Day 2: January 4th, 2014: Citizen Kane (1941) - Orson Welles

So this may be a jump in the opposite direction from Spirited Away, but I don’t think it would’ve been possible to finish my college film education without seeing what many critics consider to be the greatest film of all time.

I had the strange experience of watching Citizen Kane while knowing literally nothing about the film except for the ending, thanks to many film professors for spoiling that one. To be honest, I didn’t even know it was directed by Orson Welles, meaning I basically felt like this any time it came up in conversation.

Citizen Kane, according to Wikipedia, is a film à clef, meaning that it tells a nearly true story with a veil of fiction, mostly through changes in names. The subject of the film, newspaper tycoon and politician Charles Foster Kane, is modeled after William Randolph Hearst, a real-life newspaper magnate and politician who used sensationalized stories to influence the American public into buying papers (thanks Newsies). 

The film is told in the period after Kane’s death, when a news reporter named Jerry Thompson tries to discover the meaning of Kane’s last word, “Rosebud.” He interviews many of the people in Kane’s life, including his second wife, Susan Alexander, his estranged best friend, Jedediah Leland, and his butler, Raymond. Each character allows the story to dissolve into flashback, where they recount Kane’s life after his mother discovers a gold mine on her land in his youth and sends him away to be educated by Walter Parks Thatcher, a banker. Because it’s a black and white movie from 1941, some of the time I was like:

but most of the time I was like:

Charles Foster Kane is a great character to follow though, because he is forced to grow up in wealth after spending his early years in poverty, so he spends his time crusading for the rights of the working class. But he is also horribly selfish and enigmatic in terms of morals and convictions. He’s kind of like the Gatsby of the depression era.

One thing I didn’t know while watching the film is that director and writer Orson Welles plays his own main character, Charles Foster Kane. I always find this interesting because even though back then most acting was unfulfilled and dry, being the early years of the Group Theatre and Method acting, Orson as a writer brings more insight into his complex character than any actor could. One thing that I did find a little off-putting is that they only used makeup to age Kane from his early 20s to his 80s. Meaning the nearly senile Kane looks like this.

Only a little too much makeup I think.

But besides that issue, Citizen Kane definitely delivered in terms of how the narrative reflected a troubled millionaire in search of some kind happiness. Not that it’s very sympathetic, but still I thought it was a great portrayal. Welles ended up winning a Best Screenwriting Oscar for the film, and pretty much everyone with a computer has seen this gif:

So between the timeless gif and the lasting cinematic prestige, Citizen Kane definitely solidified its place in our American cultural history, and it’s certainly worth seeing.