while Kane forces the door with the background, Susan breathing with difficulty on its layer acting as intermediary. It is known that this plan was not carried out in only one catch but that the development was successively made on the various components of the plan before integration in a single image.

In the same way, the childhood of Kane which is the subject of the memories of Thatcher is consequently represented method. The sequence begin with images from the young person Charlie Kane playing in snow with its toboggan. Then, a back Travelling makes understand that the point of view was inside the family home. The plays of the boy from now on will be perceived in background while its immediate future is discussed in the hearth, the two plans being Nets.

Divings/low-angle shots

Many plans of Citizen Kane are either in diving, or in low-angle shot. The low-angle shot will often translate the exaltation (the speech of Kane against Gettys) while the diving will record the periods of doubt and failure (the request for change of Leland with Kane after the electoral rout, destruction of the room after the departure of Susan by Kane).

Welles transgresses also the basic rules of the low-angle shots by reversing them. Because if this same low-angle shot generally translates the exaltation, the power will crush sometimes Kane, as in the break-up scene with his second wife.

Special effects

Welles likes to call upon special Effets to enrich its film. They must for the majority with the talent of Vernon L. Walker. One can quote four examples in Citizen Kane:
  • the scene of speaking Leland with Thompson at the hospital is played in front of a white wall, slides will create the bottom thereafter.
  • the sights external of Xanadu and presses it political meeting are illusions: they are actually painted fabrics.
  • the scene where Gettys supervises the speech of Kane since the hen house has a very particular characteristic: each half of image was filmed separately then gathered, which makes it possible to see the two characters clearly.
  • the suicide of Susan was filmed in three times, to be able to have the three Nets plans. Only a plan is lit and filmed, then the reel is rewound and the following plan is lit, and so on.
  • Welles employed the optical process of impression in Truca. That consists in aligning a camera with a projector whose operation is synchronized. The film can then be worked again in post-production.

Distribution

Rewards

  • Oscar of the best original screenplay 1941 (decreed in 1942)
  • National Film Registry 1989: Selected and preserved at the Library of the American Congress.
  • It was elected the " Better film of all times " in 2002 by 108 realizers and 144 international critics consulted by the British review " Sight and Sound" British Film Institute.
  • It is again elected " Better American film of all times " in 2007 by the AFI, American Institute Film.

Around film

  • It acts of first film of Orson Welles, and the actors come for the majority from its group from theater: the Mercury Theater.
  • the film was turned to the studios of RKO to Hollywood (California), from June 29th to October 23rd, 1940.
  • the initial title was to be American .
  • Orson Welles took as a starting point a real character: William Randolph Hearst (1863-1951), which had taken refuge in a castle, Hearst Castle, at the end of its life, like Kane with Xanadu in film.
  • the attempts to prohibit film by Hearst gave place to documentary televised: The Battle Over Citizen Kane .
  • Rosebud , the famous key word pronounced by Kane, wants to say “rosebud literally”. One says that this word was used by William Randolph Hearst to indicate the Clitoris its main, Marion Davies (this word is also employed by Mettrie to indicate the clitoris, in particular in art to enjoy ). Some estimate that it is one of the reasons for which William Randolph Hearst tried to prohibit film at its exit. Otto Preminger will pay homage to this film with its own film Rosebud (1974).
  • This film arrives regularly in first place of the surveys near the Anglo-Saxon critics, even international, concerning largest films of the Histoire of the cinema. It is for example at the head since about thirty year of the established ranking by the American Film Institute: signal 100 of American Film Institute.
  • the American post office emitted on Timbre-poste a scene of film in the series Celebrate the Century in 1999 (cf reproduction of the stamp).
  • the scenario writer Hermann J. Mankiewicz is the brother of Joseph L. Mankiewicz.

References to film in the popular culture

  • a comic strip of the Peanuts watch all importance of the mystery of “Rosebud” for the spectator. Whereas the young hero announces with a girlfriend that it looks at Citizen Kane for the first time. It reveals the solution of the enigma to him.
  • the draftsman Don Rosa imitated several times of the scenes of film in its adventures of Picsou:
  • the televised series of the Simpsons, on several occasions parodied film, in particular in the following episodes:
    • “Mr Chasse-Neige”: At the end of the commercial for Mr Chasse-Neige, a ball with snow falls to ground and breaks (the wink is not certain)
    • “Rosebud”:
      • the gate of the property of Burns is surmounted by a “B” which makes think of “K” on the gate of Xanadu. On netting also signs of warning similar to those of film are.
      • “”: One sees the silhouette of Burns, death, through worked and fitted latticework on windows, as one sees the body of Kane in film.
      • “”: Burns was entrusted, in her childhood, with an easy tax collector, just like Kane. Both had a modest childhood but arrived all the same at the capacity.
      • “”: The teddy bear Bobo fulfills the same role exactly that the sledge Rosebud, it is like this last buried under snow and its name is pronounced, in a rail, with died of Burns.
      • “”: With her death, Burns drops a ball to snow which breaks. In the reflection of a glare of glass, one sees Smithers which, like the nurse in film, enters the room.
    • “blood, it is money”: Burns is lengthened on her bed, suffering, and in the second plan, the doctor discusses with Smithers. In film, Kane speaks with the doctor with the bedside about his wife.
    • “Margin found a job”: The spectacle of song and dance organized by Smithers is very similar to that organized for Kane, especially on the level of the costumes (striped jackets, hat and duck.) In this scene, the song is also a parody of that of film.
    • “a tram named Margin”: Homer which attends the musical comedy in which plays his wife is bored and blows on a program torn in strips. Jebediah Leland acts in the same way when it attends the opera sung by the woman of Kane.
    • “the mayor is bitter” and “Under the sign of fish”: The platform since which Tahiti Bob for the first episode and Burns for the second address themselves to the public is a wink with that used by Kane. Moreover, behind them a poster is representing their photograph and their name. Bart, attending the TV with the speech of countryside of Burns, requires of Homer: “Is your owner already governor? ”. In film, the son of Kane asks his mother: “Is Dad already governor? ”
    • “Under the sign of fish”: Burns, insane of rage by learning that its countryside falls to water, tries to be caught some with her furniture, which Kane made in film by learning that his second wife leaves it.
  • the magazine of mode Citizen K pays homage to film.
  • the play TimeSplitters: Future Perfect also pays homage to this film with the last remark of Crow: " Rosebud…."
  • In the play Sims if " is typed; Rosebud" in the window of cheat one resolves the unlimited funds.
  • the great diversion “the American Class”: Georges Abitbol the man more class of the world dies by pronouncing these words: “world of shit”. Journalists inquire into his past what given place to flashbacks. Orson Welles makes even an appearance diverted at the beginning of film.
  • In an episode of the Lieutenant Columbo (" Play of mots") the criminal makes use of the word Rosebud to draw up his dogs to be killed. The criminal is also collector of arts and fan of Citizen Kane. Besides he has the grid of entry of the field of Kane like his toboggan.
  • In the series Veronica Mars, the young detective refers to film at the time of season 2, while saying “And Rosebud was only one toboggan! I did not waste you the end of Citizen Kane at least…”

See too

Random links:Happy Big | Marie-Isabelle of Spain | Georges Ibrahim Abdallah | Aulus Hirtius | Neufra | Codes_postaux_BRITANNIQUES