Stubs: Citizen Kane - A Second Screening

Citizen Kane (1941) Starring: Orson Welles, Joseph Cotton, Dorothy Comingore, Ray Collins, George Coulouris, Agnes Moorehead. Directed by Orson Welles. Screenplay by Herman J. Mankiewicz, Orson Welles. Music by Bernard Hermann. Produced by Orson Welles. Run Time: 119 minutes. U.S. B&W Drama.

There is a real difference between watching a film on home video and watching it in a theater. This recently happened to me with Citizen Kane, which recently was part of a Fathom Event, celebrating its 85th anniversary. I had previously reviewed the film for this blog, based on watching it on disc. I won’t go through the history of the film, or a detailed synopsis, please see the previous post for that.

Classic Hollywood films, of which this would definitely count, were made to be seen in theaters and that is really the only way to get the full experience filmmakers intended. While I had seen the film several times, I did get a different appreciation for it, seeing it in a theater.

We were treated before the film with an introduction by Leonard Maltin, the well-known film critic/historian. In his prologue, he lauded Citizen Kane as the greatest film ever made. That’s a high honor to lay on something and the only way to prove that is to watch the film.

Jedediah Leland (Joseph Cotten), Charles Foster Kane (Orson Welles), and
Mr. Bernstein (Everett Sloane). Note the ceiling above Kane's head.

There is much to like and admire about the film. Orson Welles was a sort of idiot savant when it came to movies. Never having made one before, he used techniques that were not done until he used them. As an example, his camera spends much of its time shooting up at Kane, giving him a menacing presence, but in order to do that, he had to show the ceilings of rooms, which wasn’t done, since on a movie set, that’s where the lights are. But that didn't stop him.

Mary Kane (Agnes Morehead) signs her son's care over to Walter Parks Thatcher
(George Coulouris), over her husband's Jim Kane's (Harry Shannon) objections,
while an 8-year-old Charlie (Buddy Swan) plays in the distance.

There is also the use of depth of field keeping action in the background in focus as it plays against the action in the foreground. It is also used to show how large his home, Xanadu, is. He effectively used montages to illustrate the passage of time, such as Kane’s breakfasts with his first wife, Emily Monroe Norton Kane (Ruth Warrick). They start off quite intimate but in the end, they are distant, both in space and with each other. He also used shadows very effectively, though that technique dates back to German Expressionism of the 1920s. The film is all the more impressive when you realize he was only 26 when the film was released.

By the end of the breakfast montage, Kane and his first wife, Emily Monroe
Norton Kane (Ruth Warrick), are no longer close physically and emotionally.

There are modern filmmakers who are also young, such as Kane Parsons, the 20-year-old director of Backrooms, but age is only half of it. And even though I have yet to see his feature debut, I would seriously doubt Parsons’ film rises to a comparison with Citizen Kane, which in some ways changed how future films were made.

Filmmaker Orson Welles was at the height of his creativity with Citizen Kane.

One thing I came away with from seeing the film with an audience was that the film was actually funny in places, something I had not realized before. The film is far from a comedy, but some of the dialogue made the audience laugh out loud and it wasn’t inappropriate either.

Another was how relevant the film seemed with today’s political landscape, as Kane was a billionaire, or the equivalent, who made the public think he was their champion, when he really wasn’t when all was said and done. In the end, the only thing Kane cared about was Kane.

The film, though great, is not perfect. Some of the models he used look like models on the big screen.

But Citizen Kane is story of how Charles Foster Kane (Orson Welles) transforms, is corrupted, through time from a protector of the people to their enemy. But that character’s transformation was less shown but more conveyed by his friend, Jedediah Leland (Joseph Cotten) to Kane, and through him to the audience. Somehow that seemed more obvious when seeing it in a theater.

The biggest problem I have with the story is also made more obvious on the big screen. The film is told as an obituary of a great man, in a series of remembrances by people who had been important in his life. Jerry Thompson (William Alland), a reporter for the newsreel News on the March, is sent by his producer, Mr. Rawlston (Philip Van Zandt), to find out the meaning of Kane’s last words, “Rose Bud.” He interviews Kane’s second wife, Susan Alexander Kane (Dorothy Comingore); Kane’s business manager, Mr. Bernstein (Everett Sloane); his best friend, Jedediah Leland; Kane’s butler, Raymond (Paul Stewart); and reads the memoirs of Walter Parks Thatcher (George Coulouris), the banker who raised him. But in the end doesn’t find out what Rose Bud means.

However, we are shown, at the end of a long opening montage, that Kane is alone in his room when he whispers his dying words. We see a nurse enter the room in the broken glass of a snow globe he dropped on the floor. A remarkable shot, but it is proof that no one was in the room, and since his home, Xanadu, probably used doors that had once been on a European monastery, it is doubtful she heard him, but rather was reacting to the sound of the broken glass. So, if there was no one that heard him say “Rose Bud”, the point of the movie doesn’t make sense. There is an attempt to make it sound like the butler was in the room when it happened, but he’s never shown in it and doesn’t appear to come to the aid of his long-time employer.

My little quibble doesn’t take away from the magnificence of the filmmaking involved. Nor the acting of what were at the time a group of untried film actors, all of whom seemed to make their characters believable. Nor should it take away from the accomplishment Welles made as co-screenwriter (with Herman J. Mankiewicz), director and producer of his first film. Few first-time directors get the carte blanche that he did and he took full advantage of it. It would be the last time for him as well, since the film’s controversy kept it from being a big hit for studio RKO.

While I really enjoyed seeing the film in a theater setting, and would highly recommend the experience, I think the notion that it is the greatest film ever made is a personal choice and a conclusion that every viewer should have to come to on their own. Certainly, Citizen Kane would definitely be in the conversation.